Why You NEED Outbound Sales to Get More Quality Meetings
Your salesperson is talented, smart, and hard-working, but they aren't booking enough meetings. So, where is everything going wrong?
By Amy Ingraham on July 11, 2019
Inbound marketing is all anyone’s talking about but when it comes to the B2B SaaS market, outbound sales could be the key to unlock expansion.
Some of the most powerful software companies in the world, including inbound-king Hubspot, have rapidly scaled up by creating seamless, personalized, and effective outbound strategies.
Gartner projects that the SaaS market will do a whopping 113.1 billion ($US)in 2021. Therefore, with that potential for growth and an average of 9 competitors for each product; the companies have to be smarter and faster when it comes to growth strategy.
We’re Breaking Down Five Common B2B SaaS Growth Problems in a Series of Articles Including:
This is part one of a series of five articles breaking down common problems seen in SaaS.Check out the post below to find out if your product needs outbound sales to come out on top.
Your Sales Team is Overwhelmed and Underperforming
Your sales team is all over the board. They’re scouting leads and target companies, prospecting, nurturing, and sometimes closing a deal. Or maybe your “team” consists of only one person doing it all on their own.
You know exactly how many monthly deals you’re closing and your current ARR. However, the critical question is: How many quality sales meetings are you getting per month?
That question leads to understanding predictable revenue. In simple words – figuring out how much money you can make in the next year. Creating more income is a simple game of mathematics.
Maybe you’re just starting out, and you’re killing it with a 40% conversion rate by going after the low-hanging fruit. Further down the road, it’s challenging to get a funnel conversion rate above 20% or 25%. Feeding your funnel a high volume of quality meetings is vital.
Your salesperson is talented, smart, and hard-working. But chances are their scattered schedule is sparse of those Grade-A meetings. And no meetings mean no deals. So, where the heck is everything going wrong?
Let’s break this down into two main issues:
1. There’s No Specialization in Your Team:
Outbound sales as a side task aren’t generating enough meetings.
Each sales rep is managing their own funnel, their own way, from start to finish.
2. You’re Starting the Funnel Wrong:
Your team isn’t armed with enough tools or time to properly investigate and ID target companies.
Each rep goes after leads or ideal customer profiles (ICPs) they’re most comfortable with, which might not be in the company’s overall best interest.
Your sales process is focused on the lower pipeline (closing a deal), instead of feeding the pipeline (reaching out to the correct person from the right company).
The lack of a market research role results in low-quality leads and companies.
If your company doesn’t have market research or sales development roles, it makes it that much easier to mess things up at the top of the funnel. Moreover, pinpointing ICPs takes systematic research to get the intricacies of a persona’s company and career before even making the first contact.
Put yourself in your potential buyer’s shoes,would you respond to the generic cold email “Don’t you want to scale faster?” Delete. You’d probably be more likely to consider, “As CEO, aren’t you tired of unclear sales metrics and lack of a system to understand what activities your salesperson is performing?”
Put yourself in your buyer’s shoes, would you respond to the generic email “Don’t you want to scale faster?” Delete.
The fix
Think about this – 56% of B2B buyers cite the salesperson’s ability to flex knowledge and insights about the buyer’s company as a winning factor in their purchase decision. Going deep into the root of the pain point and background of the lead shows that you are prepared, diligent, and care about a more personalized professional relationship.
In conclusion, preparative steps for effective outreach are crucial yet time-consuming, making it hard for both prospects and sell in the same role. Above all, keep in mind that the in-funnel conversion rate increases when you get both the right target companies and ideal personas from the start.
A dedicated outbound sales team member is the specialized ninja that connects your company with the right targets while armed with the best market research available.
The Takeaway: Your funnel is only as healthy as the leads and companies you’re feeding it. Specialize and strategize from the top-down with outbound.
