This episode is about the future of sales (non-AI edition). It’s difficult to talk about the future of sales without mentioning AI, but there is a lot of stuff in the future that has nothing to do with AI. So we are going to end this season of the Practical Prospecting Podcast by talking about some of the trends we see in the coming years that sales reps need to be aware of and follow. 

Timestamps

[0:01] Intro 

[0:52] It’s easier than ever to build SaaS platforms leading to more competitors 

[4:32] How to grow a SaaS company in a crowded industry 

[6:12] Selling against your competitors 

[7:10] The future of sales is still based on emails and calls 

[9:19] Leaning into referrals

Today we are talking about how to pre-sell offers before they launch. Sujan looks at pre-selling as validation that you should actually do what you intend to do. This episode will be really helpful to any new sales reps or early-stage founders. 

Timestamps

[0:01] Intro 

[1:43] How we pre-sold before the launch of Mailshake 

[2:43] This practice is great for companies of any stage (even if you haven’t launched yet) 

[3:38] What to do if nobody wants what you are pre-selling 

[5:11] You should be doing this at your SaaS company every quarter

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Mastering the offer for outbound messaging is a topic that often gets pushed to the side. But most of us have stories about terrible pitches we have gotten from cold calls or emails. And this can be fixed by simply spending an extra 30 seconds on someone’s LinkedIn profile. So on the show today, we are going to spend 15 minutes helping you create a better cold outreach offer.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[1:26] What NOT to do on a cold call 

[2:52] Crafting an offer for cold outreach 

[4:03] Ask this one question about your demos 

[6:42] Validating your offer

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

The SaaS market is crowded these days. It’s easier than ever to build software, but that makes it harder to sell and market. Some of your customers may already be using a different software to solve their problems, so how do you steal those customers away from that competitor?

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[1:59] Finding if someone is using your competitor 

[3:02] Narrowing down to your top competitors to target 

[4:40] Centering your message on how you are different from the competitor 

[7:20] Your customer success team is a goldmine of information

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Jan is the founder of coldagency.io, and he has a lot of amazing insights into creating cold email campaigns that have a high reply rate. On the show today, he shares everything he knows about cold emailing and prospecting. Listen if you want to boost the replies to your cold emails!

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[1:06] Building a cold email agency 

[2:40] Transferring B2C experience into B2B prospecting 

[4:00] Best deliverability practices in 2023 

[6:23] List building tools and practices 

[8:30] The secret to high reply rates 

[11:48] Designing a cold email sequence

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

A nurture sequence is not a common practice, but it should be. A nurture sequence is the act of reaching out to the prospect at a certain cadence, which allows you to take advantage of any prospects that might not become customers right now but could buy later.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro

[1:32] A nurture sequence is different than an outbound campaign 

[2:09] Finding helpful content for a nurture sequence 

[3:14] How long your nurture sequence should be 

[5:13] The importance of being specific

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Zach Wright co-founded a SaaS startup (Syft AI) that modernizes the selling process to lead with value. The founding team saw a fundamental shift in B2B sales. Most sellers don't adopt sales tools due to the overwhelming amounts of data across many siloed applications and many manual processes. Zach is passionate about networking and helping the next generation of B2B sellers maximize their careers and development.

Timestamps: [0:01] Intro

[0:56] What inspired Zach to build Syft

[2:20] Value selling 101

[5:34] Where to look to find a lot of leads

[11:01] Will SDRs be replaced by AI?

[16:36] Creative prospecting plays

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Time management is one of the most important skills for SDRs. And it’s not about doing the most activities, it’s about doing the right activities. The ones who focus their time on the most impactful activities are the ones who earn the most revenue. So on the show today we are talking about the best way to block your time through the day as a sales rep.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro

[1:24] How to time block your day 

[2:24] Blocking time vs. creating habits 

[3:30] What to do every day to close your pipeline 

[5:12] Knowing what to work on when

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Outbound folks are super aggressive. You have to be in order to get outbound prospects to the next step. But inbound requires less energy and it can be easily forgotten. And if you neglect your inbound close game, you could be leaving money on the table.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[1:38] What you can do to help your inbound sales team improve closing

[2:21] More effective follow-ups on inbound prospects 

[4:08] Double your close rate just by following up

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Kris Rudeegraap is the Founder and CEO of Sendoso, the leading Sending Platform, which helps companies stand out by giving them new ways to engage with customers throughout the buyer’s journey. By integrating digital and physical sending strategies, companies can increase the effectiveness of their existing go-to-market programs and improve their relationships with customers.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro

[2:45] The do’s and don’ts of gifting

[4:35] Lessons learned being a founder of a company

[6:06] Why founders should build a recruiting strategy from day one

[9:33] Creating new norms in an industry

[11:33] Some new top-of-funnel things Kris is trying in his company

[14:57] Some prospecting tools Kris is finding useful

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/ Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Jed has built an awesome SDR team at Mailshake and has done it many times before. He has a great leadership style, and he has some great things to share on this topic. So tune in if you are looking to become an SDR leader, or if you are already in that position.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[0:39] How to keep your reps motivated 

[1:35] Block off an hour per day to do this activity 

[2:49] Morning meetings and how to run them 

[7:02] Daily life of an SDR leader

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Justin Chi helps recruiting agencies use AI to find new clients. And he has a lot of knowledge to share about cold emails, how to improve deliverability, best practices for targeting and designing campaigns, and how to use AI to do all of this better. So listen to the show today to uplevel your cold email game.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[0:47] Justin Chi on starting his own agency 

[1:58] Getting out of spam and improving deliverability 

[4:12] Using AI and other tools to improve deliverability 

[5:51] How Justin designs his email campaigns 

[9:55] Best practices for targeting 

[10:39] Justin’s cold email hot takes

Youtube Video: https://youtu.be/U8IOUTN-6Xc

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/ Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

The title might sound sketchy, but this is something that has been working well on Mailshake. We will essentially be teaching you how to turn your LinkedIn into a sales page to book demos for the product you sell. So listen today to uplevel your prospecting game by exponentially increasing the number of demos you book.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[0:49] How Jed books his demos on autopilot 

[1:45] Leveraging your expertise to sell at scale 

[2:39] Content Strategy 101 

[4:00] Case study 

[5:54] Turn your LinkedIn profile into a lead magnet

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Most cold emails have one thing in common: they come with an ask. So if you can change this one thing about your cold emails, then you will stand out among 99 percent of your competition.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[0:43] The one thing every cold email has in common 

[1:10] Make these changes to your cold emails to stand out 

[2:38] The value of third-party resources in your cold emails 

[4:32] Giving value before asking for anything

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Jordan takes automating your cold email strategy to a whole other level. Jordan's agency uses automation, not just to create generic messages to send to any lead, but he uses it to test your company against the market. AI can be leveraged to find the absolute ideal prospect, and Jordan teaches us how to do that in this episode.

Timestamps

[0:01] Intro 

[2:19] An example of Jordan’s prospecting process 

[3:39] Automating your cold email process 

[5:55] Why good targeting is the most important part of the prospecting process 

[7:20] Some of the tools Jordan uses to prospect for his clients 

[11:25] What you need to do before you start using AI 

[14:24] The dos and don’ts of ChatGPT

Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYfTgFpZNIQ

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/ Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

One of the most important things you can do as a seller is understand your buyers, how they think, what their problems are, and how they will respond to you. After many years of being sold to, Jed and Sujan have 7 tips to help you better understand your buyers.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[1:04] What your buyers want the most from you 

[2:08] Remember that outbound is a long game 

[3:30] Leveraging FOMO in your outbound strategy 

[6:04] Getting to the point in your pitches 

[9:09] Don’t give up too soon!

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

Narrowing your ICP is one small strategy change that can make a world of difference to your direct outreach strategy. So in the show today, we are talking about how to narrow your ICP and sharing some success stories of when this has been done right.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[1:01] Why it’s important to narrow your ICP 

[2:57] Targeting multiple specific pain points 

[5:19] Success stories that come from narrowing the ICP 

[7:10] How to narrow your ICP - specific questions to ask yourself

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

AI tools can be instrumental to your success as a sales rep. But there are a lot of potential pitfalls if AI isn't properly integrated into your workflow. So on the show today, we are talking about the best uses of AI in sales and how to use these new and exciting tools properly.

Timestamps:

[0:01] Intro 

[1:07] The best way to use AI in your sales process 

[2:13] AI as a supplement for VAs 

[2:45] Integrating AI into your sales team 

[3:53] Identifying where you can use AI in your own workflow 

[7:13] Tips and hacks for ChatGPT in sales 

[8:40] Common pitfalls when using AI in sales

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/

There won't be a podcast this week, but we will be back with a bang next Tuesday. Thanks for listening to the first 30 episodes of the podcast! We recently crossed 20,000 listens on the podcast and we're only getting started!

We're shaking things up for season 2 of the podcast. Sujan Patel, Mailshake co-founder will be joining Jed next week and moving forward. Big thanks to Maggie Bloom for everything she did with getting the podcast off the ground. She will be missed!

In the meantime, here's the 5 most played episodes to date:

1️⃣ Getting Practical with @Julia Carter: Jed sat down with Julia to find out how she quadrupled her sales quota without cold calling.

2️⃣ Structuring Cold Emails: Jed & Maggie broke down the best tips for creating cold emails that get responses.

3️⃣ What the Best Sales Reps Do: This episode talks about how to perform like an expert sales rep, including best practices and the pitfalls to avoid.

4️⃣ How to Get the C-Level’s Attention: Ever experience anxiety when reaching out to C-level employees? Check out this episode to get the low-down on the “Three Is” of C-level prospecting.

5️⃣ Getting Practical with Kevin Hopp: If you hate cold calling, this is the episode for you. Here, our guest Kevin Hopp breaks down his Call First Strategy that landed $100 million in the pipeline.

Please reach out to either Jed or Sujan on LinkedIn if you have any recommendations or topics you'd like us to discuss on the podcast going forward.

Chat next week!

Juston Warthen was able to book 530 meetings in 6 months and he got promoted to account executive at his tech sales job within 4 months. How did he do it? With some grit, hard work, and some winning strategies that he shares in the podcast today.

Timestamps

[1:01] Intro 

[0:39] Booking 530 meetings in 6 months! 

[2:41] Should you read from a script? 

[3:22] The importance of tonality and how to improve tone 

[6:25] Getting promoted to account executive in 4 months 

[10:04] Preparing for a career in tech sales 

[12:19] The biggest challenges that come with an account executive role

Follow us on social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailshake/

Jed's Newsletter: https://jed.substack.com/