Leslie Ye, of Hubspot, recently posted about what she believes to be the seven worst things about sales. She begins by saying that although there is nothing quite like the thrill of closing a deal and seeing your time and effort has paid off, there is always going to be days where you’re discouraged, frustrated and exhausted.
She goes on to list the downsides she believes salespeople that have been working in sales for any amount of time will experience. These include:
- You have to sing for your supper
- Your success is dependent on your prospects decisions
- You have a quota
- People think salespeople are sleazy
- It’s repetitive
- You only sell one thing
- People say “no” to you all the time
Jamie Shanks wrote today about how to replace cold calling with warm instructions. He points out that cold calling id often cited as one of the least favourite activities that salespeople take part however, it is a time-proven method of drumming up business and remains a staple task for many sales teams.
He goes on to say that cold calling success requires both sales leaders and sales reps to overcome five major obstacles, including not knowing how you’re connected with prospects, not being able to get a comprehensive view of your prospects mind set, having a limited ability to control access to contact data, you don’t know why the prospect needs you and knowing too much. Without giving too much away, Jamie then goes on to detail what he believes is the cure for the common cold.
David Schneider recently posted about the elements of the best cold emails. He began by saying that as salespeople send and receive hundreds of emails a week, often they are sent to people you don’t really know that well – or don’t know at all. It’s common for sales people to ask how to send cold emails that achieve results, without them coming across as spammy.
David goes on to detail the five elements he thinks make up the perfect cold email, including relevance, timing, creativity, credibility and personalisation. He points out that it is unlikely that every email you send will check all five elements, however if you keep them in mind you’ll be more likely to find more opportunities to improve your outreach and inevitably, your results.
