Hey, 👋 Scott from The Sales Mastermind here.

Today’s edition only takes 4 minutes.

Variety is the spice of life sales.

Today we’ll cover:

• Storytime
• Leads​
• Everyone is Different
• Media Variety
• Content Variety
• Outcome Variety
• Making this real (inbound and outbound)

Storytime

A coachee sells a product that shouldn’t exist. It fills a gap that a global tech giant (like Oracle or Google) allows to exist because corporate politics get worse as organisations mature.

Because she solves a problem that shouldn’t exist, no one is Googling (or should it be Chatting? Claudeing?) for a solution. Therefore, her leads are almost exclusively outbound (cold calling, email, etc etc).

During this week's session, we discussed pre-first-meeting outreach.

Before our session, she used email-only for more than 90% of her outreach, and each email was a hodgepodge of outcome and intentionality.

Every email was:

• The same length
• Asked for both a click and a reply (for example, a link to a case study followed by “If that interests you, let me know”)
• Asking for a meeting
• “Adding Value” 🤮

After our session, we optimised by:

• Adding in 4 more channels for every prospect (Calls, Texts, LinkedIn, and Teams messages)
• Creating variety in content and outcome
• Picking one outcome (click or reply) per piece of outreach

Leads

Whether inbound or outbound doesn’t really matter for today's newsletter.

The main difference is that inbound buyers need to be contacted as soon as possible - within 5 minutes* - then a lot in the following hours and days.

Whereas outbound buyers will respond when you trigger their interest, but too many touchpoints in too short a timeframe can backfire.

*The 5-minute rule comes from Harvard and MIT, summarised well here.

Everyone is Different

Different buyers will respond to different outreach. So we want to add as much variety in media, content, and expected outcomes as possible.

Research shows a 161% increase in contact rates (i.e., prospects engaging with you) when using 5 media types vs. 1. Meaning if you Call, Email, Text, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp, you’ll get 161% more engagement than only one media.

Media Variety

For media variety, the big 3 need no explanation:

1. Call
2. Text
3. Email

The others need a little explaining. Every media works, but not every media works for every buyer.

Sometimes buyers will only respond to a voice note on LinkedIn; other times you will be blocked for sending voice notes. That’s the risk of cold outreach.

Beyond the big 3, add in at least two of the following:

• WhatsApp/LinkedIn/Facebook/Teams/Slack/Other messaging platforms - Find platforms with messaging capabilities and send messages to your buyers. Treat these like texts; you want variety in the content, length, and outcome.
• Pre-recorded videos (I use Loom) - Find a generic video or record a personalised video for your buyer, then send it as a link. Buyers love videos and respond well to them. Personalised video works for both inbound and outbound. Generic videos are for inbound only.
• Voice notes - Like a video, just shorter and audio only.
• Voicemails - Most dials you make will not get answered (connection rates in Australia are ~15-30%; in the USA, 3-7%). Therefore, use the chance to leave a voicemail. Odds are it will be ignored too, but 5-10-15% of the time it might prompt buyer action or provide you with a valuable touchpoint to strengthen your other outreach.

The one media to avoid like the plague is unsolicited calendar invites. Just don't do it.

Content Variety

For today’s newsletter, we’re going to use length as the differentiator, but content can vary on so many levels; treat the below as only the beginning.

• Short - sending short content helps keep outreach focused. Short means one to three sentences. For example, the full email being “BUYER NAME, have you given up on this project?” or “I recorded a video for you; click here to watch it”
• Medium - sending medium content lets you list pain points and proof points. It’s best for beginning an inbound cadence or the middle of an outbound cadence. For example, including pain bullet points and referencing successful clients before asking for a meeting, or sending a three-bullet summary of a case study before linking to that case study.
• Long - sending long content satiates buyers who want detail before they’re willing to do something. For example, sending a full case study, or a dozen positive testimonials with names, job titles, companies, and customer photos.

Outcome Variety

Each outreach piece should have only one requested outcome. Either

• Reply - Optimising for replies means ending outreach with a question, or an implied question, asking the buyer to respond. For example, ending an email with “Sound Interesting?” or ending a Loom video with “Reply with a time or two that you’re free for 15 minutes, and we can go into a little more detail”.
• Click - Optimising for clicks means including at least one link that the buyer is supposed to click. For example, “Click here to book 15 minutes” or “Click here for the full case study”.

Making this real

Taking this from theory, let’s look at an inbound and an outbound cadence.

Outbound:

• Day One - Call, Voicemail, Medium Email referencing the call and voicemail, optimise for replies
• Day Two - Call, Short Text referencing the missed call
• Day Three - Short Email of a Loom video recording of what you could have said if they picked up the cold call, optimise for clicks
• Day Five - Call, Text, LinkedIn voice note, optimise for replies
• Day Seven - Long Email summarising a relevant case study, optimise for clicks
• Day Ten - Short Email, 1-2 lines, asking a direct, specific question, optimise for replies
• Day Fifteen - Call, Long Email with a full relevant case study, optimise for replies.

Etc etc: Outbound can go forever. But you get the idea.

Inbound

• Day One (within 5 mins) - Call, Text, Medium Email with a short intro and a calendar link, optimising for clicks
• Day One (later that day, or push to Day Two if the inbound is late in the day) - Call, Short Text, optimise for replies
• Day Two - Long Text, Short Email replying to the above asking for time to meet, optimise for clicks
• Day Three - Call, Long Email “Wall of Love” testimonials, and video case studies, optimise for clicks
• Day Five - Call, Short LinkedIn voice note referencing their request, optimise for replies
• Day Seven - Call, Short Email 9-Word Email, optimise for replies
• Day Ten - Text, Medium Email Loom video link, optimise for clicks
• Day Twelve - Call, Medium Text, Medium Email soft breakup email, optimise for replies.

Now you’ve seen how to use variety. Go update one of your cadences today.

Until next week,
Scott Cowley

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