Pre-pandemic, the average connect rate for a cold call was about 4%.

That has actually increased by about 1% — which doesn’t sound like much, but has huge implications for your outbound sales cadences and how to get them right.

Recently on B2B Revenue Acceleration, we spoke with Michael Hanson, Founder and Sales Consultant at Growth Genie, a master of outbound sales cadences.

“When companies outsource a challenge, they don’t have good playbooks, cadences, and messaging in place,” Michael observed.

Growth Genie can act as a virtual SDR manager, as well as helping companies optimize their cadences and playbooks.

Let’s dive into Michael’s outbound sales cadence strategy!

When people think of 30 touches, often they’re thinking of having 30 conversations. That’s not it. It can take 30 touches, essentially, to have one conversation.

Michael Hanson – Founder and Sales Consultant at Growth Genie

The 30-touches sales cadence

30 touches sounds like a lot, but when you leverage different channels, it can fly by.

The details of the sequence haven’t changed that much through the pandemic, except for maybe a bit more emphasis on phone.

The 30 touches:

• 10-15 phone calls

• 7-8 emails

• 7-8 LinkedIn messages

Listed out like that, it sounds like an insane level of harassment.

Actually, there are statistics behind that. Remember that 4%? If you make 20 calls, just maybe one will be answered.

“When people think of 30 touches, often they’re thinking of having 30 conversations. That’s not it. It can take 30 touches, essentially, to have one conversation,” Michael said.

Don’t ask for a meeting on the first email or LinkedIn message. Just ask relevant questions or share a bit of relevant content.

Other types of touches to consider are LinkedIn voice notes (a quick way to scale personalization), videos can take a long time – but this is a quick option, and LinkedIn surveys or polls (easy to respond to, great data about pain points) – purely asking for feedback on a questionnaire of pain points, so you can make the message specific.

Michael uses WhatsApp in Europe and iMessage/SMS in North America. Think about the messages as if you’re texting a friend — super short and informal. Usually these leads also come from webinars or e-books, in which case – this could also be a starting point of conversation to help warm them up.

Example: Send a personalized email followed by this text. Any thoughts on my email, Jeff? 

Some prospects are so much easier to contact this way, it’s a new channel to accelerate things.

The key to successful outbound sales cadences is mixing a high level of personalization with a quick WhatsApp or SMS follow-ups.

Check out Growth Genie’s outbound sales cadence here.

That’s the most frustrating thing when I hear SDRs say, ‘I spend 50-60% of my time researching and building lists.’ You want them to be spending their time actually reaching out to people.

Michael Hanson – Founder and Sales Consultant at Growth Genie

How to be targeted & personalized, but at scale

There’s two ends of the spectrum when it comes to sales prospecting, ‘automate everything – it’s a numbers game’, compared to ‘don’t automate – use personalisation’. 

Michael sits somewhere in the middle of these. 

He explains that the key is when you have your data list, segregate it – into triggers, job titles and industries etc., this will lead to more success from your messaging. 

For your best leads (best fitting companies) use hyper personalisation. 

Let’s back up for a second, though. The foundation for outbound sales cadences is data alignment. 

Data sources

Good data on clients is one of the first steps to personalization. Find out where your leads are coming from and make sure that your vendors are providing the best data source on your ideal customer profile.

Sales engagement platforms

What platform are you using to reach your ideal customer profile?

And, more importantly, are you telling your SDRs to spend all their time building lists? That’s a waste of a SDR, frankly. SDR’s should be doing outreach.

Give that job to interns or a junior sales person — or outsource it.

“That’s the most frustrating thing when I hear SDRs say, ‘I spend 50-60% of my time researching and building lists.’ You want them to be spending their time actually reaching out to people,” Michael said.

SDR role

Of the 2 mistakes that Michael sees companies make with SDRs, one is believing that SDRs should research and collect data.

The other is thinking that SDR’s can do their jobs without a manager. This is incorrect. SDR’s should focus on outreach, and to do that well, they need managerial support.

The phone is still the number one channel to prospects because you can have an interactive conversation.

Michael Hanson – Founder and Sales Consultant at Growth Genie

Shifts in outbound marketing

Since the pandemic, Michael has seen 2 shifts that affect outbound sales cadences.

1.The connects rate has increased

The percentage of connect rate has gone up from 4% to 5% through the pandemic. Practically, that means if you’re doing 50 calls a day, you’re going to get 1 or even 2 more conversations every day. That means, at minimum, 4 more conversations a week and 60 more conversations a month. Per SDR.

That’s potentially millions more a month, which makes it essential to get your outbound sales cadences ironed out.

“The phone is still the number one channel to prospects because you can have an interactive conversation,” he said. If you’re on the phone with someone, they’re probably going to answer instead of hanging up.

2.Personalization needs to be on target

A C-level person at a big company is going to get 100s of prospecting emails a day. 

Your messaging needs to be pro if you’re going to automate.

One way to do that is to build trigger events into the messaging.

Basically, you segregate your list and build messaging around different triggers like job titles and industries. Your best leads deserve hyper-personalization, of course.

“If you’re personalizing, you’ve got to look into their LinkedIn profile and their company in order to stand out because there’s just so much noise on email now,” Michael pointed out. 

Connect with Michael about outbound sales cadences on LinkedIn or by email at m.hanson@growthgenie.co.

To hear this interview and many more like it, subscribe to The B2B Revenue Acceleration Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.