Finding the right B2B sales cadence for your business can take time. Today, I will share tips that can help you find the cadence that works best for your business. First of all, I don’t believe in “Break Up” emails.  Also why does it seem like the break up email is the third email? I am not sure where that name came from but it makes no sense to me.  Why would you stop targeting a qualified prospect after 3 attempts?  There is nothing wrong with asking to be referred or while you are chasing them find another target contact in that prospect, but again, why would you stop approaching them. 

In many cases, most sales people fail because they are not persistent enough and don’t make enough touches (lets say a touch is an email or call for simplicity).  In many cases, most of us know that it takes 8 to 13 touches to get a yes or a no.  So if you have a prospect you believe is qualified, you should chase them for at least 8 to 13 touches to try to get them to engage.  After that point, maybe push the next contact out 3 to 4 months and then try again.  One thing I have learned in sales is that there is no such thing as a “No”, just a not now.  Things change fast and over time anything can happen.  Being present on the field is the only way to stay in the game.

I wanted to discuss B2B sales cadence and what that can mean for you and how to implement it.  First of all, you need to have a solid CRM to base your outbound sales efforts off of.  We are big believers in Hubspot but there are a number of good tools out there.  This is essential as it will keep you and your sales team organized.

We are finding some success with a sales cadence that incorporates outbound emails and calls.  Yes, we are back to “old school” calls and I would say having some success with it.  The reason is that getting people’s attention via email is getting harder and harder as we are all swamped with them.  With respect to the sales cadence, I have also broken it into the short-term cadence (first month) and then the medium term cadence (after 1 month).  So here is a sample cadence (this is not by all means a bible to follow, just an example).

Short-term:

Day 1: Email 1

Day 7: Email 2

Days 10-14: Call 1 (if no answer call later), Call 2 (if no answer call later), Call 3(if no answer leave a message)

Day 21: Email 3

Now start searching for an alternate contact in the organization and restart cadence.

Medium term:

Day 42 – Email 4

Day 49 – Call

Day 56 –  Email 5

Now if no response, schedule another flurry of 3 touches starting day 105.

So that sample cadence puts us at 9 touches.  Each organization or sales person will have to make a decision on where to stop and move on but I would be wary about doing it too early.

The other thing that could be worked into this mix is a series of “educational” outbound campaigns that hit on something relevant to the industry or best practice.  This is another way to stay “in touch” and add value without pushing a sale.  This could range from setting up an educational webinar on a topic of relevance to the industry or sending out a whitepaper or educational piece.  We had one client just do a webinar on ChatGPT and its impact in their space and it was really well attended with over 400 people showing up.  

I think the most important thing to do is keep your messaging somewhat fresh, layer in a bit of personalization if you can and most importantly don’t give up if you feel the prospect can benefit from what you offer.  Your passion to help and belief in what you are selling will help you sell better.
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