1°) Tools for sales prospecting (quick recommendations)

All the sales techniques presented in this blogpost need you to use sales prospecting tools or social selling softwares.

These are my recommendations for social selling softwares:

• Breakcold for the selling and B2B relationship building part

• FeedHive for the content marketing part

These are my recommendations for cold emailing:

• Breakcold for cold emailing

• GetProspect email finder

• Findymail to find email addresses

These are my recommendations for finding leads in general:

• LinedIn Sales Navigator (and Findymail to export the leads)

• Apollo.io

All these tools can be used to boost your results as an SDR, BDR, AE, startup founder or agency owner.

The sales prospecting tools used for this blogpost

2°) Top 10 sales prospecting techniques for sales

I've tried many sales prospecting techniques to sell all kind of things: E-commerce products, SaaS or Agency services. After many iterations, I finally found the best performing one for most types of digital business but I also got tremendous success with other techniques.

Technique 1 (the 97% success rate one): doing social selling on prospects

Disclaimer: not every prospects are active on social media (but their company is most of the time), in that case I use technique number 2 in combinaison of technique 1 for this kind of prospects. This technique only has a 97% success rate if your prospects are active on socials.

Step 1: find active leads on social media to reach out to

We're talking about B2B sales here so I will focus on finding leads that are active on LinkedIn. LinkedIn possess more than 80% of B2B leads so it shouldn't be a problem to find leads there.

The easiest way to find active leads on LinkedIn is to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator (1) and use Findymail to export the data in a social selling software (2).

1/ Finding active prospects on LinkedIn with Sales Navigator

When you look for prospects in Sales Nav, there is a filter to only see leads who have posted in the last 30 days on LinkedIn. This is the filter we always want to use.

Leads that are active on socials are easier to generate business opportunities and close deals

Why?

Because engaging with LinkedIn posts of our prospects and using them in our cold outreach will matter for our social selling strategy.

2/ Using Findymail to export the data in Breakcold

Findymail is an email finder that get more results that any other tools in the market (Hunter, Lusha, etc).

Breakcold is a social selling software to generate leads and close leads using LinkedIn, Twitter & Email.

With Findymail google chrome extension, you can export the results of your LinkedIn Sales Navigator search into a CSV. You can then import the CSV inside Breakcold.

When you import a CSV in any sales prospecting software, make sure to map the fields with the right columns of the CSV, we want to map these fields in particular:

• Personal LinkedIn URL of the prospect

• Email address

Findymail is a pretty solid tool, it can find tons of emails more than its competitors

Once you imported the prospects in a Breakcold list you created, you need to assign that the status of the prospects is "cold". That way, they'll be automatically put in the cold stage of your sales pipeline (you can designed your sales pipeline like you want).

Step 2: engage with their posts before connecting

Alright, it's now time to engage with prospects posts before sending them a LinkedIn invite, it will maximize your chances to get your LinkedIn invite accepted.

You will stand out compare to people who use LinkedIn automations tools because they can't build genuine conversations with LinkedIn prospecting automation.

To engage with your prospects content:

• track prospects inside Breakcold, it will aggregate all their LinkedIn posts

• like and comment their LinkedIn post then switch prospect and repeat the process

• once you've finished a batch of people, click on their LinkedIn profile and add them on LinkedIn

• don't send a LinkedIn invite

Don't forget to put your prospects in the engaged status in your social selling pipeline.

Tracking leads on Breakcold saves you tons of hours on prospect research

Step 3: engage with their content and publish content for a couple of days

Once prospect accepted your LinkedIn connection request, don't make the rookie mistake of shooting a LinkedIn message straight away (unless you really have something relevant straight away to reach out).

Ideally, you want to keep engaging with them for a couple of days and publish content using FeedHive so they will be exposed to your content. Therefore, the day you'll reach out it will be a warm message instead of a cold one.

Doing everything I mentioned in step 2 and step 3 can also boost your LinkedIn engagement by +500%, you'll also create a social selling loop the more your doing it.

The goal is to publish at least once a day

Step 4: send a personalized cold email or cold message (unless they contacted you first)

Going through step 1 to 4, some prospects will probably contact you even before you do it. This is what happened for example with Matteo as I was engaging with him.

For the ones who didn't contact you, you basically have two options:

• sending highly personalized cold email campaigns

• sending a manual LinkedIn message or cold email that is personalized

1/ Sending highly personalized cold email campaigns

To personalize our cold email campaign, we'll use some variables to have a custom subject line and custom cold email opening line for each prospect. We'll also use a PS line.

To prepare these variables, we'll use the LinkedIn posts that Breakcold aggregated so we won't have to do prospect research to contact the prospects.

You can like, comment and directly send a cold email from one place

For example we'll use:

• the variable slot 1 for the subject line

• the variable slot 2 for the intro line

• the variable slot 3 for the PS line

Then we'll craft a cold email sequence where we'll use these variable in the first step of the sequence.

2/ Sending a manual LinkedIn message or cold email that is personalized

The downsides of sending cold emails is that we're generally lazy to craft interesting cold email follow-ups and that LinkedIn messages are more performing than cold emails.

I don' like LinkedIn automation because you can get banned so to be productive I use Breakcold to shoot LinkedIn DMs in a productive way.

This is what you can do:

• open a lead

• like and comment one LinkedIn post

• send a cold email or LinkedIn message and personalize it with the LinkedIn content of the prospect

• use the company news of the prospects if you need it

This whole process shouldn't take more than 30 seconds to 1 minute per lead once you've done a couple of them. Then you can do manual follow ups.

Real life example of a LinkedIn prospecting message I sent

Step 5: if they could be customers at some point, keep engaging them for days/weeks/months/years

Because of the phenomenal work you've done on prospects through step 2 to 4, you'll get a response rate that is incredible and it won't be negative answers (I hate people who brag about reply rate where more than half of it are negative ones), it will be good ones.

What you need to do once you've generated leads is to:

• move the prospects in the warm sales pipeline stage

• setting-up a call with the prospect

• keep engaging with them after the call until they become customers

At some point, these prospects will undoubtedly become customers, this is how we closed all our customers at Breakcold. The most famous example is Ana who wrote a Twitter thread about it, we actually met before Breakcold but I was doing manually what we later on automated.

Like Ana said, the goal is to build B2B relationships in the long run

Sales prospecting tip: if you have a SaaS product, you can do inside sales by adding your sign-ups in the warm lead sales pipeline stage to engage them productively with Breakcold

Step 6: once they become customers, keep engaging to create super fans and increase word of mouth

You can look at sales prospecting technique number 4 below to know the full process.

Technique 2: sending cold emails at scale (+300 per day)

Disclaimer: this sales prospecting technique is not suited for your if your Total Addressable Market (TAM) is low. You need to have a large pool of potential prospects (more than 500,000 ideally).

This technique allows me to generate leads constantly and is highly scalable.

Step 1: buy 10 cold email domains and warm them up

Mass mailing is dead, long live cold emailing at scale.

i've written a full guide about cold email domains but here's what you need to understand:

• buy 10 domains on the Google Domains

• warm up the domains using an email warm up tool (like Warm Up Inbox for example)

• wait at least 14 days before sending out any emails

• send a maximum of 30 emails per day per sending domain

Why doing this? It will maximize your email deliverability and you'll avoid the spam folder.

Example of cold emails properly warmed up in my cold email software

Step 2: find tons of leads

If you send cold emails at scale, you need tons of leads. I personally use Apollo when it comes to cold emailing at scale to find cold prospects.

The good thing with Apollo is that there are as many filters as LinkedIn Sales Navigator but you can also filter prospects depending on which technology is using their company.

For example, let's say I want to target Startup Co-Founders that have money to spend on, I will add a filter that they raised at least a SEED round and that they use Intercom as live-chat software because it's crazy expensive.

I will export the search in a CSV and put that into some Breakcold prospecting lists.

An example of a search using Apollo software

Step 3: create relevant and semi-personalized emails sequences

Once you've imported your prospects inside Breakcold, you'll write your cold email sequences.

Compare to the social selling method, you won't be able to hyper-personalize your cold emails. But you can be relevant because of the filters you've done.

For example if you target Startup Co-Founders in downtown Austin using Intercom, you can make a PS line and intro line related to it.

Your goal is to send cold email campaigns in batches per location, you want to segment your cold email campaigns as much as possible to be relevant instead of personalized.

Example of a cold email sequence for lead generation

Step 4: monitor your cold email campaigns

Once you send your 10 different cold email campaigns using the 10 different cold email campaigns you have, you need to monitor your results.

Check which campaigns are performing the best and understand why.

Step 5: add warm leads to your sales pipeline

Push the warm leads in your sales pipeline and engage them until you close the deal. Assign them a contract value so you can know how much you have in your pipe, this will motivate you to close the deals.

Step 6: close the warm leads using social selling techniques

The technique is similar to what I explained above with the social selling method.

Click on a prospect in your social selling pipeline then reach out

Technique 3: Target Account Selling (TAS selling)

Target Account Selling (or TAS selling) is a sales prospecting method where you focus just on a limited amount of potential accounts. It's a technique that is highly used by big enterprise corporations where each SDR, BDR and AE know exactly on who they should focus on.

The advantage of this technique is that you need to focus on just a limited number of people so your goal is to make as many interactions as possible.

Long story short, what you need to do is to apply the sales prospecting technique 1 (social selling) but instead of applying it to as many prospects as possible, you restrict it to 40 people.

Building a social selling loop is a good technique for TAS selling

I'd avise you to execute what I call TGAS (Target Group Account Selling) which is the fact to target accounts that are in the same location or same building so you'll have word of mouth/network effect if they talk between each other.

Technique 4: the dream 100 method

The dream 100 method is a sales prospecting technique where you need to build a list of 100 people that fit your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

It's people that you know a 100% that they can become customers at some point but you just don't know when. So your job is to stay top of mind until they need your product or service at some point or even creating demand if they're not aware of their own problem.

To execute the dream 100 method, you need to engage your prospects a lot. You can:

• nurture them with value content

• like and comment their posts on social media

• reach out times to times with a relevant cold email or LinkedIn message

I personally execute the dream 100 prospecting method using Breakcold with B2B influencers, I basically try to stay top of mind so the day they need to write a LinkedIn post about prospecting tool or something related, we're always in the list, it's a way to increase inbound leads and backlinks.

This an example of warm emailing

Technique 5: The 4 catch up method

The 4 catch up method is a sales prospecting method I elaborated at the post-purchase phase. It's a technique that aims to increase retention and word of mouth by creating super fans.

Basically, once a warm prospect becomes a paying customer, I move he/she in the closed customer than I assign them a tag called "Catch-up 0".

From there my goal is to engage with them to understand if they're happy with the product and to catch-up with them times to times to make sure they become advocate of the product.

Every time I have a new conversation with a closed customer, I'll move them in the catch-up stages (eg catch-up 1, 2, 3 etc).

Once they reach the 4th stage, it generally means they are satisfied with the product so I ask them for a referral of 2 people.

This is the 4 catch-up method in action in my sales pipeline

Technique 6: cold calling prospects in local areas

I'm not knowledgable about this sales prospecting technique so I invite to watch this Youtube video sales training course by Thomas Gonnet so you can see how to book calls every day using cold calling in his video: How i book 3-5 meetings a day (cold calling SMMA).

Technique 7: Account Based Marketing (ABM)

What is the difference between TAS selling and ABM?

TAS selling is on the sales prospecting side while ABM is on the marketing side, meaning that it's more relating to ads and online/offline marketing campaigns.

Step 1: identify your target audience

Use Facebook lookalike or TikTok campaign manager to determine your target audience.

Step 2: prepare ads and marketing campaigns for this target audience

Use user generated content (UGC) to create amazing ads to reach out your target audience. Don't forget to complete advertiser verification and include a call to action in your videos.

You can turn content made by your users into ADS for example

Step 3: A/B test ad campaigns on different social media platforms

Create about 20 different campaigns with different assets and messages. Put a small budget on each campaign (like $20-$50 per day per campaign) and determine which one is the most performing one. Finally, double down gradually on the ones the work the best and drop the least performing ones until you find your winner ad to scale.

Step 4: set up retargeting campaigns for the ones who clicked on the ad

You will generated inbound leads with this sales prospecting technique but some of them won't convert by themselves into paying customers. To maximize conversions, set up retargeting campaigns so they will see you everywhere (Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, etc) this will help you to stay top of mind in the long run.

Technique 8: sending gifts to customer or high-value prospects

Goal of this prospecting technique: increase sales through word of mouth and revenue expansion from existing customers.

Step 1: export a CSV list of your current customers adresses

For example, if you're using Stripe, export the postal address of each customers.

Step 2: import the list in a physical gift website

Import the CSV file in a gift website, then craft a nice message.

Step 3: aim for a cheap but funny gift

When it comes to the gift, you need to buy a gift that don't destroy your LTV (Lifetime Customer Value) so depending on that, go for a cheap gift. Funny stuffs are generally not expensive.

Example of a gift

Technique 9: creating a community

Goal of this sales prospecting technique: increasing super fans and closing more inbound leads by showing them results from current customers

Step 1: get your service or product right first

Building and growing a community takes a lot of time, you won't be able to work as much as you need on your product/service once your community is launched.

Get your product/service right a minimum before taking any actions.

Step 2: choose a platform to create your community

Facebook Groups or Discord are the best places to host a community from my experience but there are new platforms like Circle who are putting a dent to other players in the market.

Join our Social Selling Mafia on Facebook

Step 3: animate your community daily with value content

When you don't have many members in a community, you won't have a post from them every single day. So the best way to animate a community in the beginning is to post every day. Try to post valuable content every single time to motivate them to use more your product, stay customer if you have a service and so on.

Step 4: promote your community with cold emails

If your community is not growing organically in the beginning, you can promote it by sending cold email campaigns.

We grew our community in the past using cold emails and had tremendous success with it! :)

Example of a cold email sequence to grow our community

Technique 10: growing a personal brand on LinkedIn or elsewhere

Goal of this sales prospecting technique: creating product/service awareness to generate inbound leads

Step 1: like and comment 20/40 B2B influencers posts in your niche per day

It's a tedious task to engage with B2B influencers rapidly, but fortunately I use Breakcold to avoid opening many tabs a day.

I go to my prospecting feed and I click on my B2B influencer list, from there I can see all the recent posts my list so I can engage with it.

Step 2: post on LinkedIn/Twitter once a day

I try to post every day on socials (LinkedIn/Twitter) so the people I engage will see my posts and engage back at some point.

Step 3: start conversations in the LinkedIn inbox / Twitter inbox

Starting conversations with people you meet will increase your engagement like crazy. For example on LinkedIn, it can boost your engagement by 85%.

All the money is made in the DMs so don't sleep on it!

3°) Sales Prospecting Advanced Techniques for sales

1/ Using GPT-3 API in your Workflow

You can use GPT-3 to craft AI first lines for your cold email outreach.

We used to put AI first lines natively inside Breakcold but since the AI has been more available to the public, we realized that salespeople can use it directly through the API.

2/ Automating specific tasks with Zapier or Make

If you wan to save time on enriching your sign-ups to execute inside sales faster, you can for example set a Zapier automation as follow:

• when there is stripe new customer

• enrich the data with Datagama

• push the warm leads in Breakcold

And boom, you have a clean prospecting list ready to be used.

Example of automations with Breakcold and other tools

4°) Prospecting tips for sales

1/ Personalize your cold outreach if your total addressable market is low

The rookie mistake is to shoot too many emails that are not personalized when you have a low total addressable market.

You can ruin your reputation pretty quickly if you do so make sure to work on your cold email personalization.

I'm sure we all wished Intercom was at the price in this picture

2/ Warm up your email domains if you're doing cold emailing

What's the point of sending cold emails if you end up in the spam folder? Send less emails but get a better open rate. Beyond warming up your email addresses, make sure to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC properly along with custom domain tracking.

3/ Work on your Ideal Customer Profile and offer first

Sometimes you have a bad open rate and a bad reply rate but you think it's because you have a bad copywriting.

What's wrong actually is that you probably have a terrible offer or you don't know your real ICP.

4/ Iterate on your copywriting

I see many mistakes from sales reps when it comes to cold email copywriting in particular.

The biggest mistake I see in outbound sales which reduce the reply rate is that emails are too long and too formal.

5°) Other prospecting Ideas for sales I haven't explored yet

1/ Using something I saw on LinkedIn to cold call prospects

Technically, you can go to the LinkedIn feed of a prospect before cold calling her/him and using the recent news to come up with a good introduction during the call.

2/ Sending WhatsApp messages that are not automated

I never done this prospecting technique but it's something that has been performed on me and it worked super well, we even became customers at some point!

3/ Sending handwritten sales letters

Sending some handwritten sales letters for high-value prospects is a fantastic way to stand out in a digital world. It can be costly but considering the ROI it can brings to the table, it's worth it.

Example of a sales letter

4/ The MEDDIC method

The MEDDIC is a early sales stage method. basically it's to avoid spending to much time on potential customers that don't worth it. It's a way to prioritize accounts to focus on to accelerate the sales pipeline.

5/ The Sandler sales funnel

The Sandler method is a sales funnel which focuses on the pain point of your target so you can take the necessary actions when the prospect object. It's also a great method to improve your product or service.

Basically your goal with the Sandler sales funnel is not to focus on convincing the prospects to buy your product but to focus on their pains to understand and propose them the right solution.

6/ The Challenger sales method

It's basically a method where as a salesperson, you challenge the prospects to rethink their problems and solutions by enlightening them with new pieces of informations step by step.