Sales is a numbers game — the more chances you take, the more likely you are to find someone who’s interested in your product. But that’s not to say it’s always easy. Cold-calling can yield great results, but being hung up on regularly is a standard part of any salesperson’s life. 

So how can you ensure that you’re getting a more receptive audience for your wares? We’ve put together some key sales prospecting tips and techniques in order to help you get a “Yes” far more often. 

You would be surprised how many salespeople — both new and experienced — don’t really have a good idea of who their customers really are. Instead, they focus solely on the product, working under the belief that they can sell it to just about anyone under the right circumstances. But though results can be achieved this way, not everyone is a natural-born Billy Mays — so it tends to involve a ton of needless hard work and energy that could have been expended elsewhere.

Instead, hone in on who your target audience really is — take a closer look at who’s purchased previously, and who your company is trying to reach in the future. If you’ve got a clear picture of who you’re selling to, you’re far more likely to make focused calls and chase relevant leads. A focused and diligent approach will always yield better results.

People like doing business with people they like. But if the only communication you have with your prospects or prior customers is oriented around sales, you’re going to burn them out pretty quickly. Conversely, this doesn’t mean you need to badger them for personal details about their lives outside of the workplace, either. What’s important is that you’re adding value for them while also keeping yourself and your company top of mind. Simple emails or calls for occasions like birthdays or holidays can be highly effective, as can L&D opportunities.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how relevant your product is to a given customer — if you catch them at the wrong time with a cold call, then it can simply go unheard or get brushed off. So something as simple as sending an email ahead of time to book an appointment for a future call can be a highly effective way of piquing their interest. This way, you’re meeting on their terms and in a space where they’re more likely to be receptive.

But making that initial connection can be fraught at times too — a simple form email won’t cut it. And that’s where the next step comes in.

In a world of generic, mass email blasts, personalization is a hugely effective way to stand out from the crowd. Even something as simple as including the recipient’s name in the subject line or opening line of the email can be an effective way to increase the likelihood of it being read. Whether you’re using it as a sales presentation or product demonstration, incorporating personalized touches can be an effective way to make your email stand out from the competition. Personalized video in particular can be a great way to break through the gatekeepers and reduce the number of hangups you receive next time you make a sales call.

At the start of 2021, metrics were painting a dismal picture for a leading SaaS company based in the APAC region. Their sales and business developers were experiencing record low response and meeting rates.

Cold outreach email responses were as low as 15%. In turn, this impacted meeting conversions — crashing to an all-time low of 4% for email to meeting conversion. Desperate to transform their performance, their Regional Director of Sales and Business Development equipped his team with Shootsta’s AI-powered app Elevate to create and scale personalized videos.

The key ingredient? Personalized videos in their emails.

This didn’t mean creating completely customized videos every time, either — that wouldn’t be an efficient way to use your prospecting time. Tools like Elevate and Cast can help streamline the process, allowing you to tweak key elements of your footage to suit an individual client.

Rather, these videos included a personalized intro with the recipient’s name, lower thirds, music, cutaways and more — all of it styled to match the company’s distinctive branding. Their sales reps were able to now create and send dozens of these professional videos a day to their leads. Within 90 days the sales team transformed their performance to a staggering 70% email response rate. They also accelerated their sales cycle by reducing their cold outreach email to meeting speed from 10 days to 4 days.