In today’s issue, I’ll share exactly how I use Amplemarket’s AI features to become more efficient when prospecting. These steps will help you understand how you can integrate Amplemarket in your tech stack, and you’ll discover some useful features to save time.

Let’s dive in:

Step 1: Export leads from posts

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know I mostly use LinkedIn for prospecting. It’s a great way to find prospects, and contact them based on the digital footprint they leave when using LinkedIn (reactions, comments, event attendance, etc.).

Here’s a recent post I did, with 57 reactions, and 24 comments.

In today’s issue, I’ll share the exact process I follow to find prospects’ problems. If you can replicate these steps, you’ll be able to catch the attention of your prospects, because you’ll show them you understand what problems they are trying to solve, in details.

Understanding prospects’ problems is a big mindset shift for many salespeople because they are trained to sell a product, and pitch features and benefits, instead of trying to put themselves in the shoes of their customers.

That’s what I’m going to show you, step-by-step:

Step 1: Understand their goals and metrics

Every prospect you are trying to reach has one or more metrics they are evaluated on. A VP of Sales will be evaluated on revenues, a CFO on bottom-line, a CPO on shipping speed and so on. Your prospects get promoted or fired based on their performance against these metrics.

Your goal when finding prospects’ problems is to get a clear understanding of these metrics, and the goals associated with these metrics.

Here are a few places where you can get an idea of these metrics and goals:

• Podcasts/webinars where your Ideal Customer Profiles are interviewed
• Job descriptions
• Current and past customers

When you have an idea of the metrics your prospects are evaluated on, your next step is to understand their goals. You can ask yourself the following questions:

• Are they trying to maximize or minimize this metric?
• What happens if they miss it? What are the concrete consequences on their jobs/lives?
• Do they have stretch goals?

Below are some examples for different types of prospects:

In today’s issue, I’ll share the exact process I follow to book meetings with LinkedIn. This is a tactic I detail in my Prospecting Engine, and if you can replicate this system, you’ll increase your chances of getting replies and booking meetings.

The main goal of this tactic is to use the digital footprint that can be found everywhere on LinkedIn, and use it to prospect as scale.

Here’s how, step-by-step:

Step 1: Find a relevant LinkedIn post

If your customers are active on LinkedIn (logging in at least once a week), then it’s highly likely that some people have built large audiences speaking about your prospects’ problems, and how to solve them.

I’ll take sales as an example. The domain is filled with thought-leaders who have built massive audiences on LinkedIn. Same goes for marketing, HR, and operations.

Your first step should be to build a list of 5 – 10 thought-leaders who post regularly (daily is best) on LinkedIn. Go check step 3 of this article if you want to know how.

I’ll take the example of Florin Tatuela who posts daily about outbound prospecting tactics (a lot of them are available in my Prospecting Template Swipe File).

In today’s issue, I’ll share a cold call opener I used to book a meeting with an AI avatar, when practicing with a cold call simulator. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’m not a big fan of cold calling, mostly because I don’t like the direct rejection of a cold call, and because I have found a better system to book meetings.

But having the option to practice with an AI simulator is a great way to solve that problem and get more comfortable with cold calling, without worrying too much about what my prospect will think of me (it’s an AI after all).

A key part of a cold call is your opener, and the one I used in my simulation was incredibly efficient. Here’s how it’s structured:

Part 1: Salutation

I started the cold call by stating my first name only. I didn’t mention my company, why I was reaching out, and why the person should listen to me. In a real-world situation, this would help a prospect stay on the line (which is the goal of the first part of your cold call).

Example: “Hi, it’s Thibaut.”

I receive a ton of cold calls every day, and when people speak for over 30 seconds, without asking for permission, I always hang up because I know they are trying to sell me something I’m not interested in.

Part 2: Label the call

The second part of the opener is incredibly important. Instead of jumping in and trying to pitch my product, or convince the prospect to stay on the line, I explain that we don’t know each other, and this is a cold call.

Example: “Before you try to remember who is Thibaut, I just want to tell you that we don’t know each other, I’m a total stranger, and this is a cold call.”

This part of the opener is hard to master, it takes a bit of practice, but it’s an excellent way of addressing an objection before it even arises, and standing out to your prospect.

Part 3: Suggest to end the call

The last part of the opener is where you give the option to the prospect to end the call, or keep going.

Example: “So, do you want to roll the dice, and hear what I have to say?”

This last part is powerful because you’re not trying to convince someone who isn’t interested to stay on the line. You’re giving them an option to hang up, without turning it into a tensed situation. If they want to stay on the line, they can do it, if they want to hang up, they can do it too, and the rejection won’t be that hard to deal with.

Here’s an example of the entire opener:

“Hi, it’s Thibaut.

Before you try to remember who is Thibaut, I just want to tell you that we don’t know each other, I’m a total stranger, and this is a cold call.

So, do you want to roll the dice, and hear what I have to say?”

In case you didn’t notice it, I didn’t mention anything about my product, why I’m calling, and why the prospect should stay on the line. I just piqued their curiosity, and gave them the option to satisfy their need to know more, or escape the situation if they aren’t curious.

And if you’re interested in finding out the rest of my cold call, I have recorded a 4-minute video where I booked a meeting from a cold call.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut