In today’s issue, I’ll share 5 prospecting metrics you can’t afford to ignore when you’re working in sales. Most salespeople I work with have a hard time understanding what metric to focus on. They either track too many, or too few.

I’ll share 5 metrics I’m obsessed with, and why you should keep a close eye on them. No matter your job, individual contributor, or manager, these metrics will help you understand your prospecting performance.

Let’s dive in:

Prospects added to sequence

Prospecting is about starting conversations with as many prospects as possible. Some of these conversations will end up in meetings, and some of these meetings will turn into opportunities (and closed won deals). That’s why you need to keep a close eye on the amount of prospects you add to your sequence.

To be clear, adding prospects to a sequence doesn’t just mean building a lead list. You have to add them to the first step of your sequence, and actually contact them. If you don’t know that number, you can check my Sales Process Calculator.

LinkedIn connection acceptance rate

This metric is so important if you’re using LinkedIn for prospecting. InMails tend to perform poorly, which is why I recommend sending connection requests to prospects, instead of directly pitching by InMail.

Connection requests are the first step to a successful LinkedIn sequence. But if most of them aren’t accepted, your sequence performance will be drastically reduced. If you need resources to write great connection requests, you can find my free guide here.

Here’s how to calculate it: (#connection requests accepted/#connection requests sent)

Reply rate

By far the most important leading indicator of success. Getting replies is the goal of a prospecting sequence, because it’s the start of a conversation with a prospect. If you can get prospects interested enough to reply, you’ve done the hardest part of the job.

Here are some resources to help you get more replies:

• A Tactical Guide to Booking Meetings on LinkedIn
• Email subject lines: The last guide you’ll ever need
• My 4-step framework to consistently get a 38% reply rate

Here’s how to calculate it:(#replies/#prospects added to sequence)

Meeting booked rate

This metric is often the obsession of sales development leaders. It’s a great indicator of performance, but it’s a lagging indicator. You can’t act much on it if you don’t track the 3 other metrics I mentioned above.

I recommend fixing this metric only when you have fixed the 3 previous ones. Here’s a resource to help you do that.

Here’s how to calculate it: (#meetings booked/#prospects who replied)

Show-up rate

Finally, this metric is often underestimated. I recently had a reader sharing that he had a 30% show-up rate, meaning that most of his prospecting efforts ended up in prospects not even showing up to a meeting they had agreed to.

If you can book meetings but prospects decide not to show up, it means you’re either booking meetings with the wrong people, or you’re so pushy that people prefer saying yes than having you objection handle them. Here’s a resource to help you navigate a conversation and turn it into a meeting.

Here’s how to calculate it: (#meetings actually held/#meetings booked)

And these are the 5 prospecting metrics I’m obsessed with. By tracking them on a regular basis, I have a good idea of the performance of my prospecting sequences, and what I need to optimize.

If you need help with strategies to fix any of these metrics, hit me up on LinkedIn and I’ll send a few resources your way.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share 5 types of prospecting you can use every day to book more meetings. Salespeople often confuse prospecting with cold outreach. They believe they should only book meetings with total strangers, who have never heard of them or their solution. Focusing on cold outreach only is a recipe for disaster in 2024.

That’s why you should mix different types of prospecting, so you don’t loose your motivation. If you can integrate these types of prospecting in your daily Power Hour, you’ll start more conversations, book more meetings, and build a healthier pipeline as a result.

Let’s dive in:

Inbound prospecting

Inbound prospecting is the easiest way to book meetings. You receive a request for a demo or a call from a prospect, and your job is to be quick enough to book the meeting. It’s the type of meeting we all love booking, but here are few challenges:

• You can’t control how many inbound leads you receive
• When they come inbound, they are typically already speaking with other vendors
• Most of inbound leads do not make decisions, and sales processes tend to be longer

However, if you can get some inbound leads on a regular basis, you’ll book a good amount of meetings, and you may reach your sales targets on these meetings alone (but the flow of leads could stop at any time).

Discovery prospecting

Discovery prospecting is a great type of prospecting when you’re opening a new market, or when you don’t have a product-market fit. Your goal when using this kind of prospecting is to get the prospects to join an interview so you can learn more about their problems.

It works so well because it helps salespeople go from pitching their solution to asking questions about the prospect. Here’s a simple tactic you can use to do some discovery prospecting.

Nearbound prospecting

Nearbound prospecting is all about using your network to get some introductions. It’s incredibly powerful because prospects tend to be more receptive to introductions from people they know, compared to purely cold outbound. Door-to-door salespeople use these tactics all the time, and there’s a lot we can learn from them.

For example, you can create a list of existing customers and ask for introductions to people they know. You can also create a list of inactive customers, opportunities that didn’t close, or partners and ask for introductions.

Trigger-based prospecting

This is my favorite type of prospecting. Trigger-based prospecting uses the digital footprint of your prospects to start a conversation with them. For example, if a prospect engages with a post about a problem they have on LinkedIn, you can use their engagement as an excuse to start a conversation with them.

I wrote a full guide to doing exactly that on LinkedIn.

Account-based prospecting

Finally, a lot of Enterprise SDRs are hired to do some Account-based prospecting. With this type of prospecting, you have to book meetings with prospects in designated accounts. This can be extremely challenging because some designated accounts may not have a problem you can help them solve.

However, I found this tactic to be really helpful when focusing on opening a key account.

And these are 5 types of prospecting you can use to book meetings. The secret relies on mixing them to stay motivated. If you have a target of 20 meetings per month, having zero conversations because everyone ignores your cold outreach is hard to sustain. Find some low-hanging fruits, get some easy meetings in, and everything will be easier.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In today’s issue, I’ll share 4 simple steps you can follow to keep prospecting as a busy Account Executive. If you’re in sales, no matter your job title, you have to prospect. Your job description may lead you to think otherwise, but you’re never done prospecting as long as you stay in sales.

The good news is that, if you do it right, prospecting isn’t something particularly challenging or time-consuming. You just have to follow a precise system.

Here it is, step-by-step:

Step 1: Put a recurring blocker

This step is 80% of your success in prospecting. Audit your day to find the time when you’re the most productive. For example, I am always more productive in the mornings, from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM.

When you have determined your most productive time, find a 30 – 60 min slot when you don’t have meetings and set a recurring blocker. This blocker allows you to protect your time from colleagues, managers, and team meetings that prevent you from doing your job (most of team meetings do).

By having a recurring blocker, your colleagues will know your prospecting rituals, and no one will be able to book any time in your calendar during this block. This is how mine looks like:

In today’s issue, I’ll share the exact system you can follow if you want to poach your competitor’s audience. These steps will help you use the marketing efforts of your competitors to find qualified prospects, and reach out to them.

If you follow these steps, you’ll find an (almost) endless source of leads, you’ll learn how to start conversations with them, and you’ll book more meetings.

Let’s dive in:

Step 1: List your competitors

If you don’t have a list of competitors, this step will be a good opportunity to build one. You can go on G2 and list the competitors in your space. Ideally, focus on the ones that have important marketing budgets, as they are more likely to invest in LinkedIn ads (which we will use as a source of leads).

You can also create a second tier in your list, with partners and companies that aren’t directly competing with you, but serving the same types of customers. For example, I could include Amplemarket, as we are partners, and we serve the same types of customers, without ever competing. I can also list all their competitors to get even more lead sources.

Step 2: Go to their company page

Now that you have a list of competitors and partners, you can go to their LinkedIn page and do a quick audit. If the company page is only filled with company announcements, or updates about their new offices, then they are not a fit.

But if the company has posts that get a good engagement (check Amplemarket’s LinkedIn pages for some fun content), or sponsored posts, then you have a good lead source.

Step 3: Find their organic posts and/or ads

You have a shortlist of great companies, now is the time to go and find some leads. Scroll through the organic posts and check if the people who liked these posts fit with your ICP. For example, ZoomInfo recently shared a “Day in the life of an SDR” video on their LinkedIn page, and it collected over 100 reactions and comments. A quick scan of the post reactions and I can already see a few prospects fitting with my ICP.

But the most powerful option is to find the Ads posts from this company. Just go to the Posts section and filter by “Ads”. You’ll then see the ads this company has been running.

For example, this ad about making it to president club without cold calling is a great magnet for prospects who fit with my ICP.

In today’s issue, I’ll share the exact steps I follow to personalize my outreach. These steps will help you understand where you can find personalization elements, how to link them to your prospects, and how to turn them into triggers.

If you follow these steps, you’ll get more replies, and you’ll book more meetings as a result.

Let’s dive in:

Step 1: Know your prospects’ problems

Before diving into personalizing your outreach, make sure you know why you’re reaching out. If you’re prospecting with the goal of selling something, you won’t get much replies. Instead, focus on understanding the type of companies you’d like to contact (Ideal Customer Companies), as well as the type of individual inside of these companies (Ideal Customer Title). I recommend building an ICP Matrix to do so:

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

In today’s newsletter, I will walk you through an important concept for salespeople. I call it “The Netflix Effect”, and it’s a powerful concept to help you start more conversations, and book more meetings.

It’s important because it will change your focus from trying to book meetings, to starting conversations by using a natural trait of humans: curiosity.

Let’s dive in.

The Netflix Effect

What’s the latest Netflix series you’ve been hooked to?

I’ve been religiously binge watching every season of Love is Blind with my wife, and it came down to one simple reason.

The producers of the show made it impossible to stop watching the show by adding a cliffhanger at the end of each episode.

They build tension by showcasing drama, and they cut to the next episode, right before solving the drama. Will Izzy end up with Johnie? Is Milton actually going to propose to Lydia?

There’s only one way to know – keep watching.

Teasing instead of giving

Here’s how I recommend using the “Netflix effect” when you’re prospecting

1. Find a big problem your prospects are faced with every day: What massive problems are these people trying to solve every day?
2. List symptoms of these problems: What concrete symptoms these problems create?
3. Find resources to alleviate the symptoms: Are there resources you can share to solve these problems?
4. Tease the resource into your message: Ask questions about these symptoms, and tease the corresponding resource.

Example: Selling a spend management software

For example, let’s say you’re a rep working at a spend management platform, helping finance teams track their expenses and increase their bottom lines.

Start by following the 4 steps from above:

Find a big problem your prospects are faced with every day: Let’s assume you’re building a prospecting sequence to start conversations with CFOs of B2B tech companies, with a ton of salespeople traveling and spending money to land new customers. A big problem is the considerable amount of expenses generated by the sales team, and the potential for expenses to spiral out of control. It’s a massive headache for a CFO with a tight budget.

List symptoms of these problems: There are tons of symptoms of this massive problem for a CFO. For example, they may do a monthly expense check and see a business class ticket booked by a sales rep, when they are supposed to fly in economy. Another example could be a $1.500+ restaurant bill, when the company limit is $250. You can’t get reimbursed for a restaurant expense like that, and if you work with a lot of salespeople, these T&E expenses can quickly get out of control.

Find resources to alleviate symptoms: Your company should have some free resources to market to your prospect. In our example, an Acceptable Expense Policy template would be incredible valuable to a CFO. They could share this policy and get it signed every quarter by salespeople, as part of their quarterly performance review.

Tease the resource into your message: Here’s an example of a cold message to a CFO:

“Martin, saw you hired over 40 salespeople in 2023 alone.

Curious to know how you’re preventing all these salespeople from spending way too much money on T&E expenses like flights and customer dinners.

If controlling your reps expenses is an issue, I have an Acceptable Expense Policy template you can directly share with your salespeople.

Worth a peek?”

Tying it back to you

If your job involves booking meetings with prospects (it should be if you’re in sales), picking their curiosity is the best way to start conversations. You can do it by listing concrete problems they are trying to solve every day.

Once you’ve done that, list detailed symptoms of these problems, find or build resources to help solve these problems, and include them into your messages.

This approach will help you start many more conversations, by using a trait all humans have – curiosity.

Hope this was helpful.

Cheers,

Thibaut