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  Are you committed to grading your accounts?

  This whole chapter is fundamental. Odds are that you are pursuing a career in sales because you enjoy talking to people and solving problems. To be successful in sales you must be able to manage your time well. Understanding what a qualified account looks like and grading those accounts will help you reduce the amount of time you spend on low value activities.

  I want you to be the best prospector at your company. In order to be that you must put your full focus and energy on the accounts that will yield results. Some of you might be saying “but Kyle, how do I find accounts?”

  Read on young grasshopper… Read on.

  Building and Managing a Pipeline

  What is a Pipeline?

  Iknow you’re itching to put down this book and start calling. I get it; I love the hunt as well. Before we dive into call technique, I think it’s important for you to understand what a pipeline is and how to build and manage one. Fair?

  A pipeline is your entire list of accounts, from new accounts you haven’t touched to ones that you’re “sooooo close” to booking a meeting with. Typically, your pipeline consists of all your accounts unless you remove them from your list.

  Building and maintaining a pipeline is a lot of work and should always be part of an effective salesperson’s workflow.

  The main areas we will cover in this chapter are how to find accounts and contacts to add to your pipeline, enriching those accounts, and finally, how to stay on top of your pipeline. Building and maintaining a pipeline is a lot of work and it can get pretty mundane. The biggest mistake you can make is to neglect your pipeline maintenance, because you’re too busy or you think you already have enough momentum.

  Even if the company has a powerful marketing strategy, building and managing a pipeline will always be part of a salesperson’s workflow.

  This is what separates the best prospectors from the rest.

  Proper Account Organization

  Account organization is the first step in successful pipeline management. The best prospectors stay organized. They organize everything—their days, accounts, contacts, and outreach. Keeping these areas organized is extremely important and will directly impact your success.

  For the process of managing your pipeline, I recommend using stages. A “stage” is what identifies where each account is in the sales process. Here are 6 stages I recommend—”Open,” “Working,” “Prospect,” “Bad Data,” “Archive,” and “Unqualified.” Think of these as “buckets.” Buckets are put in to track account status. Following this stage system from the beginning will help you effectively manage your prospecting time for meeting bookings, reaching out to interested contacts, and adding accounts to your list. Most customer relationship management (CRM) systems have various ways to to mark these stages and track them.

  Let’s go over the above stages in detail.

  Open

  Accounts marked as open are ones you haven’t attempted to contact. These are new accounts and are not qualified yet. They may be missing a contact or important information like a phone number or email. Once you find that information and call or email a contact at this account, it gets changed to the next stage.

  Working

  Working is the next step in the accounts circle of life. Much like a caterpillar spinning its cocoon, a Working account is where change happens. These are the accounts that you have correct information for and are regularly pursuing. Some of these accounts you already know are qualified; others, you will be attempting to contact for qualification. Your list of Working accounts will be where you spend a good portion of your time, especially in the beginning of your prospecting. This will also be the stage where most of your accounts will live and they will live there until you make contact or change their stage.

  Prospect

  An account is in the Prospect stage when you have spoken to a contact and they are qualified. They might not be ready, but they are a good fit and may need your solution in the future. Whenever you speak to a contact, your goal should be to book a meeting. That isn’t always possible. If the decision maker says that they are not interested or you find that your information is bad and this isn’t a qualified account, you will remove them from this stage. If you have a reason to call this account again, it stays in the Prospect stage. Be selective about the accounts you put in this stage. If you only spoke to a receptionist don’t put the lead into the Prospect stage. It should be left in the Working stage. If you spoke to the director of marketing and he tells you that they are in need of a solution like yours, the stage is definitely Prospect.

  The last three stages (Bad Data, Archived, and Unqualified) are for accounts that are no longer in your active group. You can consider these leads “removed” from your pipeline. Never delete them because conditions could change and you or marketing might want to try and activate the accounts again.

  Bad Data

  This is for an account where the information you have is bad. The phone number might be disconnected and you can’t find another one. Emails you send them bounce. This stage is where you might want marketing to take over and try and enrich for you. Or, you can do it yourself during non-peak calling times.

  Archived

  If you have never been able to contact a decision maker or they’ve told you they are not interested in a way that warrants you taking them out of your pipeline, the account should be marked Archived. Use good judgment and only put accounts here that you have no future plans for recontacting. Always add a note why the account has been archived.

  Unqualified

  If you learn something about an account that makes it no longer qualified, you should mark it as Unqualified. Sometimes we think an account is qualified based on what we find in our research or what we hear from the employees we speak with on the phone. As you chase these accounts you may learn something that no longer makes them worth chasing. For example, if you only work with companies that use Salesforce as their CRM and in your research you find that they are using Salesforce, you have a qualified lead. If you talk to a decision maker and he says that they just switched from Salesforce to a different CRM, you would now mark that account unqualified.

  Take a look at this diagram that shows how account would flow between the different stages:

  FINDING LEADS

  Alright friends, now we get to the good stuff. How do we find leads to call? How challenging it is to find accounts and contacts really depends on two things—the tools you have available and the types of businesses you are targeting. Some companies invest a lot into software tools that aid their sales development teams, but not all companies do. I will write this chapter from the perspective of someone with no prospecting tools. I will label each section with the tools that would make the section I am writing about either automated or obsolete. If you would like, skip the sections in this chapter that are irrelevant to you based on the tools your company provides. The one tool I will assume you have access to is a CRM (CRM is a “customer relationship management” software that tracks your accounts and contacts to keep them organized).

  Building your pipeline

  (Tools that may help: LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Zoominfo)

  In order to build your pipeline you need to know what you are looking for. Make sure you know the qualifications that we went over in the last chapter. When it comes to building your pipeline, efficiency is key and you want to add accounts quickly so you can start your outreach. It is common for new reps to spend a lot of time doing research trying to find out as much information as possible. Most information can be found by making one call, and that saves you time. There are four mandatory pieces of information that you are looking for—contact name, company name, company phone number, and company website.

  You will notice that I do not mention contact email and there’s a reason for this. The first wave of prospecting is just finding the b
asics to add accounts to your pipeline. I am a firm believer in organizing your time in tasks that are similar in nature. Research shows that context switching slows you down, so I recommend avoiding it whenever possible. That being said, there are some secondary pieces of information that can be easy to find while you’re looking for the 4 mandatory pieces of information above. Those are contact title, contact email, company email, and any qualifications that may be easy to find online, for example, number of employees.

  If you see information while searching for the mandatory 4 pieces that is useful to you, add it. However, do not fall into the trap of going out of your way searching for information that isn’t mandatory. That information may be hard to find or not available and all you will end up doing is wasting time.

  To find potential accounts look online for lists of companies that fit in your target market. For example, Yelp.com would be a great resource if you are selling to restaurants. If you are selling to tech companies who just received series B funding, check out Crunchbase.com. Simply Google some criteria and find companies that match that. Once you have the company name, find their website and there you will see their main phone number. Now you have three of your four mandatory criteria, the last piece being contact name.

  Many company websites have a section where they list their team. Finding a contacts name can be as simple as going to that section and choosing the person who is most likely to be the decision maker. If the company website does not have that section simply google “CEO of ABC Company” and you will most likely find it. LinkedIn is another great resource for finding contacts but you will get blocked from the site if you make too many searches, unless you pay.

  As you find this information you should be adding it to your CRM system and putting the account in the Open stage. Repeat this process until you have at least 100-300 accounts in your pipeline, depending on your industry. You will keep coming back to this process as you need more accounts to call, but 100 accounts should be enough to start with.

  At this point you should have a list of at least 100 companies, each with a website, phone number, and a person who you would like to get in contact with. So what do you do? I would get on the phone and start calling. You will learn more in less time by calling than by playing around on Google, but that doesn’t mean we are done building your pipeline. You aren’t going to be able to get your desired contact on the phone every time so you will need to use other forms of communication, like email or LinkedIn message. In order to use these other forms of communication you will have to continue to enrich your accounts.

  Enriching your accounts

  (Tools that may help: Zoominfo, Discoverorg)

  Enriching your list requires you to spend time doing deeper research on your accounts. The goal is to find information that will help you get in contact with a stakeholder, which will get you closer to booking a meeting. This information is email, LinkedIn, direct phone number, and a second contact. Which one of these is the most effective depends on your target market. For example, if you are targeting tech companies, LinkedIn may be even more powerful than Email. This doesn’t hold true in industries where LinkedIn is less popular, for example, construction. Fortunately, email is universally used, so it’s a great place to start.

  Email

  Finding the email of a contact at the company you are working can be a challenge without any tools to help you. The first thing you should do is call the company and see if you can connect with your target contact. If you are unable to reach that person ask the person you speak with for the email you are looking for. This is the gatekeeper. A gatekeeper is the person who answers the phone and screens calls. They most likely won’t give you the email, which isn’t surprising considering their job is to prevent you from speaking with the contact. I have come across a few tips that have been useful for finding someone’s email.

  Tip #1: Ask the gatekeeper if you can send them an email with some information to show your target contact. If they agree and give you an email, such as [email protected], then you’ve struck gold. You can use the same email format with your contacts first and last name and that will most likely be their direct email.

  Tip #2: Look at social media pages and sometimes, in the about section, there will be an email. That email will either be a generic [email protected] email or it will be the email of whoever created the page. That email will give you the format which will allow you to do the same thing as tip #1.

  Tip #3: Good old fashion guessing! Nothing screams fun like sending emails to different format variations hoping that one sticks. There are a few websites that allow you to type in an email address and it will tell you if that email is valid or not. This is a slow way to figure out someone’s email and I would recommend you ask your company to invest in a tool before spending too much time on this.

  LinkedIn

  If you are targeting an industry where the employees use LinkedIn, then you would be foolish to ignore this medium. Sending someone a message on LinkedIn is more likely to get you a response than email, so take advantage of it. LinkedIn offers a premium service that, if you pay for it, will help you find accounts and organize your contacts. It will also allow you to send them a message without being connected. If you don’t have access to LinkedIn Premium then you will have to send your contact a connection request.

  I recommend connecting with every one of your contacts on LinkedIn. That way you will be able to send them a message without LinkedIn Premium. When enriching your accounts, find your contacts LinkedIn page, and then, save the link to their profile. Their LinkedIn page will give you insight into your contact that will help you customize your messaging for all future communications.

  Direct phone number

  It can be a bit of a challenge to find someone’s direct phone number, but not impossible. The easiest way is when you are calling a main company number and they have a directory that gives you the extension of your contact. Not all companies make it that easy, and of course, then you will have to ask the gatekeeper. If the gatekeeper won’t give out that information, you only have one more option, other than using a tool. You can send an email to your contact hoping that they respond and have a direct line in their email signature. After you have exhausted those avenues, just stick with the company’s main line. We will talk about how to get through gatekeepers in the next chapter.

  Second contact

  Finding a second contact at the company is helpful when you’re not getting any traction with your first contact. You want to build out the second contact with the same information as the first, contact name, email, LinkedIn, and a direct phone number. You will be attempting to connect with this person using similar methods as the first. The reason why this is important is because it’s not uncommon for the first contact you find to be hard to reach or not the correct person. By having multiple contacts at a single company, you are maximizing your chances of finding an entry point, a person to start a conversation with.

  One of the easiest traps to fall into is spending too much time doing research. There is a point where research goes from invaluable to a time waster. With few exceptions, you should aim to be able to enrich your leads in two minutes or less. Do not trick yourself into thinking that the more research you do the better your calls will go—that’s not how it plays out. A call will go as well as your skill level allows it to go and more research rarely helps. More research can help when customizing an email and we will cover that in a later chapter.

  Trigger events

  (Tools to help: LinkedIn Premium, Owler)

  When a company goes through a big change, or has something interesting happen it can trigger action. So many events can trigger someone to take action, even something as simple as a conversation at a party. In most cases you will not know when these events take place involving the contacts that you are trying to book a meeting with. However, there are public events that correlate with a
ction being taken and these are called trigger events. You want to make sure that they pop up on your radar so you can take advantage of them and reach out to the account.

  News

  Great prospectors stay up to date with what’s going on in their industry, since this gives them authority and also alerts them to trigger events. You must take the time to find what blogs your target contacts are reading. Subscribe to relevant newsletters and join the LinkedIn groups they are members of. You should immerse yourself in the world of the people you are going to be selling to. This will help you learn the language that they use, and to understand their challenges on a deeper level. It will give you more to talk about when engaged in conversation.

  In addition to industry news, it is also important to keep up to day with what’s going on with your accounts. The more up to date you are, the more likely you are going to spot a trigger event. You should set up a Google alert for your prospects or use a tool to notify you when something hits the news about one of your accounts. If one of your accounts reveal a new feature or receives another round of funding, you should be one of the first to hear about it. This kind of information gives you a reason to reach out to the account. Customizing your communication with this info shows that you are well informed.

  Side note: The news is also a great way to find new accounts that you may have missed during your search. Subscribe to news sites that cover your industry (such as TechCrunch if you target tech companies). Get in the habit of reading the headlines every day. If you see some news about a company that you believe could be a good fit for your product or service, add it to your pipeline.

  Job change

  One of the benefits of being connected with your contacts on LinkedIn is that when they get a new job you will be notified. If they left their company, that means that they must be replaced. A new hire who is taking on a role that makes them a stakeholder or decision maker in your sales process is a great trigger event. When someone is new to their role they have a strong desire to make an impact and this makes it a great time to introduce them to your product or service.