This is a conversation we need to have. Cold outreach is one of the core tenants of successful sellers, right? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the founder of Blueprint, Jordan Crawford, to discuss why there might be a better strategy.

Every job Jordan has, he’s either been fired from, or the company went under.

• He ultimately found his place helping startups scale and grow for long-term success, and it was through this endeavor he found a better methodology than personalized cold outreach.
• The ‘spray-and-pray’ method was the initial online sales foray. However, that soon led the way to personalized outreach. So, is a new method taking the lead?

Personalization has its uses, and there are times it is still functional. However, there are some where it isn’t.

• Personalization helps grab a prospect’s attention. But as a B2B seller, you should only want their attention if their company has a problem your solution can help solve.
• If you aren’t making a commercial transaction, personalization can have great power. 
• Sellers can’t test personalization systematically; you must have a way to process the data that is useful to prospects and act on it.
• Invest in data that leads to understanding product-market fit that solves your customers' core problems.

Personalize based on problems, not on the person:

• Once the potential problems are identified, sellers can sift through potential prospects and interact with them based on those problems the prospect (or their company) might be facing.
• We’re in the world of tactics. But if you lead with insight based on a prospect’s problem, you’ll be successful. 

How can a sales team can implement this strategy:

• Determine what channels and messaging work for your company.
• Do a bottom-up analysis to understand everything about the consumer and who you’re selling to. Only after this point should you go to market.
• Score existing customers by a ‘rubric’ of your ideal customer. If they are a rough match, you’ll know you’ve achieved a more scalable business.
• You must determine the data sources to find the consumers struggling with the products you solve.

Jordan’s final takeaway? If you’re in the sales system, spend time with customer success to determine what consumers already know. Because if you know what they know, you can build models that find more organizations like them. For more content from Jordan, connect with him on LinkedIn or email him at [email protected]. 

This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio.

Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real.

But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com.

This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad.

Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution.

Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. 

As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.

Mentioned in this episode:

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

hubpspot.com/marketers

bluemangostudios.com