I've never seen outbound work when sales orgs make these (very common) mistakes

I've never seen outbound work when sales orgs make these (very common) mistakes.

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(this will p*ss some of you off)

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⛔️ Marketing writes all the cold email messaging

⛔️ A sales leader writes all the cold email messaging

⛔️ Hiring a third party to come up with cold email messaging in a silo

⛔️ Running training sessions with an enablement team that has never done outbound

⛔️ Rolling out arbitrary (and unrealistic) activity targets

⛔️ Not parting ways with reps who don’t outbound (if they’re not hitting quota)

⛔️ Not investing in a sales engagement platform (for AEs too)

⛔️ Not investing in good data (emails and phone numbers)

⛔️ Not segmenting by your top industry verticals and personas

⛔️ Not capturing what good looks like in a simple playbook

⛔️ Not recording cold calls

⛔️ Not expecting reps to pick up the phone and make calls

⛔️ Front-line leaders not “getting in the pit” with reps and making calls

⛔️ Not talking about outbound in every 1on1

⛔️ Senior execs not participating and holding their leaders accountable

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What to do instead:

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✅ Collaborate

Run a messaging workshop with top reps, sales leaders, and marketing TOGETHER. Get a baseline foundation of messaging to bring to the rest of the org and ask for their feedback. Adoption is way higher when reps feel like they contributed to what they’re being asked to use.

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✅ Standardize

As soon as outbound starts to work, capture what good looks like. Build a library of successful emails, LinkedIn messages, and cold call recordings.

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✅ Invest in a lean tech stack

Sales engagement platform (for both SDRs & AEs) and great data are a must. Dialers are a big help as well (Orum 🥇* is my favorite).

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✅ Weekly enablement sessions

Sales enablement facilitates these sessions. They do not run them unless they are actively doing outbound. Highlight reps who are making it work.

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✅ Rub shoulders and get in the pit with your reps

Every front-line leader makes calls with their reps each week. Bonus: Sales execs make calls for 1-2 hours every month to show they’re willing to do what they’re asking the entire sales org to do.

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~~~

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Going outbound for the first time is no simple task. But there's no need to overcomplicate it.

Run through the steps above, and you’ll dramatically increase your chances of success.

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What would you add to this list?

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*Orum is a sponsor

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