Sequencing for B2B Sales Teams: Why it Matters

While I am going to primarily be focusing on B2B because that is the market that I am currently working in, most of my insights are actually going to be as relevant to B2C sales. The main difference being that most B2C sales the touches will primarily be automated with marketing tools (such as ad retargeting and email follow-ups) and the tools I would recommend for that would be different from the ones that I would recommend for B2B sequencing. However, the timing and a lot of the principles I would suggest for B2B which are kind of new to this space I actually am taking from my years of B2C experience.

It has been about 4 years since I worked with a large B2B sales company before my recent position. At Document Builders and Whizomation I was more or less the marketing and sales department. At Brain 2 Books and Our Write Side, it was B2C and B2B2C which are very different strategies than what I was doing at MultiView all those years ago.

In the four years that I have been focusing on the B2B2C space, there have been MASSIVE changes in the way that we operated to get in front of prospects. So imagine my surprise when coming back into the B2B sales space I am hearing the same conversations from 4-6 years ago about whether or not one should use other resources besides phone and email to connect and interact with prospects. I am seeing and listening to sales enablement teams struggling with how many touches, when, how long, and so many sales reps are still often only calling 2-3 times, leaving 1 message and then moving on.

When one of my sales enablement colleagues showed me Outreach, I was so excited! This is the solution to so many of those debates “Do I leave a message? What should I say in a message? Should I connect on social media? When should I send that request? How long do I keep following up with a lead? What do I say over so many touches?” and lets you connect your sales with marketing content and provide tips on how to use it. Outreach basically allows you to script all of that, A/B test (every marketer's favorite aspect of any automation, right?) and then put it into the hands of your sales teams to copy those sequences and customize and personalize them to their own selling style (within reason).

While there are tons of great resources on sequencing (including Outreach’s own blog) there was one element that I felt all of them lacked in their training (and the reason I am writing this post to weigh in).

Why the Sequence Should Matter to the Customer

I love telling stories and I use sequencing through Outreach to tell a story of engagement with our prospects. That story starts with marketing. I look at marketing campaigns that are active and the pieces of content that are planned to be shared in their automated interactions. Then I follow that same theme and collect different and unique content that continues to tell that story that marketing has established. If a prospect never responds to that sequence, they get two full stories in the series and we let them go for a bit until their interactions indicate that they want to hear another story from us.

If in the middle of this sales sequence they indicate that they are interested in having a conversation, then we move them to the next story that also contains its own unique set of content. It is really fun because it is kind of like writing a Choose Your Own Adventure Story.

Sequence Example

Let me share with you what I consider to be a very solid sequence template that you can tweak and adjust to match:

Lead Generated from Webinar sequence and prospect received 4 pieces of content (an e-book, a white paper, a product brochure, and an invite to another webinar), or at some point in the process filled out a form requesting to speak to a sales rep.

1st Touch- Email referencing the webinar and their interest to speak, inviting them to schedule a time that works best for them.

2nd Touch- 1 day later (Day 2) phone call. If no answer, leave a brief message no more than 30 seconds referencing your name, company, phone number, the reason for calling (webinar name) and then leave your name and phone number again. While making call

3rd Touch- Look them up on Linkedin and/ or the social media site most commonly used by your industry and/ or do a quick google search. Follow them. If you read something recent and interesting, comment or interact.

4th Touch- 1 day later- (Day 3) phone call. No answer, do not leave a message. While waiting

5th Touch- Back to social media, like and comment, interact. Send an invite to connect with a message along the lines of “Hello XYZ, I really liked your post on ABC. I love networking with others in XYZ field and keeping up on industry trends and news. I look forward to seeing more of your content.”

6th Touch- 3 days later (Day 6) Phone call. If no answer, leave a message about your 1st piece of collateral and how many people who enjoyed the webinar also found this interesting. Leave name and number twice.

7th Touch- 1 day later (Day 7) if no callback, send a follow-up email to the first email sharing the link to the piece of collateral and inviting them to schedule a meeting.

8th Touch- Same day, take a moment to go on social media and engage and interact with one of their posts and see if they have accepted your friend request.

9th Touch- 3 days later (day 10) Call. No answer, leave a message about trying to connect to schedule an appointment.

10th Touch- 3 days later (Day 13)- Call, No answer, do not leave a message.

11th Touch- Same day if they accepted your request on social media share a post with your second piece of collateral and tag them (and anyone else in this sequence at this stage who have also accepted your friend request. If you find tagging too intrusive, you don’t have to tag.) and mention, “I found this piece of content really informative (cite a specific element that touched you in the piece.) I would love your input on it.” If they have not accepted your request, then send it via email.

12th Touch- 5 days later. (Day 18) Call, if no answer, leave a brief message about scheduling an appointment.

13th Touch- Same day. Go and engage/ comment on one of their new posts.

14th Touch- 3 days later (Day 21) Call. No answer, do not leave a message.

15th Touch- Same day- Send a final email with a final piece of content, final meeting invite and let them know something along the lines of “I’m usually pretty good at reading between the lines and I am reading that you are not interested in talking about XYZ at this time. As such, I hope this last piece is beneficial to you and you need not do anything else. I hope we will continue to learn and network on XYZ network and if in the future you would like to discuss how we can work together, I will be happy to talk.” (This technique of creating a situation in which you require them to opt-in again for continuing content is actually one of the tips I picked up from some genius at the Sales Development Summit. I want to say it was How to Ask the Right Questions by Tim Wackel, but don’t quote me on that. The idea is that if they are interested, then they will respond back and let you know if there is some sort of delay to their conversation. If they aren’t then they will just let it go and so should your sales rep.)

That is a 21 day 15 touch sequence that starts off a bit heavy but tapers off towards the end. For those with experience in sequence strategy, I would love your input on this.

A Solid Sequence is not Enough

I think that while having a solid sequence is really important, it is also important to educate your sales teams on the why behind your sequences. Otherwise, you may find your team completely removing half of your touches. This is where sales enablement, in general, seems to be struggling. We create content and tools and then our sales teams don’t use them. Then we find ourselves falling into the same role that sales and marketing have had in most organizations for years: pointing the finger and blaming the other side for not moving the needle enough.

At the end of the day, you can give a person all the tools in the world. However, if you do not teach them how and most importantly why to use those tools then they are just a bunch of shiny objects that a handful will try to figure out, some will break, but the vast majority of people will ignore and keep doing what they previously had done which seemed to work fine as far as they were concerned.

As someone who has taken a group of cub scouts to a planetarium can attest, this is true of all human nature, not just sales teams. Often the descriptions on how to use the equipment addressed “how” never addressing “why”. I remember one exhibit was a telescope and it instructed the user to look into the eyepiece. Very simple instructions. Several of my boys hopped up and looked. They complained about not being able to see anything. Most of the others chose to look up into the sky instead (the old way of doing it) and while I was herding them to stay together at this exhibit, our other leader went to get help. Two of the handy boys started twisting nobs and dials trying to figure out how to see something. Of course, they had no idea what they were trying to see so they just made a mess.  

The planetarium staff member was quite flustered because this kept occurring over and over. It took her 10 minutes to get it realigned and set up so that the kids could see the “dark space” that was the whole point of that section of the exhibit. How many people just moved past us trying to get this tool to work and missed out because they didn’t want to be slowed down? Knowing that not seeing anything was the point would have solved the delay. More instruction at the telescope itself telling why we should want to look into it and tying it into the whole exhibit would have made all the difference.

I think that sales leaders and enablement teams have the same struggle. We are giving our teams all these important tools, like Outreach, that we know are valuable because of our years of experience in sales. But we forget that new sales reps need to be instructed on some things that we may see as so simple, such as how and when to leave a message. We forget that many grew up in a generation where you didn’t have to leave a message because people knew who called by caller ID. They haven’t had the experience of business numbers not showing up that way.

Even many of our older sales members may never have been given proper training or coaching. They are doing the best that they can, based on trial, error, and experience but few have taken the time to A/B test techniques. They are busy selling during business hours and probably are not keeping up with sales training research and content available out there. They don’t know that while almost half of all reps give up on a lead after 2 calls, statistics from OPO Sales Development Practice from 2015 “The Sales Development Technology Report” indicate that it takes an average of 18 calls to actually connect with a buyer.

Outreach guides you with templates that range from 14-21 touches based on the qualification of the leads. If a user takes the time to read Outreach’s blogs and other resources, you totally understand why they make those recommendations. Yet so many sales professionals are still giving up after 2 calls. Why? Because sales managers let them burn through leads and keep trying to get the apples that have fallen off the tree and will fit in their pocket, rather than equipping them on how to use tools like a bucket and ladder to access the vast majority of leads.

It is also the same reason that when we asked our sales teams to set up campaigns we got a lot of them setting up 4-step sequences consisting of two calls and two emails over the course of maybe 2 weeks. Not one included social media, despite statistics from Spotio like

“65% of salespeople who use social selling fill their pipeline, compared to 47% of reps who do not.

78% of salespeople using social media outsell their peers.

75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-level or vice-president level executives use social media to make purchasing decisions.

31% of B2B professionals said that social selling allowed them to build deeper relationships with their clients.

Sales reps who use social selling are 50% more likely to meet or exceed their quota.

63.4 percent of sales reps engaged in social selling report an increase in their company’s revenue (compared to just 41.2 percent of non-social sellers).

Four in 10 reps have closed 2-5 deals directly thanks to social media.

Using social selling tools can increase the average deal size by 35%.”

When I was CFO at Our Write Side, I got sales pitches all the time for tech stacks, and before I would even remotely consider taking that call or calling back, you know what was the first thing I did? I look the sales rep and company up on Linkedin. Then I would take a quick peek at what they had going on over on Twitter, and Facebook. I was very conscientious in where we put our limited start-up funds. Not only did I need a great product at a very good price, I needed a company that would provide the resources my team needed to learn how to use those tools and was also sharing general content showing that they understood our field and were staying on top of industry trends. My third purpose was that we always wanted to partner with companies and people who shared similar values and supported similar organizations.

I knew before I ever picked up that phone if I wanted to consider working with someone. I remember the first time a sales rep left a message and said

“Hi Heidi, I am ____ and I am calling to discuss how a partnership between Our Write Side and _______ could be very beneficial for both of us. I saw on Linkedin that you are participating on the panel _____________ at _________ event. I will also be there and would love to grab coffee or lunch one day, if you have time in your schedule?”

I knew nothing about this kid, but clearly he knew a lot about me. With so much of my professional life available in a 5-minute internet search, there is no excuse for a sales rep to not know. Yet most sales reps I’ve worked with always forget this step. I cannot tell you how many leads I’ve seen retired because “Not a valid lead. This is not XYZ business.” And a 2-second search of the business name will find that the phone number was transposed. The number of calls I’ve gotten from sales teams who received my information because I watched a webinar or downloaded an e-book (as part of my “Always be Learning” philosophy on life.) and the first thing they ask is “So what is your position?” it’s right there on my Linkedin profile. Really? On a rare occasion, they will know and I appreciate that they made the effort to know that about me.

Sales reps complain because learning that information takes time away from selling. But if you cannot even bother to know what my position is, then what else could you possibly know about my business that makes you so sure your product can help me? I know, I’ve heard plenty argue “because I’m an expert in my product and it can help anyone!” There is a reason that The Challenger method specifically discusses arming your sales teams with industry-related data and trends because their study showed that sales teams who were informed on the industry could better relate the product benefits to the prospect. While it is great to know about the industry, knowing about the prospect makes them feel like you not only know the industry but might actually know something about their personal struggle in the industry.

I have also been the gatekeeper who told a sales rep, “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number” and “we do not do XYZ” because it was the easiest way to get rid of them and was faster than “I’ll take a message” which many would take as a sign of interest. If they had done any research on our company, they could easily come back and say “It says on your website that you do.” That would give me pause that maybe they did know something worth talking about to my boss. If that person then followed up with “I am reaching out to them about the XYZ webinar they attended and the consultation they requested” I am not only going to take that message, I am going to make sure that message ends up on my boss’s desk. If I know that my boss is specifically researching those solutions? I might even schedule that appointment. (Yes, gatekeepers often pretend to take messages and 90% of those messages never make it to their boss’s desk.) Make the gatekeeper’s job hard. They will respect you for it. I sure did.

Sales Teams Use What Works

When we tell our sales teams these types of stories and give them the understanding into the why of our asks of them and show them how statistically these behaviors significantly increase their chance of making contact and closing a deal then, of course, they will want to use it. When we continue interacting with them by getting their feedback on A/B testing, and hearing their concerns and struggles, providing feedback and maybe even coaching then suddenly we will find that they are far more open to using our tools and listening to our tips.

Let’s help one another build better sequencing and support our sales teams better. Have you tried sequencing? What did you find worked and didn’t work? Any tips or suggestions?