How to be persistent in sales without being a spammer.– Jeff Bajorek

Could you conduct sales reach out to your prospects every single day and not be considered a pest or a Spammy Sammy?

Jeff Bajorek argues we should be able to. 

Being professionally persistent is ‘table stakes’ for salespeople if they want to start valuable conversations with their IDEAL buyer. 

Yet, we see many, in fact, most sellers, simply attempt to reach out using one or two channels (Phone and email) and then they give up after just 3 attempts or less. 

What’s with that? 

How can we as sellers or sales leaders stay in the prospect conversation longer?

We also talk about putting the fun back in sales. This is something I really needed to hear I’m often way too serious.

We covered so many sales topics in our chat that I decided to break this into two episodes.

Jeff’s first episode is now available and can be easily be found by simply looking through the previous shows of the podcast. 

In that episode we cover off why Selling face to face was always a hoax and what value do relationships really hold in today’s selling environment? So, keep an eye out for that if you’d like to catch more of Jeff Bajorek.

Jeff Bajorek
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffbajorek/

Sales Community
www.jeffbajorek.live

Mark McInnes
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mcinnes/

POW Course
www.markmc.co/pow 

Tactical Pipeline Growth
www.markmc.co/tpg 

Catch all versions of me here.

https://linktr.ee/markmcinnes
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Transcript

Mark McInnes: 0:00

Welcome to the boss podcast. I'm Mark. Thanks for joining me is explore new ways to be great at outbound selling today. and this is the second part of a chat that we had. That was so good. I decided to divide it into two separate episodes. Kia. We're talking about persistence in sales and how to be persistent without being a pest or without being perceived as spammy. We also talk about the importance of sales belief, or as I like to call it mindset and how these are all interlinked with being more sales persistent. Something I really liked also was our conversation about making sales fun for us as sellers and being a little less rigid in their approach. And for me, this was really valuable reminder. This is something I can definitely live my game on. You certainly don't need to have listened to the first part of mine and gifts cat for this episode to make sense, they are clearly standalone topics, and this is a great standalone session. But if you wanted to look for gifts, other episode, feel free to look back to the last episode we released, where we cover off the death of face-to-face selling and the value of relationships and sales tonight. It's got some really nice ideas and some thought provokers in there for you. So you might want to check that out too. A little about care. So gift's a sales consultant based out of Detroit in the USA is a multiple author with two great books released and has his own podcast called the why and the buy. And he has his very own sales community called rethink the way you sell, which has got the same title. As these two books, you can join that community by simply going to gift.life. And this is where you can catch all of gifts. Great content. Before we jump into this episode on focused on sharing as much tactical sales advice as I can with as many sales people as possible through this podcast, in order to do that, I need to get this podcast into the hands of as many salespeople as possible. So I need a little help with that. And I'm prepared to swap you for that help. How would you like an electronic copy of tactical pipeline growth sent directly to you? All you have to do is leave us an honest review on Spotify or Apple podcasts as it would really help other listeners to find us. And it helps us to find more great guests in the future. Just like if a job, the bit of the guests, the bit of the sales strategies for you. The good news is, and learning take you about 60 seconds to do, and you can probably access the review function directly from the device you're using right now. I'd really appreciate it. Simply leave us a review and then screenshot that and send it to me a, to direct message on LinkedIn or through my email. And I'll send you a copy of the book lickety split. So now let's jump into the second part. And the last part of this two part show with Jeff there's something that I've heard you talk about before, and that's something I really love and that's your mindset around sales, resilience, and persistence. And I love, you know, that tough love attitude that you take with this. And I'll, and I'll share something very quickly that it happened this week. That made me think about this upcoming conversation. So I've been. Training. So the big question has been training this particular team for some time. And we've talked about building out sequences and we've talked about, um, having multiple touches across different attempts and all that sort of thing in your cadence. And so I said, okay, go and build your sequences out for your particular sectors and then send that through to me. And then all sudden back some outbound scripts for what your outreach might look like for each of those verticals in your chosen channels. So, you know, within 24 hours, I had all the guys. Sending the guidance and they all look very similar. They all look just like this. So the first attempt that they had written down was a LinkedIn followup to it, say that it was a Monday and then on Thursday, you know, a single light email went out and then a phone call and a voicemail went out on the following Monday. And then a direct mail approach on the second Thursday and then another single call on the following Monday. And so I'm like, come on, go on. And it's almost as if you're trying to, to not have a conversation with these buyers. And as it turns out, it's a perfect example of one I wanted to talk to Jeff about. So, you know, how do you be persistent? Without being what I like to call spamming, you know, without being a complete past, what's your mindset around that and feel free to use that South team as an example. And I'll share you thoughts with them directly.

Jeff Bajorek: 4:33

I don't know why the default time for between calls is two weeks.

Mark McInnes: 4:37

I love that.

Jeff Bajorek: 4:38

I just called left the other minute. I left a message the other day. I'm going to call it a couple of weeks. Like what? Okay. Why two weeks? Like, what kind of momentum are you really trying to gauge here? And I think this comes out of a lack of expectations or a lack of proper expectations. Anyway, I think people are still trying to say the right thing to the right person at the right time and win. And that's just not how it works, Mark. We know better than that now. And you know, w you reread the data and I've seen numbers all over the place, but the, the most credible resource that I've got, you know, told me recently, he said, Jeff, the industry average is something like 18 touches. Before they'll respond to you as a human being, right? 18 touches that's phone, email, social media text. If you've got that, you know, uh, capability and it's like 18, an average Joe sales, guy's given up after three and three to your point are spread out over four weeks. Like what, what is this, what are you trying to do? And, Oh, I don't know. I want to be a past. Okay. And I've challenged my clients with this. I said, okay. So what would it be like if you felt. That your solution was so valuable that you could reach out to them every single day and not feel like a pest. So people I'm not suggesting that you have to reach out every day, but imagine if you felt so Bulletproof in your belief, in your product, your belief and understanding in the prospect problem, that your solution was so good for them, that you felt that it was a moral obligation, that you let them know that you could help them. Right. And so what are the things that we can do from a prospecting standpoint that are not pest material, right? And most people don't believe enough in the solution they provide to get over that pest kind of feeling. So they go in there, there are two directions you can go in. I don't want to feel like a past, so I'm not going to call very often. So they just don't call very often, but we know that doesn't work. Right. Well, there's another variable there, Mark. Um, you can choose to not be a crappy salesperson that would bug somebody, right. Like, why don't you just reach out with things that are valuable. And, and I use the example of like the newspaper. I'm not a subscriber to the newspaper, but if someone tried to sell me a subscription to the newspaper in my town and they just called me every week from the same numbers that are you ready to buy? Are you ready to buy? Are you ready to buy? I'm going to block that number pretty quickly. But if someone from the newspaper called me every day, And say on Mondays, Mr. Metorik. We understand that you're a small business owner in town here, and we've got this guy that's normally behind a paywall, but we've got this guide for small businesses and eight things that they can do in the spring of 21 post COVID to really give themselves a rebound. Okay. Well, that's interesting. I might look at that. I might not, I might respond to the phone call. I might not. I'm probably going to wait a little bit, if they're really good at what they do, they're going to reach out again. Okay. So I don't respond to that. But then the next day I get another call, Mr. Podrick. We understand because we looked at your social media profile, you've got a wife and a couple of kids, and you like to do stuff. Here's some fun stuff to do. Downtown Detroit, this weekend, it's springtime. And all of a sudden I'm like, huh, I'm not blocking those calls Mark. And I'll tell you what good salesmanship, good seller ship should be rewarded. I feel. And so the more professional persistence that I get, the more likely I am to be intrigued. The more personalized. It is. The more likely it is for me to respond well to that. So that's something I'm getting every day and I'm actually looking forward to the next message versus the other guy who called me once a week and just asked me if I wanted to buy, like, I'm blocking that first guy I'm eager to hear from the second person. And like, that's what people miss. They miss these clear illustrations of when frequency works. And if you know that the best cadences are 15 touches over four to six weeks, but you're stopping at three touches over six weeks. You're not even in the ball game, you can't quit yet. You haven't even gotten your warmups off. You're not, you're still on the bench. So I just, I think there are, there just, there's a perspective shift that needs to be happening. And most people haven't done the work ahead of time to prepare what those 16 valuable touches or 18 or 20 or 12 or whatever your industry average is. Most people haven't taken the time to think about those ahead of time so that the cadence just becomes something that you can execute on. And it's not this, you know, improvisational exercise every two to three weeks. Yep. A lot the way he said that it was a Baptist house belief. And I think this rests on the shoulders of senior sellers and sales managers, you know, we need to be constantly reinforcing to our sales team, how valuable our products and services are to their ideal clients so that they constantly know. They are not interrupting, you know, so they're not interrupting gift, for example. So GIF is going to get a great result if he subscribes to our newspaper and it's my duty to deliver that message. And here are six things that we know Jeff and people just like, if I'm going to find valuable. So here are my six talking points. So let's deliver them across three different kettles, for example. Yep, exactly. Exactly. And let's go even a step further market. Here are the six problems that our ideal clients tend to struggle with or tend to have. So what are three questions for each one of those six problems that you could ask that would start a conversation around that problem and then the need to solve it. Now, all of a sudden there are your 18 touches or your 18 touches. If you can ask 18 open-ended questions, you can leave those in voicemails. You can leave those in emails. You can send those in text messages or direct messages on LinkedIn. Those are your touches right there. And a question begs an answer. And if they don't answer it doesn't mean you don't ask again in two days. Another question now you're listen. Prospecting is all about being someone worth talking to was something worth talking about. And if you can ask provocative questions, you're going to develop that reputation. That's how you get your calls returned.

Mark McInnes: 10:19

Yeah, and I think there's an important point here. We send that via LinkedIn. We send that via text message. And then you said you may not get a response. And what I hear sellers telling me is Mark, no one picks up the phone anymore. No one listens to the voicemail. So I don't leave one or I don't call them. Right. I'm like, it's not about them picking up the telephone or responding to your voicemail. It's it's all about building out that prospecting pressure. I don't mean pressure in a nice way. It's about building up that prospecting pressure so that the person on the other end of your outreach, that you're the one that you're trying to talk to goes, okay. Give clearly has something that he needs to talk to me about and he thinks it's important. Therefore, we need to allocate some time to find out what's going on here because it's clear he's not just ringing twice and giving up. He's just not. Sending three emails, you know, the standard three emails and giving up because everyone gets just three emails, right? So typically outreach goes, goes like this. I send you an email that says, Hey, Jeff, I have the world's best product for you. You know, three days later, I send you another email that says either thoughts, you know, or did you get my email? And then three days after that one, you know, I'll send you another email. That says something along the lines of height looks like it's not a good time for you. I'll try you again in six months and that's it. So that's a prospect. All I know, all I have to do is sit out those

Jeff Bajorek: 11:38

three crappy when they're coming. Right. Can you, I can tell you when they're coming. I it's. Yeah, I'm beside myself now. Mark, you got me all worked up. It's it's it's just so silly. And you need to let your prospects know that you will not be waited out. You need to create the environment that lets them know that you're not going to be weighted out. And so you're going to call and leave the voicemail for crying out loud. Tell them a joke. Who cares if they pick up, uh, you know, I've talked to people before, you know, former leaders of organizations to say, yeah, I've got 150 emails a day. I get three voicemails. Which one do you think is going to be the easier one to stand out? Right. And you don't need to pitch in a voicemail. I just think it's an opportunity to make someone smile. It's an opportunity to make someone laugh. Do you have to deliver your value proposition or do you just have to let them know that you're going to be someone worth talking to because you're clearly persistent enough, which means you've believe enough in your solution to be persistent. And Hey, if I can make someone laugh that gives them the impression that maybe a conversation might be more fun than they're thinking too, and who doesn't like to laugh. It's an opportunity to make someone's day. Use it for crying out loud. Don't tell me you're too busy to leave a 15 second voicemail. Come on. If you got that far, if you let the phone ring that long, you know, you can leave a great voicemail. It's just, I think we're looking at things.

Mark McInnes: 13:04

Well, I think salespeople want every touch, every attempt to be a knockout, right blocker. I've got to have a CTI on the, in the end of every single outreach. Yep. So what I say, sellers, these leading voicemail, and then at the end of that more smile and goes, you know, call me back in 24 hours or I'll call you again. It's a bit, yeah. Okay. A hosting situation. And when they don't call you back, you know, and say, these are that file, but it's not a band. Each one of those touches being a knockout blow. It's all part of the journey. And to your point, if your journey is only three, then you're not going to get to the end of the journey.

Jeff Bajorek: 13:45

Is

Mark McInnes: 13:45

your

Jeff Bajorek: 13:46

outreach getting you labeled as a spammer? Well, once worked in B2B, outbound doesn't work anymore, the goalposts have moved. And so much of your approach to sales. Sure. You might land odd conversation. Or even a reply to an odd cold email, but is it scalable? Will it provide you with enough revenue to hit your yearly goals? Having worked with sales teams all over the world, we see what works and what doesn't. Our new power coaching program provides sellers with access to the very best training available today. It doesn't matter if you're a team of 50 or a team of one. We have flipped traditional sales training on its head. And allow you to learn in your own time and still get the important coaching, help that you need. Grab all the details. Tab, Mark mc.com/pow,

Mark McInnes: 14:39

what else do you think we should be doing that people aren't doing in relation to salespeople being persistent? A quick question without noticing

Jeff Bajorek: 14:50

should be having more fun. Well, everybody should be having more fun stuff to do during COVID, but if you can find a way to have a sense of humor and have more fun during COVID, you can do it anytime, but I think you should be paying attention to what's working and what's not. And I think if you've got a bunch of people to call on a regular basis, or you've got a hundred, you know, dream clients that you need to reach out to at least three times every month, then, you know, what are you AB testing? What's working. What's not, what do you need to move on from? Like, I think, you know, when you mentioned this, you know, the bar for passing and failing in a sales call for me is very, very low. Did I learn something? If I learned something that's a win. No step is too small. If it's headed in the right direction, just make sure you keep taking steps. You'll get there as fast as you can. That's enough with all due respect to your quota. It was made up and pulled out of thin air. Anyway, how does anybody know? So just make sure you're making progress. If more, with more reps focused on making progress every day, rather than making a sale every day, there'd be a lot more sales that would be made. And so, yeah. Adjust your perspective accordingly. It's going to take three months for me to get through to this. This prospect is going to take three months for me to book a meeting. You know, the, you know, 15 touches over four to six weeks. So let's call it a, you know, a month and a half. It's going to be take a month and a half for me to get a hold of this prospect. If they get back to me in two weeks, it's a win. If they get back to me in five weeks, it's a win, but you're never last in five weeks. If you're setting the expectation of. Two to three touches and I got, just got a call one more time. Oh, I'll, I'll give you a call back in six months. Like you, you know what I mean? Like you can set yourself up for a win if your perspective is correct. And if your expectations are totally out of whack, you're going to constantly be disappointed and getting back to my original answer, it's really hard to have fun when you're constantly disappointed.

Mark McInnes: 16:39

Yeah. I really liked that. I think we're in charge of your own mindset and want an attitude. This has been massive. I'd love to have you back on at some point, if you can give that's truly great stuff before we close this out, how can people get in contact with you? What's a great way for them to get some more of yourselves brilliance, where do they go? And how do I find you, et cetera? You

Jeff Bajorek: 17:00

mentioned at the top of the show, rethink the way you sell.com. It's a community I've put together. It's on a really cool platform. I think you'll like it. You can just go right there. You can apply to join. I've got five questions basically that I ask at the beginning to get in. That just helps me understand what you're looking for and whether or not I can deliver on this free platform for you. But if they want more of me, I do live sales training every Wednesday afternoon. It's Eastern standard time or daylight time, depending what time of the year it is. But, um, every Wednesday afternoon I do live sales training. It's free you just register and then come in and then I make the recording available for a couple of days. And then it kind of goes into the. The, the vault, um, of a premium program that I sell, but that is there. And if that's not something that you can make, cause you're halfway across the world, I've got a podcast called deeper thought that you can find on your podcast player right now, couple episodes are there for free. There's a $99 subscription fee for the entire podcast or two to three episodes each week. And it's a really, really cool show. So lots of ways to get in touch with me for free. And there's also some there that have a price tag on it, and I think people pay attention to what they pay for. So the price tag is not like I'm not making a living on a hundred dollar podcast subscriptions, but I do find that people get more out of it. Because they're paying to pay attention. Yep.

Mark McInnes: 18:13

I definitely agree with that. So there it goes. Lessons. There are a bunch of ways you can get more of this legend GIF, GIF. Thanks very much for coming on the boss

Jeff Bajorek: 18:23

podcast, Mark, this was fun. Thank you.

Mark McInnes: 18:31

How would you like an electronic copy of tactical pipeline growth sent directly to you for free? You see, I need a little help and I'm prepared to swap you for it. All you have to do is leave us an honest review on Apple podcasts, as it would really help other listeners to find us. And it helps us find more great guests in the future. And of course the better the guests and bet on the sales strategy. So we get the good news is it will only take you about 60 seconds to do, and you can probably access the review function directly from the device you're using right now to listen to us. I really appreciate it. Simply leave us a review and then screenshot that and send it to me either via DM on LinkedIn or directly through my email. And I'll send you a copy of the book straightaway. So that's it for this show. Catch you on the next episode. Thanks for listening.