Actionable inbound sales tips

For your first meeting with a potential customer

If you’re starting to see sales-ready leads (SRLs) trickle in, you’ve likely been working pretty hard at inbound marketing.

There’s probably been some blood, sweat, and tears to get to this point, and you don’t want to see your efforts wasted.

Your main goals for this initial conversation

You’ve got 3 main objectives for this initial conversation:

  1. Where the buyer is in their journey (e.g. trying to figure out if the problem is worth solving? Trying to figure out how best to solve it? Trying to figure out who should help them?).
  2. How well positioned you are to help them with their near-term need.
  3. How good of a fit you are for each other in the long run beyond their near-term need.

Initial engagement / outreach

When the SRL/potential customer raises their hand with a problem, asking for help, the first thing you generally want to do is schedule a phone call with them. To do so, you’ll usually want to send an email.

If for some reason it feels like it makes more sense to call them right away (e.g. maybe something they said in their inquiry suggesting significant urgency), skip the rest of this section and move to the planning section.

What to say –

  1. Keep your email short and sweet. Ask as few questions as possible. The goal is to schedule a conversation, not encourage a back and forth email exchange.
  2. Keep it focused on them. Remember, you’re trying to help them solve their problem.
  3. Subject line – frame it from their perspective, not yours.
  4. Potential questions to ask:
    1. How does one of these times slots work for you? Alternatively, share your availability with an internet calendar tool.
    2. How did you learn about us?

Response time –

Keep in mind you’re probably not the only company that they’re reaching out to. You generally want to reply within the same day.

Preferably within ~4 hours.

Definitely less than 24 hours.

Planning for the first call / video session

This is an area where some salespeople could stand to put more effort in. This is especially the case for experienced salespeople because they think they understand every scenario, which is true at a high level, but what they end up missing are the subtle clues that can help you really connect with a potential customer. Connecting is very important, because relationships really do matter, especially when your company sells complex or custom services or products.

Research the potential customer’s digital footprint. This includes:

  1. A general google search. You never know what they might be in to.
  2. LinkedIn – sometimes there’s very limited info here, but usually there are several tidbits that should be helpful to you. Pay attention to their:
    1. Headline vs title – aspiration vs current state
    2. Summary of career – aspiration vs current state
    3. Skills – they’re trying to tell you where they are focused professionally. Listen to that.
    4. Interests
    5. Companies followed.
    6. School(s) attended – if you have a connection to this school, it can help you connect to the potential customer.
    7. Past companies – if you have a connection to one of their past employers, it can help you connect to the potential customer.
  3. Other active social platforms (Facebook, Insta, TikTok). Don’t spend a ton of time here, but this will give you more insight into them as a human being.

Research the company’s digital footprint.

  1. A google news search can help you find out big moves that may impact the company’s strategy as well as give you insights into areas that can impact the way that company does business.
  2. Their company website. What do they highlight on the home page? How about within your division of interest?
  3. Their company LinkedIn page. There are a couple specifics worth considering here:
    1. How they message themselves as a company in the summary page. Sometimes you’ll see a bunch of fluffy aspirational info, but other times companies can be very good at whittling down what they really care about into a very short/succinct summary.
    2. The other aspect that’s useful here is to drill down into the company page to better understand the other employees that are peripheral to your initial discussion. This includes a basic understanding of who is:
      1. In the same group as your potential customer.
      2. The manager/boss of your potential customer.
  4. The people that report to your potential customer.

Take the time to create a list of questions:

  1. If you don’t already have one, create a template for questions that you need to ask frequently. Get together with other members of the sales team and brainstorm this list. You don’t need to be exhaustive. The top ~5-10 should bubble to the top. Put this list where you can all get to it.
  2. Personalize your list by removing less relevant questions or those that you already know the answer to based on your research.
  3. Add new questions specific to this person and scenario.
  4. Prioritize your questions. You may not get to everything. You don’t want to miss your top 8-10 questions.

Think ahead about what questions they’re likely to ask you.

Are you comfortable with your answers to them? If not, you’ve got homework to do.

  1. Pay attention to every word of the inquiry in the context of their role and the company they work for. There’s more info in their words than you might think.
  2. Gather links to relevant case studies.
  3. Review relevant pages on your website and gather links.
  4. Put yourself in their shoes. What would you want to know?

Decide if you think your potential customer is prepared enough.

If they aren’t, point them to the most relevant content (1 or 2 links at most) to educate them and set their expectations appropriately. You’ll need to glean this from small amounts of information; likely from the way they frame their initial inquiry.

During the first call / video session

Listen

Your goal is not to blab about your company or give a presentation. Your goal is to understand your potential customer.

So stop talking. And listen.

Ask questions. Then zip it.

Of course you’ll need to answer questions that the potential customer has, but don’t drone on, and don’t get on your soap box about how great your company is. Keep it as short and succinct as possible. Remember that you can always share more in-depth answers in the form of content after the call if needed.

Allow the conversation to focus on the potential customer and their problems. Listen. Learn. Help.

Qualifying inbound leads – is the fit there?

This is the most important call you’ll have in the sale process.

Why?

A couple reasons:

  1. You’re solidifying the first impression that was started by your digital presence.
  2. If you decide to proceed with this opportunity, you’ll be putting in significantly more work (and often pulling in others) in order to win the business.

Depending on how hungry your company is for new work, you may be more or less interested in this opportunity. That’s ok. Acknowledge that reality.

Several of the questions below can help you qualify.

Topics to cover / assess:

  1. How did they find you? Specifically, not generically.
  2. What did they see on your site that convinced them to reach out for a conversation? Specifically, not generically.
  3. What’s the long-term potential CLV look like?
  4. Do you think your company can help them? Near term? In the long run?
  5. Assess the person. Do you think you can work with them? If the account is strategic for your company, you may have to deal with a less-than-desirable personality in the near term. That can be fine. Just be honest with yourself about it. It will impact your daily life.
  6. Assess the company. How fun or challenging is it going to be to work with them?
  7. Will this give your company experience in a strategic area of interest?
  8. How well does this opportunity align with where you’re headed as a company?

Wrapping it up:

  1. If something feels off during the call, address it. Don’t let it slide by.
  2. Put in the work to find out where their head is at. How are they feeling about you? If you want an honest answer, you’ll need to build trust throughout the call.
  3. If it makes sense, obtain a commitment to a next step interaction.

Quick poll – Vote to see how your peers voted

After the first call/video session

Nice work. Yep, it was a lot of work, but now you have a handle on how to proceed.

At this point you should have four key pieces of information:

  1. Is my company a good enough fit to try to win this business? If not, kill it. If so, jump in. This is your pivotal opportunity before more people are involved and the level of effort becomes non-linear. Don’t let ego get in the way. Don’t convince yourself you can do anything “if you just ….”. You can’t. No one can. Be realistic. Not pessimistic. Not optimistic. Realistic.
  2. How interested are they in working with you? How do they perceive your value relative to others?
  3. What’s the value (long-term and/or strategic) of this opportunity and customer?
  4. What’s the customer’s urgency for getting started on solving this problem?
  5. Next steps – if we’re moving forward, who’s doing what, and by when. This includes requirements gathering and conversations/validation with other groups of people.

Next Steps

If you’d like to chat about inbound sales, feel free to reach out.

If you’re in learning mode on inbound sales & marketing, check out these resources: