ON AIR: With Owen Episode 33 Featuring Gareth Steenson – Rugby Coach at Exeter Chiefs

Introducing our 33rd episode of ON AIR: With Owen – our latest interview video series with honest conversation about scaling revenue, hosted by our Founder & CEO, Owen Richards.

Our 33rd guest is Gareth Steenson, Rugby Coach at Exeter Chiefs. Owen and Gareth discuss how Gareth transitioned from a player to a coach and the similarities and differences to rugby and business…

Including:

  • The key elements to Exeter Chiefs long and sustained success
  • How a player should be involved in building/setting goals
  • How the club environment has changed in line with new and more ambitious goals
  • The leadership qualities that helped Gareth transition into a coach
  • The hardest bits Gareth faced during his transition into a coach
  • Gareth describes his coaching process and mentality
  • How Gareth incorporates data with coaching
  • How Gareth develops skills and mentality
  • How Exeter Chiefs leadership has made them so successful
  • The similarities and difference between rugby and business success
  • Gareth’s process for learning from failure Connect with Owen and Gareth on

How To Structure A Successful B2B Cold Call

When it comes to structuring a successful B2B cold call, the first thing to remember is that there’s no silver bullet, golden ticket, or magic words to guarantee you’re going to make a sale with every call. The truth is that this is less of a science and more artistry, but like any art, preparation can be the difference between success and failure. 

Before delving any deeper into this topic, it’s important to define what a “successful” cold call is. Our findings indicate that the majority of cold calls end without a sale, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t successful. If your definition of success is a sale, then you’re going to spend a lot of your time disappointed. The point of a cold call is to identify a good fit for the product or service you’re selling, as identifying if the product or service doesn’t fit, is just as valuable. 

Ultimately, you’re there to create a conversation with the prospect and being too focused on the wrong outcome can cause the conversation to fail. 

Things that people tend to do well 

Now, this is complicated, as we’ve already said, it’s an art form and as such, your personality plays a big part in how this conversation forms. There are, however, some simple techniques that Sales Professionals use to help steer the conversation and prevent it from stalling before it gets started. 

Language and human behaviour: 

This is hugely influential in the conversation, so plan and prepare. Regardless of whether you are B2B or B2C, there is another person involved at the other end of the phone. The most human question of all is “What’s in it for me?” and, even if this isn’t said out loud, it will be at the front of the persons mind you’re speaking to. If, as a seller you can put yourself in the position of the prospect and answer this challenging question, there’s a good chance you can keep their attention long enough to have a conversation. 

Body language: 

Believe it or not, body language can also be a factor. Do what feels natural but make each person you talk to feel that they are the most important call you’ve had. And don’t forget to smile! It comes across in your voice, as does your posture. 

Scripts: 

It’s important to structure what you’re going to say. There is nothing wrong with a script but learn and test it – put yourself in the prospects’ position to see what your responses are. If you say the same thing as everyone else and the gatekeeper or prospect has heard it a thousand times, you will get the answer they have given a thousand times. 

Tone of voice: 

Your tone of voice can also help with the conversation along with the language you use. There are certain phrases that trigger the sales alarm in peoples’ heads and ways to say the same thing that elicits a different response. Low and slow is how people talk when they are relaxed and comfortable. If you turn into a children’s TV presenter and babble your way through, the prospect will disengage. 

Treat the prospect like an equal – you have a solution to a problem they’re likely to have. The key is to find out if this prospect has that problem now, or is likely to have it in the near future. 

Things that people tend to do wrong 

There is no such thing as the perfect structure, unless of course you know the prospect well. If we assume you don’t, then there are some general pit falls to avoid. 

A lack of honesty and transparency: 

Honesty is the best policy with the prospect, so let the prospect know from the outset what you’re calling for and how the conversation will go. If you can explain that you will only take a few minutes of the prospects’ time and if, after that the solution doesn’t fit, you’ll part friends with no hard feelings, and they’ll likely keep you in mind for the future. Framing the call in this way also helps people to relax, as they understand what is expected of them. 

Not drawing and keeping the prospect’s attention: 

Get the prospect’s attention, don’t just be the same salesperson they have previously hung up on. People buy from people, so don’t ask them something you don’t want an answer to. “How are you today?” can be a great question but is completely wasted if you then talk over their answer or fail to listen to what they say. Starting with something like, “I’m just looking at your website now” might just interrupt the usual sales call pattern, enough for them to take an interest in why you’re looking. 

Without teamwork, you can’t make the dream work: 

Try to get on the same team as the prospect. If you imagine you are having a conversation across the garden fence, you need to climb over the fence and remove the barrier, so you see things the same. This becomes essential when they have an objection. It’s never a good idea to argue or to dismiss their objection with something flippant like “We’re not like that”. Again, try and work from the same side of the fence, empathise and agree… “that’s terrible when that happens, I understand”. It’s basic human nature that when people tell you “You’re wrong”, you dig your heels in and the alarm bells start. Even if you know you’re wrong, you won’t agree with them. 

Focusing too much on the sales pitch and not the conversation: 

The importance of planning the call is crucial, so it’s vital that you have thought about all the possible reactions of your prospect and have a plan to bring the conversation back on track. This is a conversation, but you need to remain in control and steer it down a course that suits you. 

One very important part of the conversation that most people forget to plan, is the end of the call. You have outlined the conversation to the prospect and said if this isn’t a good fit you will part as friends and if that’s the case, as it will be most of the time, then do what you have said. For that small percentage of calls, which end with the prospect wanting more, it’s not good if you don’t know what to do next. Ensure that if the prospect wants you to go into more detail, you are prepared to or at least you can book an appointment for this to happen and move them into the discovery stage. The last thing a prospect wants is to be enthused about your offer and then find you are completely unprepared for the next step. 

Interested in learning more? Check out this insightful episode of ON AIR: With Owen where our Founder & CEO, Owen Richards, chats to 6th Door Founder, Chris Dawson, about this subject in more detail. 

To be successful in cold calling you need to understand your customer, their challenge and how your offer provides a solution. If you’d like guidance and support with structuring your next B2B cold call, we can help; get in touch today or download our FREE B2B Cold Call Script Template

ON AIR: With Owen Episode 32 Featuring Chris Duddridge – VP of Sales, EMEA at Soroco

Introducing our 32nd episode of ON AIR: With Owen – our latest interview video series with honest conversation about scaling revenue, hosted by our Founder & CEO, Owen Richards.

Our 32nd guest is Chris Duddridge, VP of Sales – EMEA at Soroco. Owen and Chris discuss Building out an outbound sales team from the ground up

Including:

  • An overview of Chris’s experience building out Sales Teams
  • Where good leaderships skills come from, Personality, Coaching or development
  • How to create a sense of ownership and belonging for your employees
  • The essential tools in a successful sales leader’s kit
  • Techniques for dealing with the peaks and troughs of a Sales Teams motivation
  • – When to be decisive with sales training and developmentHow much your team should shape your company’s culture

 

The 5 key marketing metrics you should be measuring

Marketing isn’t all about writing snappy subject lines, designing eye-catching graphics and crafting compelling copy. Underlying the creative, you need to have solid foundations to measure its effectiveness.

There’s no point having a clever campaign that doesn’t deliver results. We focus our marketing efforts on demand generation. We apply a sales attitude to our marketing in order to generate results.

So for us, it’s imperative to gather and understand key data for our clients. Knowledge is power, and the right metrics can provide essential details to boost business and increase ROI. That data can arm us and our clients with powerful insights to inform business decisions.

We don’t use fluffy metrics. We won’t try to wow you with amazing charts that look good but are rather meaningless. We focus on information that is actionable. We realise how important it is to track and learn from the data that can enable your business to reach its goals.

The three key metrics that every business should focus on:

  • Leads
  • Opportunities
  • Conversions

Identifying the importance of these factors and how to generate them is fundamental for business success. But how?

Our 5 recommended key marketing metrics:

1. Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)

“A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a lead that the marketing team has deemed more likely to become a customer compared to others” according to HubSpot.

That qualified piece of data (the MQL) is really valuable to a business. The marketing team can determine how and where the person has engaged with the business’ content. Be it a particular webpage they’ve visited, email they’ve opened, social post they’ve shared, video they’ve watched, event they’ve attended or campaign they’ve clicked on.

The marketing team can work out which leads make the best quality prospects by interpreting their data. Say the business has specified that their ideal clients meet specific demographic criteria, or have particular problems or pain points to solve. Those factors can be identified by a lead’s interactions. That information is extremely valuable for sales teams to act upon and nurture.

2. Email marketing

Emails provide a great way to build relationships with customers and potential customers. Discovering how your customer has reacted to the email they’ve received is very telling. Did they open it, delete it, read it, click on a link within it or unsubscribe from the list? Delving deep into email analytics will help you to test and make calculated adjustments to engage your audience better.

3. Digital content

Publishing digital content is a two-way street. It’s not enough to just set it live. You need content that grabs people’s attention and prompts them to act. That action could be sharing your content to help others find it (yes please!), commenting on it, downloading it, watching it or reading it, for example.

Knowing what people have done with your content is incredibly useful. It can inform future content decisions and it can identify potential customers. It tells you the key areas in which to invest time and money for the best ROI.

4. Social interactions

As we mentioned earlier, we don’t do fluffy metrics. The number of likes and follows on your social channels are not the be all and end all. You want content that makes people stop scrolling when they see your post and engage with it.

A share from a follower is a form of endorsement. A comment means that your content motivated somebody to write something about it. Similarly, submitting a rating or review has taken up somebody’s time. That’s time that they’ve spent interacting with your brand. Knowing which social posts have garnered those reactions is powerful information.

5. Website analytics

Tracking website data with Google Analytics or other packages is imperative. We gain valuable insights from understanding who is visiting the site, where they’re coming from and what they’re looking at. For us, time spent on site is a key metric. If customers are spending time looking at a range of website content, we know that we’re providing relevant information that is valuable for the audience.

Bounce rates can highlight areas that need attention. If people are clicking away from a page without interacting with its content, changes need to be made.

The importance of measuring marketing ROI

Data takes the guesswork out of marketing. It shows you which aspects are delivering results. That information proves which areas of spend are providing good ROI.

Tracking and collating marketing metrics doesn’t have to be laborious. We’re a HubSpot Gold Partner, so we recommend using this powerful tool to monitor marketing metrics. There’s a variety of reports that can be set up easily to provide amazing insights. You can attribute leads, deals and revenue to social posts for example. You’ll get a clear view of all marketing activity in one place.

If you don’t use HubSpot, we advise tracking data in a spreadsheet, or using another great tool on the market. Monitor stats regularly to understand patterns of behaviour, set benchmarks and reflect on performance. That knowledge is extremely powerful for businesses and can make the difference between reaching your revenue goals or not

Want to know more about marketing metrics and setting-up performance tracking? We’re here to help. Call us today on 0345 241 3038.

ON AIR: With Owen Episode 31 Featuring Alex Alleyne – Regional Sales Manager at Lacework

Introducing our 31st episode of ON AIR: With Owen – our latest interview video series with honest conversation about scaling revenue, hosted by our Founder & CEO, Owen Richards.

Our 31st guest is Alex Alleyne, Regional Sales Manager at Lacework. Owen and Emanuel discuss What makes a successful outbound prospector/cold caller?

Including:

– The biggest mistakes Alex made during his sales career

– How Alex became successful with Sales

– How Alex became a more refined Sales Professional

– How much should the phone still be apart of outreach

– What’s volume and velocity or personalisation is best

– How Alex approaches a cold call

– Why there is a gap in the market currently for good Outbound Sales Leadership

– How to enjoy the sales journey

– Alex’s top advice to improve your sales performance

ON AIR: With Owen Featuring Emanuel Frauenlob – Co-Founder & CEO at Mesg.ai

Introducing our 30th episode of ON AIR: With Owen – our latest interview video series with honest conversation about scaling revenue, hosted by our Founder & CEO, Owen Richards.

Our 30th guest is Emanuel Frauenlob, Co-Founder & CEO at Mesg.ai. Owen and Emanuel discuss ideas exploring what sales looks like at the early stage of a start-up and the challenges and opportunities they will need to navigate.

Including:

  • The key moments that lead to Emanuel starting Mesg.ai
  • What things you should plan for before you start pitching your product
  • How you should build out your Ideal Client Profile (ICP)
  • Emanuel explains his value stick
  • Small steps rather than one big step through the sales process
  • The notion of pushing boundaries
  • How important it is to be a hands-on Founder
  • The right time to start building a team
  • What you can do that doesn’t cost money to get good conversations
  • How it feels to be a sales founder during those early conversations
  • The basics that need before starting conversations
  • The biggest challenges Emanuel has faced in the last 12 months

LIVE Roundtable: Achieving Sales & Marketing Alignment

We hosted our sixth roundtable as part of our NEW annual content series, around setting up an outbound sales function. Get ideas, inspiration and advice from our panel of experts, who share and discuss their own experiences and open the floor to questions from the live audience.

We’ll be going live every month until March 2022, chatting about all topics relating to outbound sales and the stages of building a team.

Agenda

We answered questions around (but not limited to):

  1. The need to work in partnership with one another
  2. Creating an environment that integrates well
  3. Processes
  4. CRM and tech stack
  5. Sharing well-defined objectives
  6. Implementing a feedback loop for better alignment throughout your organisation
  7. Evaluating the results, and adjusting your strategy to respond to your customer
  8. Celebrating success

Host

Owen Richards – Founder & CEO at Air Marketing

Speakers

Neil Clarke – Commercial Director at Air Marketing

Gareth Mapp – Director of Sales & Marketing at Software Solved

Louis Fernandes – Vice President, Sales, EMEA at Uberall

Who is it for?

Founders, Sales Leaders, and Revenue Leaders.