Sales Cadences: A Structured Approach to Sales Success

The Art of Outreach with Sales Cadence Formulas

Michael-cadence

The Ultimate Outbound Sales Cadence

Why Unplanned Sales Activities Fall Short

0%
The average connect rate on cold sales calls is just 5%.
0%
Even cold emailing produces just a 20% open rate, on average.

Taking these two data points together, it’s not surprising that so many sales reps struggle to hit their quotas. But the secret to making more sales isn’t just making more calls or sending more email messages.

Connecting with the right prospects means balancing personalization and automation to reach the right people, at the right time – with messaging that nurtures them all the way through the sales process.

That’s where sales cadence development comes in.

Why Invest in Sales Cadence Development?

Most salespeople build their own cadences, whether as part of a formal planning process or more informally over time, as they learn what works and what doesn’t.

But Here’s Where Most Of These Sales Cadence Development Exercises Fall Short:

Too Short

They’re too short – they don’t create enough touch points to connect with today’s busy professionals.

Too Goal-oriented

They’re too goal-oriented – they focus more on closing the deal than on nurturing real relationships.

Too Inconsistent

They’re too inconsistent – they don’t use a structure that can be repeated, tested, and iterated upon.

As the team at Growth Genie has learned from our experience working with sales teams across many industries, building great sales cadences takes time – but there are easily repeatable formulas that can shorten the process and increase time-to-value.

Check Out Two Examples Of The Types Of Sales Cadences We Create With Our Clients, Often As Part Of A Larger B2B Sales Training Initiative:

A Cold Sales Cadence Case Study

Sales cadences can be particularly useful when it comes to cold sales outreach – as long as you deploy them in a smart, strategic way.

Cold sales outreach isn’t about spamming prospects into submission. Instead, a good cadence makes it easy to initiate conversations by offering something of value.

Here’s how we know it works…

  • Recently, the Growth Genie team incorporated a webinar on remote SDR onboarding into our cold sales outreach cadence.

  • One message we sent to new prospects invited them to the webinar and then asked, ‘Interested in seeing a playbook template we use to onboard SDRs?’

 

The Result?

A 40% reply rate – from prospects we’d had no significant contact with before.

Post Demo: An Effective Sales Follow-Up Cadence

Imagine that you’ve just completed a demo or held an introductory call with a promising new lead. What comes next?

If you’re like most salespeople, you’ll…

Cold sales outreach isn’t about spamming prospects into submission. Instead, a good cadence makes it easy to initiate conversations by offering something of value.

Here’s how we know it works…

  • Book a future call to review the proposal

  • Schedule another call to meet with the technical person

  • Respond to questions and objections until you – hopefully – sign the deal.

But while it’s a best practice in sales to always be working towards a predefined ‘next step’, what happens between those steps matters too

People Buy From People.

When the time comes to make a decision, prospects are much more likely to choose the vendors with whom they’ve built rapport – not the one they haven’t heard from outside of scheduled sales activities.

Great sales cadences fill in the gaps, making it possible to connect with prospects on a human level. To see what this looks like in practice, here’s an example of the first seven days of an ideal post-demo follow-up sales cadence.

If you look closely, you’ll see that you aren’t just checking in with prospects on the status of the sale in each of these steps. You’re sending them useful content. Commenting on their LinkedIn updates.

Sending them text messages. When their decision-making process comes to a close, you’ll be the name that’s top-of-mind.

The Ultimate Sales Follow Up Cadence

The 30-Touch Sales Cadence

When we put sales cadences into practice for Growth Genie clients, one of the models we most commonly recommend is the 30-touch sales cadence, which includes:

10-15 calls

6-8 LinkedIn messages

6-8 emails

When we present the idea of a 30-touch sales cadence to new clients, they’re often concerned about sending prospects so many messages. Will they come across as too pushy? Won’t that feel like harassment?

But think about the way you handle phone calls, email messages, and LinkedIn outreach. Even if you have a truly urgent problem to solve, you’re busy. You have other priorities. Calls and messages may come in at times when you’re not able to engage.

Take average call connect and email open rates into consideration as well. Creating effective sales cadences comes down to increasing the odds that you’re present and visible when prospects can engage – and that requires regular contact.

While some aspects of sales cadence execution can be automated, we also recognize that reaching out 30+ times can feel like a burden – especially for companies with hundreds, or even thousands, of prospects.

What we’ve seen work for Growth Genie clients is to break prospects into multiple groups, based on priority:

Priority Accounts: Tier A

  • Up to 50 top priority accounts
  • Low automation, high personalization

Remaining Accounts: Tier B

  • All remaining accounts
  • More automation, but still “personalized” through industry, persona and trigger tags

Accounts and prospects can jump between tiers – and what a ‘Tier A’ cadence looks like compared to a ‘Tier B’ cadence will vary from company to company.

But by following predefined cadences and measuring the impact of each, you can continually refine your messaging and sequencing until your cadence becomes a highly tuned machine generating sales wins continually on your behalf.

If your current sales cadence isn’t producing regular, repeatable results for you, the team at Growth Genie can help.

Reach out to learn more about using sales cadences to have better conversations with your ideal customers