In today’s newsletter, I’ll share how I included WhatsApp in my prospecting routine, and how you can do it too.

Prospecting has changed in 2024. It’s getting harder than ever to book meetings with prospects. Their mailboxes are flooded with crappy AI-generated icebreakers and emails. They can’t erase shitty prospecting messages fast enough.

Trying to start conversations with total strangers only is a recipe for disaster. Even if your email game is solid, you’re a cold call machine, or a LinkedIn wizard, you won’t start enough conversation to build enough pipeline with cold outreach.

That’a why I recommend adding WhatsApp to start conversations with people you already know.

Here’s how, step-by-step:

Step 1: List building

As usual, you need to build a lead list. But instead of building a list of strangers, go back to your CRM and pull a list of prospects and customers who already know you.

List your current customers, old customers, closed lost, prospects who replied to your cold outreach, and everyone you’ve been in touch with at some point.

Now, find their phone numbers, add them to your contact list, and see if they are on WhatsApp (most people are).

This is where I need to do a small precision.

If you want to use WhatsApp to communicate with your prospect, the best way is to ask them while you’re having active conversations with them. You can ask something like:

“Pierre, I found that using WhatsApp is an easy way to answer questions you may have without having to book a meeting, or send a long email. Opposed to sharing your WhatsApp number?”

Some will refuse, but a lot will be fine sharing their numbers.

Step 2: WhatsApp call

You have a list of prospects, with WhatsApp numbers. Give them a call using WhatsApp. You’ll face two situations; they’ll reply, or ignore you.

If they reply, you can use a variation of this script:

“Pierre, how are you doing? Wanted to reach out on WhatsApp since most people don’t answer to unknown numbers. Last time we talked, you mentioned [key initiative]. Is it still relevant?”

If you need more call script ideas, you can check my Prospecting Template Swipe File.

If they don’t reply, go to step 3.

Step 3: WhatsApp voicenote

This is where the magic happens. I personally filter who I speak to on the phone. If someone calls me, but I’m busy, or if I want to avoid a conversation, I’ll ignore a call.

That’s what most people do.

Instead of writing a lengthy message, you can drop a WhatsApp voice note. Humans are curious by nature and a voice note is hard to ignore. You want to know what’s behind.

You can use the same script as in step 2, and ask your prospect to call you back or drop a message back (this options often works better).

I tried this tactic last week, and I booked 1 meeting, and generated 1 opportunity. I did a detailed video if you want to learn more.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share my take on what you can do if you’re feeling like you’re going to get fired, or placed in a PIP soon. But first, I’ll tell you why I’m mentioning this topic in today’s newsletter.

Last week, I shared a poll on LinkedIn and I asked the following question:

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share my take on the fact that more than half of remote salespeople want to change jobs soon. I recently ran a poll on LinkedIn, and with more than 300 participants, 53% of them said they wanted to change jobs soon.

I’m not surprised.

Remote sales jobs are hard, and they require a set of skills that are mostly acquired through experience. I’ll share 3 reasons why more than half of remote salespeople want to change jobs, and a few ideas if you’re in this situation.

Let’s dive in:

Reason #1: Remote is lonely

Remote isn’t for everyone. Even if you want to work remote and have the freedom to organize your day as you want, you may not have the skills to be successful with this job organization.

When selling remote, you’re disconnected from the life of your team, and Slack messages or virtual team events won’t replace this human connection that we all need.

For some people, it’s great news. Personally, I couldn’t work in an office and be forced to hang out with people I didn’t choose to hang out with. But for a lot of people, this social interaction is the only one they have (that’s what happened to me when I moved from Montréal to Berlin back in 2015).

This leads many people working remote to think about switching jobs soon. They may be looking for a more flexible organization, with a mix of office work and remote work.

Reason #2: Return to office mandates

Some people are absolutely not interested in coming back to an office. They fought hard to acquire the skills they needed to be successful working from anywhere, and they have no intention to change the way they live.

There’s only one problem. They work for someone else. And this someone else has every right to impose idiotic policies and rules. Many companies have a vested interest in getting employees back into an office. They have long-term rents, they can micro-manage employees better, and get more control on how they spend their time working for them.

This forces many remote salespeople to look for a new job quickly, even if they’d like to stay in their current job.

Reason #3: Changing market conditions

This one touches everyone, not only remote salespeople. The SaaS world has taken a massive beating in 2023 and 2024. Over 400,000 employees have been laid off since the beginning of 2023. The trend is slowing down, but the power has shifted in the advantage of employers.

Why would they keep offering lavish offsites, mental health days, and remote work, when they can force everyone back into the office to work harder and help the company survive?

Tougher market conditions and technological advancement mean good remote employment opportunities are harder to come by.

What to do about it?

Now, you may think there’s not much you can do about this. You should consider yourself lucky to have a remote job and pray for it to stay that way.

Newsflash: you’re 100% sure to lose your job at some point.

Long gone are the days when you could find a good company, stay employed for your whole career, and leave with a comfortable retirement plan. That’s especially true in sales.

Here’s what I recommend you do instead; start building a portfolio career.

A portfolio career is a substitution to traditional employment. Instead of working full-time for a company, you take on one or more contracts so you can decide when, where, and how to work.

Be careful here–I’m not advising you to leave your full-time job and ditch the financial stability it brings you. Instead, focus on closing a first side gig. If you can close one, you can close another, and another one, until you decide you’re done working for someone else.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris