One of the primary metrics that all organizations should drive and track is activity; or as we prefer to describe it, meaningful engagements. You can only close the sales processes which you begin, and as such having a steady inbound funnel of new opportunities to pursue, and new assessments to book, is the only way to create a thriving sales stream. Although on the surface it may seem simple, don’t be fooled, booking meetings, calls, or assessments is extremely strategic.
The language and context in which you present a call to action for a meeting, will greatly determine your success rate at actually booking one.
- Keep it Concise – Prospects often don’t retain more than a few sentences from an initial contact attempt, so construct your message with that in mind. In three to four sentences you should be able to articulately communicate your value proposition, and what your brand has to offer.
- Why them? – The opening introductory sentence should include why you’re contacting them specifically. Did you pick out of a hat? Are they merely on a mass mailing list? If you are being strategically targeted in your prospecting, tell them that! ‘We’ve had great success partnering with XYZ business near you, whom based on [this] Forbes article you’ve affiliated with in the past’
- Titles – If you’ve read this far, then proof of the following point has already been made. Always try to include ‘Your’ as the first word in an initial contact request email to a prospect. Open rates noticeably go up when ‘Your’ is the first word in the title. Why? Because it has a personal feel, as though you have carefully chosen them, and your message is not spam; which you have, and your message is not!
- Follow up – Whether you choose to utilize an auto-follow up solution(which Palm Sales highly recommends), or do it the old fashioned way through calendar alerts and reminders, set a schedule for the next two subsequent emails the moment you send the first. They should be even more brief than the first original communication, and merely show that you are committed to opening a line of dialogue and serious about earning their business. The statistically recommended schedule is to send the second email 3 days after the first, and the third email 7 days after the second. To put it more simply, 1-4-11.