As I think about an upcoming panel discussion I’ve been invited to, called; The evolution of the outbound animal, I heard some feedback from an invitee which I couldn’t help but share. His response was, “why should I attend when the panellists have clearly no experience of prospecting themselves”, which for a minute raised my blood pressure, but then I pondered. He has a point, it isn’t necessarily clear on my LinkedIn profile (hoping he read it!) that I’ve any experiencing prospecting.

So, staying true to my LinkedIn headline I wanted to share a few short stories with you before concluding my thoughts - what’s really changed with outbound prospecting in the last 30 years! I’ll try to keep it as interesting as possible so do bear with me. 

Where it started for me.

My first experiences of prospecting was back in 1992, I wanted so badly to get into a professional business environment and follow in my Dad’s footsteps, he had become a successful business man after a long career with Dixons, where he reached Board level. I hadn’t done well at School so my chances were slim - I was a late starter when it came to finding my motivation. Getting into a professional business environment required a University degree or at least 6th form in those days, and I had neither. I was tired of having no money so felt sales was my route, after all I was a cheeky-chappie and got on with everyone.  

I found this commission only job with a Kirby Vacuum Cleaner franchise in Aylesbury. I loved the fact we could lay in before arriving at the office for 11am. Our day would start with singing songs and getting psyched for the day ahead, which I thought was weird and felt uncomfortable until I realised why it was so important. We would then drive to different locations each day, from Watford to Oxford and spend the next 5 or 6 hours knocking doors, come rain, shine or sub-zero temperatures. It might sound insane but I learnt to love it, running from house to house replaying the songs from the morning, one of which stuck in my mind which I occassinsaly sing today, when I tell this story. R-H-I, R-H-I, R-H-I-N-O, RHINO! As we had to have thick skin to knock doors for 6 hours every day to book our vacuum cleaning demos for that evening.  If I was lucky I would have booked myself two or three demos for the evening, sometimes not leaving a customers house until 11pm.  See why the lay ins were so welcome! 

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning how to dance in the rain!

I then went on to work for a double glazing firm, again commission only, sold cable TV & telephone services on the streets of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, though this time I was given a company car and a bag of VHS video’s to post through 200 letterboxes every month, give the customer 2 or 3 days to watch the video and then knock their doors day and evening until I caught them in and pitched cable services, which was a non-starter unless all decision makers were present.  

In 1996 I thought I’d one foot in the door of a professional environment when I joined a recruitment company. This time, instead of knocking doors it was making calls, the expectation was 50 calls a day which I struggled with. Of the three recruitment companies I worked with over the next four years one manager would say things to me like, where the hell have you been (the toilet), “why isn’t that phone f**!cking sellotaped to your head”

I finally got my lucky break and joined a US based email marketing software company I’d been helping to recruit their new European team.  

For the next seven years I taught myself how to prospect and sell marketing software and in the seventh year I found my mojo. And since then, nothing prevented me from missing my annual target. I simply optimised my approach for the next five years, winning three awards for over performance before moving into a sales leadership position. As a sales leader one thing remained my greatest priority, prospecting and enabling my teams to generate pipeline effectively.  

As a sales leader of three years I'd had a sticky start making the transition into leadership. After a very successful year testing an emerging market with a strategy I defined it was time to hire an SDR team. There were two things that stand out as to why we developed pipeline effectively:

1. My team were empowered. Enablement was led by me as the sales leader, and sales reps were responsible for their SDRs success - a true partnership where the senior and most experienced of the two encouraged, coached and supported.  
2. Community building. We focused our efforts on building a community. A community of brands, agencies and partners, a safe place for people to network without being sold too. I would do my bit and host the discussions, usually about topics relevant and of value to those attending. New relationships were forged, at scale.  

After four years our team grew from 2 to 40 people, we had built a $22M ARR business and were successfully protecting a 90% customer renewal rate.  

Prospecting has been a consistent part of of my life.  

Now, as a business owner I spend most of my time prospecting, whether I’m writing content like this, building new relationships digitally or in person, I think it’s somewhere between 15-25 hours per week that I spend thinking about and executing on creating and harvesting new relationships.  

So what has changed.

We have a myriad of SalesTech and Third-Party Data tools designed to help our prospecting efforts. We've realised there's no silver-bullet despite how some of these tools have been marketed. Our behaviour has been conditioned by tools and poorly designed strategies now outdated as the world (the buyer) has moved on.

It’s no longer acceptable to prospect cold. No-one opens their front door anymore unless they can see who it is (and will hide behind the sofa if a sales person is suspected), the same with a phone call, who answers their phone from a number they don’t recognise. Who reads cold emails these days, maybe 1% of those targeted, if you’re very lucky! So why do we still do these things as sales people, and create anguish among the very people we want to do business with.

• Between 1992 and 2010 it was all about relationships. Mainly grown from in person interactions.  
• Between 2010 and 2020 it was all about insight, what research can I do so I can differentiate myself by demonstrating I know more about your company than your buyer does.  
• 2021 and the foreseeable future. We are back to adopting a relationship first approach. It’s all about standing out, like-ability, rapport and trust. People want to get to know you, not your brand (as there's too many of them) or at least, if you are not making the effort to get to know them, they will not buy from your brand. People buy from people they know and trust.  

The opportunity is everyone is online and on social platforms but sales people don’t know how to walk digital corridors effectively. Sales messaging doesn’t work because everyone does it and after so many years of it, has pushed all buyers into the zone of resistance. 

It's time to learn to dance in the rain.

B2B sales in the future requires a different approach. You cannot rely on a PLG (Product Led Growth) strategy to win, unless you are lucky and have the investment to make it work. What percentage of them work?   

Traditional B2B inbound doesn’t work and is expensive. What's your conversion rate? ...and what kind of budget are you prepared to spend before you see a return?

Traditional outbound sales strategies are based on tactics that are outdated. Hiring an inside sales team to solve your pipeline generation problem is expensive and takes at least 12-18 months before you see a return.

It is time to consider transforming the way your teams develop pipeline.  

Supero are pioneering a Social Selling & Influence approach together with DLA ignite, the worlds #1 influencers in Digital Selling. Our program is the only one of its kind to be endorsed and accredited by the Institute of Sales Professionals. Enabling us to provide a globally recognised sales qualification after successfully qualifying for the honour.

If you would like to learn more about what’s changed with prospecting over the years, and how Supero can help you and your teams develop more pipeline, consistently - drop me a DM on LinkedIn or Twitter: @Alex_Supero or book a call using my calendar link: https://calendly.com/alex_abbott/supero 

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alex_Supero 

Subscribe to my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Alex_Supero (more to come!) 

Join our community Walking Digital Corridors on Guild: https://guild.co/groups/5769/walking-digital-corridors?uid=f2cc5fb136