Every salesperson wants a response to their outreach, whether it is an automated cadence or a well-crafted email, this is how we are measured and ultimately incented. But why so often do we hear crickets after 2,3 or even 4 follow-up attempts?In my practice, I see most outreach is seller-focused, you want to meet them, share updates on your produce/service, your boss is in town, WIFM is playing in your buyers’ ears, What’s in it for me?

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3 Tips to Help You Get a Response:

Look at Things From the OPP, Other Person’s Perspective:

Tap into your buyer’s mind, understand their role, how are they measured, influenced, make a decision, what KPIs do they observe, what are their personal motivations? When you can see things through their lens you will be more buyer-focused. Get closer to what their true day-to-day looks like, even if you have never done their job. When you can get into this headspace, your message is buyer-focused, empathetic, non-threatening and disarms them as they feel you understand them and are looking to help them vs selling them something, big difference. Using buyer language is important, take excerpts from past customer exchanges and use them with new prospects, show them you understand their world and can help them.

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Craft A Concise, Tailored and Relevant Email

Buyers can smell a mass-produced templated email with no effort miles away, there is no quicker way to destroy your brand and annoy your prospect than, put in the work. If you use a template fill in the blanks with relevant, timely insights about their industry, company, role etc. Show them you have taken the time to do some homework, quote an article they wrote, support it with the impact it had on you after reading it, people want to know their work matters.

Avoid a hard left sales pitch with a link to your calendar, it is too early, they don’t know you and you have not provided any value yet. Offer a non-threatening CTA, “Are you interested in learning more”? offer to share an article, relevant piece of information based on insights you found that can help them, be of service to others. Look at your word count, keep it brief and start with value, avoid “I hope you are keeping well” this takes up prime real estate in the email and this is what they see in their mobile view, you are the same as everyone else.

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Take a Multi-Channel Approach

If you started with email, change it up. Follow up with a phone call, leave a voicemail, no more than 30 seconds. Let them know, there is no need to phone you back but what your next step will be. Our job is to set expectations, nobody likes surprises. You will be mailing them, emailing them something, phoning them another day to discuss X. Increase your chance of a response by letting them know your intent and next step.

Use video as part of our follow-up. Share a document, Q & A and walk them through it, you are educating them, building a relationship and they get to see a person on the other end, not a PDF. This builds trust quicker and they start to get a feel of what the other person is about, this will help you stand out.

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If you know you can help them and have helped others like them, persistence is key. If they are not responding to you after multiple attempts consider a few things:

• Do they fit your ideal customer profile?
• Is your message focused, targeted, timely?
• Does this email only make sense for your buyer or is it a universal problem?
• Is the timing off, what stage are they at in the buyer’s journey?
• At some point, you can take your foot off the gas, put them in NRN, not right now pile and schedule a reminder to reach out in a few weeks.

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Buyers seek partners, someone who knows what they’re talking about, someone who’ll understand their problems and come up with valuable solutions to help them. It takes intention, research and persistence to achieve this. I encourage you to put these 3 tips into practice and let me know the outcome. It is an iterative approach, avoid changing too many things at once, you will not know what is making the difference.

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If you would like to learn more about how we can help you with your outreach please feel free to contact me directly.

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