Is Outbound Sales Dead - I Need Help!

[GuestR401x3]

I sell for a business management software company. We have a decent product, but not a lot of brand recognition or marketing. I actually partially got into sales because of MJ. I was considering sales and was part of his SMS updates. Then one day he sent a message that said that the most important skill in entrepreneurship is sales and this sealed the deal and made me switch careers.

I’ve been doing outbound sales for over a year now, and it sucks. I’ve tried everything from cold calling, cold emailing, social media outreach, and referrals.
Nothing works. I get some opens and responses and some meetings and demos, but I can’t close any deals from outbound.

The company previously was solely focused on inbound and then they hired me to help with outbound as well as inbound. They recently hired 2 more experienced salesmen who crushed it in their previous job and they are struggling as well in their current rule.

Last month I sent over 2000 cold emails last month, got 700 opens and only 35 replies and 2 meetings. And none of them went anywhere. This has been normative for the last while.

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’ve tried to personalize my messages, add value, create urgency, target the right decision-makers, and qualify the prospects. But nothing makes a difference.

Some questions I’m asking myself are:
Is it me? Am I a bad salesperson? Do I suck at selling?
Or is it the product? Is it too niche, too complex, or too expensive?
Obviously, you guys can’t help me with this without more context but maybe you can answer my next question.

Is outbound sales dead? Is it outdated in the age of inbound marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing? Is it too annoying, intrusive, or spammy for the buyers?

I’d appreciate any feedback, tips, or suggestions from you. Do you use outbound strategies to sell? How do you generate leads when times are slow? What are the best strategies, tools, or resources that you use? What do you sell? How do you deal with the challenges and frustrations of sales during a slow period?

 

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[BizyDad]

I sell for a business management software company. We have a decent product, but not a lot of brand recognition or marketing. I actually partially got into sales because of MJ. I was considering sales and was part of his SMS updates. Then one day he sent a message that said that the most important skill in entrepreneurship is sales and this sealed the deal and made me switch careers.

I’ve been doing outbound sales for over a year now, and it sucks. I’ve tried everything from cold calling, cold emailing, social media outreach, and referrals.
Nothing works. I get some opens and responses and some meetings and demos, but I can’t close any deals from outbound.

The company previously was solely focused on inbound and then they hired me to help with outbound as well as inbound. They recently hired 2 more experienced salesmen who crushed it in their previous job and they are struggling as well.

Last month I sent over 2000 cold emails last month, got 700 opens and only 35 replies and 2 meetings. And none of them went anywhere. This has been normative for the last while.

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’ve tried to personalize my messages, add value, create urgency, target the right decision-makers, and qualify the prospects. But nothing makes a difference.

Some questions I’m asking myself are:
Is it me? Am I a bad salesperson? Do I suck at selling?
Or is it the product? Is it too niche, too complex, or too expensive?
Or is it the market? Is it too crowded, too competitive, or too stubborn?
Obviously, you guys can’t help me with this without more context but maybe you can answer my next question.

Is outbound sales dead? Is it outdated in the age of inbound marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing? Is it too annoying, intrusive, or spammy for the buyers?

I’d appreciate any feedback, tips, or suggestions from you. How do you generate leads when times are slow? What are the best strategies, tools, or resources that you use? What do you sell? How do you deal with the challenges and frustrations of sales during a slow period?

I'm game for this discussion.

For starters, what is the problem that this software fixes? Who is buying the software?

And no, outbound sales is not dead. But you might be bad at it or you might have a terrible product.

 

[StrikingViper69]

I recently read 80/20 marketing and it had a few chapters on exactly this.

 

[GuestR401x3]

I'm game for this discussion.

For starters, what is the problem that this software fixes? Who is buying the software?

And no, outbound sales is not dead. But you might be bad at it or you might have a terrible product.

It's an industry specific ERP software. Our clients come to us when their basic accounting software and oftentimes Excel isn't able to meet their needs to run their business and they need better management tools. They often are struggling with inventory management, field service, and/or manufacturing. Our service helps them remove duplicate entries and streamline their processes, reduce errors, and increase visibility into their business.

 

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[GuestR401x3]

I recently read 80/20 marketing and it had a few chapters on exactly this.

Tell me more...

 

[StrikingViper69]

Tell me more...

It's a fast read, I only vaguely remember the ideas relevant to what you're interested in, because they weren't relevant to me. It's by Perry Marshall, you can get through it in a weekend.

 

[BizyDad]

It's an industry specific ERP software. Our clients come to us when their basic accounting software and oftentimes Excel isn't able to meet their needs to run their business and they need better management tools. They often are struggling with inventory management, field service, and/or manufacturing. Our service helps them remove duplicate entries and streamline their processes, reduce errors, and increase visibility into their business.

Ok, I think I got it.

Are you approaching owners or workers to introduce the software?

Let's assume I am a prospect. Send me a cold email.

(I suspect that you're probably trying too hard to close the sale. These people have a solution in place. The solution has some problems, yes, but they're going to pay money and they will need to learn an entirely new software in order to fix their problem. That sounds like a huge pain in the butt. So you're going to have to really convince me that you can solve my problem... BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, you're going to have to convince me that my problem is a big enough deal that I should put my company through the trouble of learning a new software and paying more money for it...)

 

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[Andy Black]

Ok, I think I got it.

Are you approaching owners or workers to introduce the software?

Let's assume I am a prospect. Send me a cold email.

(I suspect that you're probably trying too hard to close the sale. These people have a solution in place. The solution has some problems, yes, but they're going to pay money and they will need to learn an entirely new software in order to fix their problem. That sounds like a huge pain in the butt. So you're going to have to really convince me that you can solve my problem... BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, you're going to have to convince me that my problem is a big enough deal that I should put my company through the trouble of learning a new software and paying more money for it...)

If BizyDad is a prospect, how have you identified him? Why are you sending him a cold email?

 

[GuestR401x3]

Ok, I think I got it.

Are you approaching owners or workers to introduce the software?

Let's assume I am a prospect. Send me a cold email.

(I suspect that you're probably trying too hard to close the sale. These people have a solution in place. The solution has some problems, yes, but they're going to pay money and they will need to learn an entirely new software in order to fix their problem. That sounds like a huge pain in the butt. So you're going to have to really convince me that you can solve my problem... BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, you're going to have to convince me that my problem is a big enough deal that I should put my company through the trouble of learning a new software and paying more money for it...)

I'm targeting owners and operations managers mostly.
Let's say you are an owner of a Forklift Sales and Service company since this is a common industry we sell into, here is how a first email might look.
Hi BizyDad,

Do you find it challenging to manage inventory and track P&L on your forklifts and parts?

I know it can be frustrating, but here at Koble we have a solution that could help you out. With one system, you can efficiently manage all your business operations and accounting.

Our clients who have partnered with Koble have experienced efficiency, improved accuracy, improved customer service, and useful insights from their business reports.

BizyDad are you interested in learning how Koble can make improve inventory management, and increase visibility for ForkliftShopABC.

Then I might follow up with something like this.
Hi BizyDad,

I sent an email 2 days ago regarding business management software and thought I'd follow up and give you a story on how we've helped someone just like you.

ForkliftShopABC a business whose operations are similar to yours was facing challenges with parts and inventory management, service work scheduling, and accessing the right information across the company.

After partnering with Koble, they were able to monitor the costs put into each piece of equipment, handle inventory and parts efficiently, and schedule services without trouble.

With these improvements, ForkliftShopABC was able to deliver fast service to its customers and generate insightful business reports to make smart decisions. You can read more of their testimonial here.

Does this sound like something that could benefit you?
--
And I usually follow up around 3-5 more times after this.

 

[GuestR401x3]

If BizyDad is a prospect, how have you identified him? Why are you sending him a cold email?

I usually find my prospects through our lead gen tool or an online search.

I am sending them a cold email because there is a 95% chance that they're using something like QuickBooks and I believe they could save quite a bit of time in admin work using our system.

 

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[BizyDad]

I usually find my prospects through our lead gen tool or an online search.

I am sending them a cold email because there is a 95% chance that they're using something like QuickBooks and I believe they could save quite a bit of time in admin work using our system.

This will work for large campaigns and spam emails, etc. It's a numbers game at that point.

But you aren't at that point.

The goal of your first email is to start a one on one conversation. The best way to do this is to be vague but interesting. Send what I call a mentally incomplete message.

What I think you are "doing wrong" is giving too much info in that first message. I like everything you are saying, just not WHEN you are saying it. By saying less you will be vague and interesting

So email #1

Do you find it challenging to manage inventory and track P&L on your forklifts and parts?

That's it. Nothing more. Let me answer if I have this problem. Because if I don't and I read your next sentence, you are just some rude presumptious person you only cares about selling me, not solving my problem. What should I waste my valuable time on you?

Also....

Don't only send an email. Call the dude and leave this as a message on his voicemail. Follow him on twitter and slide into his DM's. Hit him up on LinkedIn.

Then...

Call again. You will do WAY better with calls for something like this because your first job here is to establish trust and credibility.

Ideally, when we responds, (via email, twitter, LinkedIn, whatever) the next thing is to ask for a 10 minute quick chat.

And keep it to ten minutes. No more! You have to pretend like you are too busy also. If you ask for 10 minutes, respect the 10 minutes.

I know it can be frustrating, but here at Koble we have a solution that could help you out. With one system, you can efficiently manage all your business operations and accounting.

Our clients who have partnered with Koble have experienced efficiency, improved accuracy, improved customer service, and useful insights from their business reports.

BizyDad are you interested in learning how Koble can make improve inventory management, and increase visibility for ForkliftShopABC.

Then I might follow up with something like this.
Hi BizyDad,

I sent an email 2 days ago regarding business management software and thought I'd follow up and give you a story on how we've helped someone just like you.

ForkliftShopABC a business whose operations are similar to yours was facing challenges with parts and inventory management, service work scheduling, and accessing the right information across the company.

After partnering with Koble, they were able to monitor the costs put into each piece of equipment, handle inventory and parts efficiently, and schedule services without trouble.

With these improvements, ForkliftShopABC was able to deliver fast service to its customers and generate insightful business reports to make smart decisions. You can read more of their testimonial here.

Does this sound like something that could benefit you?

And on that 10 minutes, you want to say the things you just typed out in that email.

I like to think of it like dating. You first goal with dating is getting her to agree to spend a little time with you. then when you spend that time, you demonstrate value (funny, interesting, caring, etc). At the end of the first date you agree to a second date and the process continues.

But what you are doing is like going for the first kiss before they EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME.

Make your sales process more personal. Slow it down.

-----

Alternative suggestion...

Start lower ont he food chain. Call the company and ask to speak to accounting. Then ask/leave a message for that person asking if they have trouble tracking inventory. Once you get a "yes", you can seek out the boss and say

"I was speaking to Abe in accounting and he confided your company has some challenges tracking inventory. I have a possible solution. Do you have 5 minutes to chat?"

-----

Being brief in your approach and asking pointed questions is a good way to get someone's attention.

If you want to do more email follow ups, then find more ways to ask questions...

Don't start telling/selling anyone anything until after they have answered your question.

Also, share you tstimonials about your product on your linked in and in your email signature put something like:

Learn More About Me On => LINKEDIN

The curious ones will go to LinkedIn and see the testimonials, see you are a real person, and it should hopefully pique their curiosity...

Hope that helps...

 

[GuestR401x3]

What I think you are "doing wrong" is giving too much info in that first message. I like everything you are saying, just not WHEN you are saying it. By saying less you will be vague and interesting

So email #1

Do you find it challenging to manage inventory and track P&L on your forklifts and parts?

This is super interesting, I've never heard of this but will give it a shot. What's your success/experience with this type of outreach?

 

[Andy Black]

I get cold emails and LinkedIn/Facebook DMs like that. They look like a sales pitch so I don't even read them.

Like BizyDad said, being more conversational might help. Bear in mind I don't do cold email or cold calling, so I'm speaking from the perspective of someone receiving these.

They come across as unnatural and trying too hard.

It's a bit confusing when you say you've never heard of what BizyDad is describing. If you want to get on a call with someone in a certain company would it be worth planning how to get the initial conversation going? And then would you try to get into conversation first to build a bit of rapport or a relationship?

And asking about the success rate has me thinking you're seeing this as a sales tactic rather than a way to get to know someone in the business and see if you can help them or help someone they may know.

What if you only approach one business every day? How would you decide which one to approach, and what would you do differently?


If I was trying to reach forklift sales and service businesses then I'd wonder where they all congregate. Is there a thought leader in the space? Or a publication? Are there organisations that they all have to deal with? (Think "Who already has my clients?" - Jay Abraham)


But then these jumped out at me:

Our clients come to us when their basic accounting software and oftentimes Excel isn't able to meet their needs to run their business and they need better management tools.

How do your clients come to you? How do they find out about you? Who's referring them? Who else do they go to?

They often are struggling with inventory management, field service, and/or manufacturing.

What indicates they're struggling and *already* want to change?

 

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[SEBASTlAN]

Did you warm up your email address for a couple of weeks before blasting 2000 emails a month?

Did you verify your leads email addresses?

Did you split test your subject lines & body text?

 

[RicardoGrande]

Have you done any calls, complete cold or to your previously e-mailed contacts, as well?
Benjamin Dennehy, UK's most hated sales trainer is a bit of an angry b@stard but I feel he gets it right when he says "you can't hide behind a screen and expect to create results"*.

*disclaimer: I cold call for web design I do myself and it's been a slog with this recession, but managed to dig up a few nuggets out of absolutely nothing that made the effort worth it.

 

[ZackerySprague]

Have you done any calls, complete cold or to your previously e-mailed contacts, as well?
Benjamin Dennehy, UK's most hated sales trainer is a bit of an angry b@stard but I feel he gets it right when he says "you can't hide behind a screen and expect to create results"*.

*disclaimer: I cold call for web design I do myself and it's been a slog with this recession, but managed to dig up a few nuggets out of absolutely nothing that made the effort worth it.

I love this guys advertising in his video, it's so funny.

 

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[ZackerySprague]

I don't think outbound is dead, I think it's very much alive. In fact, the sales guy that I approached yesterday still does it today to get major enterprise clients for the employer that I work for. With that being said, to me, RicardoGrande is right in my eyes.

If one person does not have an existing network of people (Maybe you're introverted or have a select few of friends like me who doesn't run businesses or just never went out in the world for the past couple of years, oops). It might be time to get out there and make new connections.

To me the objective would be to build relationships by first starting outbound, using the techniques of prospecting, cold calling, marketing, and advertising yourself. But eventually, you'd move away from doing these because of the relationships you've built and the people you helped to build a referral engine.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Cold Calling, Cold Emailing, Advertising, or Social Media. The idea would be to find where your target audience is hanging out and then contact them. But there is a difference between identifying and helping a person versus being a car salesman and trying to push your products in services to them. I would do the first one versus the latter.

I also learned from someone in the Fox Web School Legends, such a great guy I am sure, he stated to try everything. Let go of the Ego. What he meant was to try all of the different outreach channels to see what works. You never know, if you have done a lot of networking but find that it's not yielding the best results, but cold calling is. That cold calling might be the channel you may need to focus on more, or it could be cold emailing. He basically said to try them all. I think this is great advice.

I also learned that your family and friends are essentially not your customers. To me, here's why, they're not going to give you the most honest feedback about what you're offering. They already like you and trust you, so of course they may actually use your service. You need candor feedback from the marketplace, even at the freelance level. The feedback I receive from the marketplace to me will be much more valuable than my friends and family because I'll know whether or not I am going in the right direction or whether I need to adjust. That's why I chose to stay away from the generic "Go to your family and Friends first" advice, it will give you short-term wins for sure. But that strategy won't help me win or help people in the long term.

 

[Kak]

I don’t personally think it’s dead.

We have done it for the majority of our business, but, it’s a tighter knit industry and if you sound like you know what you’re talking about, the guards come down.

Like @BizyDad I think your initial outreach is incredibly long.

We have had some pretty good responses with this:

Hi Prospect,

I am person with Kak Industries. We supply blah blah things (that we already know you use because we have done the research). We have taken over the US and Canada distribution and marketing for blah blah giant foreign company. We have helped them get over their top dollar phase and become more relevant to large efficient companies like (whatever company we are talking to.)

We currently supply some other big players in the industry, so we believe our offerings are valuable, even if only to diversify your supply chain.

I’m sending a sample of x and y. Does your (whatever city) plant location do the analysis? (We already know it probably does) Who should I address it to?

Thanks,

Kyle Keegan

My industry, however is a long play. Everything is relationship building. I have a hand in the sales process. We have found simple is ALWAYS better.

 

[Andy Black]

Everything is relationship building.

We have found simple is ALWAYS better.

Applies to life and business as well as cold-calling.

 

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[hifive]

I think I'm a bit late in the convo, but something I use to write e-mails is Hemingway editor. (Hemingway Editor), for this email:

Hi BizyDad,

Do you find it challenging to manage inventory and track P&L on your forklifts and parts?

I know it can be frustrating, but here at Koble we have a solution that could help you out. With one system, you can efficiently manage all your business operations and accounting.

Our clients who have partnered with Koble have experienced efficiency, improved accuracy, improved customer service, and useful insights from their business reports.

BizyDad are you interested in learning how Koble can make improve inventory management, and increase visibility for ForkliftShopABC.

I noticed the Grade level(the grade at which someone would need to be in school to understand you) is grade 13. I usually aim for grade 4, and that makes it much easier to understand and fly through.

Now I'm no Einstein in outbound sales, nor am I remotely qualified to talk about anything regarding the quality of your e-mail. But something that will probably help is getting that grade score down.

 

[GuestR401x3]

How do your clients come to you? How do they find out about you? Who's referring them? Who else do they go to?

Most of our clients are currently coming from referrals from current clients and trade shows.

Have you done any calls, complete cold or to your previously e-mailed contacts, as well?

I try to call those who have opened my email a few times or clicked a link to an article I send. I also have some publications that my clients advertise in and I call them saying I saw their ad in x magazine and just wanted to introduce myself. These seemed to work a lot better than just a straight cold call but I'm still not getting great results.

I noticed the Grade level(the grade at which someone would need to be in school to understand you) is grade 13. I usually aim for grade 4

You are right, the best salespeople can explain a complex process in a simple way. Thanks for this.
------------
I appreciate everyone's responses. Could it be the product I'm selling? Maybe business owners understandably just aren't keen on changing their entire business management software and buying a multiple five-figure product from a cold call. If you remember from my post the company hired 2 salespeople who were very successful at a different saas company and they are struggling even more than me in this industry.

With the age of the Internet is it ridiculous to think that cold calling wouldn't work for my product because it doesn't have a great online presence thus not allowing clients to do the research they are accustomed to?

Please tell me if I'm wrong, I'm open to constructive criticism and am already implementing some of the feedback I received.

 

[cikatomo]

Sales is a process of moving from intellectual to emotional.

To get prospect emotional they have to feel the pain and you help them solve the pain.

sentence: Do you find it challenging to manage inventory and track P&L on your forklifts and parts?
doesn't address the pain properly. Of course they find it challenging, many things in life are challenging, even driving a car in the traffic.

Bricklayer for example, we are not gonna say Do you find laying bricks challenging?

We are gonna say Does your elbow hurt after day of work? Do painful knees prevent you from playing with your kids after hard day of work?

Bricklayers from all over the city come to our physio studio etc etc...

If that's something you feel it's bothering you we are offering 15min free consultation etc etc...

Link to calendar to schedule callback etc etc...

Unless you make prospect identify with the concrete practical everyday pain points and provide solution for them it's gonna be a hard sell.

 

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[BizyDad]

Sales is a process of moving from intellectual to emotional.

This sounds like the beginning of an excellent way to complicate a simple problem.

Oh darn, I just responded to a dead thread... The new guy fooled me.

Wait... You've been on here since 2014?!?!

 

[cikatomo]

This sounds like the beginning of an excellent way to complicate a simple problem.

Oh darn, I just responded to a dead thread... The new guy fooled me.

Wait... You've been on here since 2014?!?!

Yeah 2014 wow, when did this forum start do you know?

 

[BizyDad]

Yeah 2014 wow, when did this forum start do you know?

I believe it was 2007, but I could be off on that by a year or two...

 

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[Tiago]

Outbound sales isn't dead. Last year I did 30.000 dials in 8 months and generated $450k in sales. But it works well if you also have good marketing in place. Calling someone out of the blue who has had zero previous interaction with your company and trying to sell something is tough.

 

[cikatomo]

I believe it was 2007, but I could be off on that by a year or two...

Good old times

 

[cikatomo]

Outbound sales isn't dead. Last year I did 30.000 dials in 8 months and generated $450k in sales. But it works well if you also have good marketing in place. Calling someone out of the blue who has had zero previous interaction with your company and trying to sell something is tough.

Your outbund sales were to people who already knew your company from ads? Is that what you are saying?

 

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