Every day we speak to sales managers and directors that struggle to make anything come of their outbound sales process. This is becoming more of a problem in B2B sales and it's getting in the way of closing deals. The biggest issue with most outbound sales strategies is they're lazy. No one wants to cold call, cold email, or prospect to leads in the right target audience. Are we oversimplifying this? Not really. Outbound sales is a powerful tool that will put your product or service in front of the right people. It just takes time and effort to initiate. Let's look at five reasons your outbound sales techniques aren't delivering sales success.
1. Relying on Inbound Sales means You're Not Doing Enough
Inbound and outbound sales need to work together but they are not the same. Inbound marketing is about lead generation and is only part of the sales cycle. We all know one great salesperson. They do it all from making sales calls, to driving inbound leads, and leveraging social selling. If you can recognize that the best salespeople do both inbound and outbound, you need to accept that your sales approach needs to do the same. Put simply, an inbound sales process alone is not enough.
The best outbound sales process is about being consistent and knowing your target ICP really well. An outbound process is not about sending one email or cold message. Outbound selling is all about getting as many touch points as possible, and training your reps to be great at this will set your company apart. The key takeaway here is not to think inbound vs. outbound, but rather how do the two work together to create an effective outbound and inbound strategy.
2. Your Outbound Sales Team Doesn't Contact Enough People to Generate Leads
If your sales team's CRM is empty then you know they aren't reaching out to enough people. Outbound sales reps should be playing a numbers game, and that means that outbound prospecting is a daily activity focused on building a sales pipeline full of qualified leads. Without a strong business development process via outbound sales prospecting, you'll always feel like your outbound methods are failing.
With all of the outbound sales tools available (Poseidon included), there's no reason your sales development reps aren't collecting enough contact information to get the job done.
3. If Your Inbound and Outbound is "Me-Centered" it's Going to Drive Poor Conversion Rates
The ability to ONLY talk about yourself kills a conversation. Yet, often copy from new business is almost always a sales pitch for their own services. Just like you and me, prospects are only interested in themselves. They don't want to care much about how great your services are, they want to hear about what you can do for them.
That means your sales messaging must focus on the types of problems that your potential customers are experiencing and how you're able to solve them. By doing this, you will be able to better communicate with them through email, cold messaging, or social media posts. Do potential customers need to learn about your services? Yes, but that can come later. For now, let's get them in the door by focusing on their issues.
4. Your Sales Process uses One Channel to Reach Potential Customers
Email is not the only answer. Cold calling doesn’t work by itself. And Social Media should not be used alone. Every prospect you want to work with is constantly living in different social spaces and each one has very different feelings on those different communication platforms. We, as new biz people, never know exactly which communication channel is going to hit home with any individual prospect so don’t limit your prospect pool and outreach by only using one channel.
Sometimes a prospect just needs to see you in multiple places before they respond. Taking an omnichannel approach shows that you’re a real person, and not a bot mindlessly spamming their inbox.
5. Your Sales Manager is Failing your Sales Reps
If you don't have someone whose job is solely focused on generating new business opportunities, then it will never be a successful long-term effort. You may have successes here and there, but in order to create something sustainable and scalable, you need to focus.
It also means that your sales manager is not the only one who should be looking for new business opportunities. But, having someone who is constantly searching for opportunities, promoting your brand, and networking with current clients is extremely valuable. If they can't do this with all your focus, then you will always find yourself trying to play catch up whenever you have any client turnover.
Outbound and Inbound Sales that Work Together make for High Converting Sales Funnel
At Poseidon we believe in transforming the way B2B does sales and our outbound sales software is the best available. If you need some help, reach out and let's turn things around for you.
