How To Master Outbound Sales: Tips & Tools

Have you ever gotten annoying calls from a business you have no idea about? If you are a person who owns a phone, you’ve been a prospect of an outbound sales rep. And, sometimes, by luck, maybe they are calling about a product you’d been looking for all this time.

However, at times, these calls can be frustrating for the caller too, hoping all the while that the receiver picks up and listens instead of just hanging up.

We’ve got some tips for you if you are the one making those calls.

Let’s understand what outbound sales is all about.

What is outbound sales?

Outbound sales is the process of reaching out to potential customers to close deals and build new relationships.

This could involve cold calling, cold emailing, and social selling, among other things.

Outbound sales is most effective when sales reps have invested enough time researching and implementing effective strategies.

Two things that are a dealbreaker for effective outbound sales:

• Access to the right tools
• Continuous training of sales reps

What is an outbound sales process?

1. Identifying potential customers

In order to identify your target audience, you need to create an ICP (Ideal customer profile). This refers to the kind of customers who will benefit from your product.

2. Generating leads

Once you have identified your target customers, the next step is to gather information and data about them from various sources to assemble the pipeline.

3. Qualifying leads

The next step is to determine qualified leads. This refers to prospects who fit your ICP and have higher chances of converting into customers. Outbound sales reps usually use cold calls and cold emails in order to qualify leads. You can also use various lead qualification methods, such as BANT, MEDDIC, etc.

4. Demo/Presentation

After lead qualification, the next step is to schedule a meeting with the prospect to conduct a demo/presentation and describe the features and benefits of the product.

Also, calmly answer any objections or queries that they may have at the end of the demo.

5. Closing

This is the final step that you have been waiting for. Use your best closing technique and strategies to ensure successful deal closure.

6. Follow-up

Keep following up with the prospect to ensure that all formalities have been done and they have a satisfactory experience.

In case of a prospect who didn’t agree to a purchase, following up increases your chances of getting a deal at a later time when they are ready.

Best email outreach practices

• Research and pursue the right leads
• Be buyer-centric
• Personalise your emails
• Use short and precise subject lines
• Focus on starting with a good opener
• Create urgency
• Be direct and use active voice
• Focus on value, not features
• Add a CTA
• Add a video

Best cold calling practices

• Know your buyer persona in detail
• Understand your flow with cold calls in a sales cadence
• Research well
• Stay attentive and get necessary feedback
• Use a script to structure your calls
• Handle objections well

FFF Technique:
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LAIR Technique:
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The two main ways to do outbound sales:

• Building an in-house outbound sales team who will find prospects and turn them into customers.
• Outsource the process by finding independent salespeople or an agency that will do lead generation and close deals for you.

Best tools for outbound sales reps

• Telephony software: A telephony software helps set up a full-fledged call centre to manage your voice mails and auto-route calls.
• Email automation software: This software automates emails and sends them to customers on the basis of rules set by you. If you want to send an introductory email to a set of prospects you haven’t reached out to before, you can set it as a rule. You can perform similar actions depending on your needs.
• CRM software: CRMs help keep track of literally every metric, thereby making the lives of sales reps ten times easier.
• Voicemail automation: Voicemail automation tools help sales reps save time by helping them send pre-recorded voicemails to prospects with a single click.
• Social tools: Social tools help sales reps to track and manage their outreach activities on social media. They can also schedule posts and track how prospects are engaging with them.
• Screen recording tools: A screen recording tool helps record the screen and make a video simultaneously. These videos help add a certain degree of personalization to cold emails. A sales rep talking live about their product definitely stands out from the usual cold call that prospects get.
• Conversation Intelligence Software: This software uses machine learning to transcribe and analyze sales conversations, thereby providing sales leaders with practical insights into how sales calls are going. The data collected by this software can also be used to forecast prospect behavior, giving reps an added advantage.

Outbound sales techniques and tactics

• Speak with prospects via live chat
• Social selling
• Asking for referrals
• Bring as guest on a podcast
• Webinars
• Reach out to website viewers
• Create an outreach plan
• Write personalised emails
• Influencer marketing
• Leverage multiple channels
• Cold calling and cold messaging
• Utilize scripts
• Social networking on LinkedIn
• Automate repetitive tasks
• Use account-based marketing (ABM) strategies

Outbound Sales vs. Inbound Sales:

B2B vs. B2C outbound sales:

In B2B outbound sales, businesses reach out to other businesses and offer their products or services as solutions. Sales cycles are usually longer in this kind of sales.

In B2C companies, sales reps usually sell directly to customers, and sales are usually transnational. Some examples of B2C companies are companies that sell insurance policies or stocks.

Top 4 outbound sales metrics:

• Conversion rates: Track the percentage of calls that result in a desired action, such as a sale, demo, or appointment. Analyze conversion rates at different stages of the sales funnel to identify strengths and weaknesses in your sales capacity.

• Lead qualification: Measure the quality of leads that have been generated through outbound calls; whether they are a good fit for your business or not. The percentage of qualified leads will help you understand the overall impact of your pipeline.

• Call duration: Evaluate the ideal length of a successful call and note down patterns seen in top-performing interactions.

• Closing rates: The number of deals closed through phone calls will help you understand whether outbound calls are working or not.

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