Increase seller productivity by using a sales cadence

Planning is everything in sales. Without a plan, a sales rep may give up on a prospect too quickly or appear overly aggressive. A potential consumer may forget about a proposal or become irritated by too frequent contacts. A sales cadence is built on creating a step-by-step plan for how to follow up with prospects at each stage of the sales process. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales tools help in creating, managing, and scaling customized sales cadences throughout your organisation.

The top salespeople have a well-crafted plan to get their desired results, whether they are demonstrating a product or following up with leads. A successful plan, or sales cadence, involves knowing where your prospects are in the buyer’s journey and understanding how to reach them the right way, with the right message, at the right time to move them to the next step.

In this blog, you’ll learn:

• What a sales cadence is
• What to consider when designing a sales cadence
• What an effective sales cadence looks like
• How Dynamics 365 Sales can help you build a sales cadence

What is a sales cadence?

A sales cadence is a detailed plan to connect with prospects and close deals. A sales cadence includes a prescribed sequence of activities, like reaching out on LinkedIn, sending emails, making calls, sharing case studies, arranging meetings, and sending text messages, which happen at specified intervals.

An effective sales cadence improves the efficiency of sales reps. A sales cadence guides sellers on which prospects to connect with, what communication channel to use, and what information to share at each touchpoint. This structured approach reduces guesswork and aims to grow the sales pipeline and conversion rate.

Managers create a sales cadence to guide sales reps in handling different types of prospects and sales scenarios. For example, one cadence could be used for inbound inquiry leads, and another cadence could be used for upcoming renewals.

As organisations mature, they can evolve their cadences to adapt to specific geographies, industries, companies, languages, and other parameters. A strong sales cadence library also helps you scale your sales organisation. Automated sales cadences ease the onboarding.

How to design a sales cadence

When you design your sales cadences, consider these five elements:

1. Prospects: It all starts with knowing your potential customers. What challenges or obstacles do they have? Why are they looking for a solution? What platforms do they use? What constraints do they contend with? What are their skills? Who is the decision maker?
2. Communication channel: Reach out to prospects using the right channel, such as email, a phone call, messaging apps, or LinkedIn.
3. Wait time: Consider a strategic delay between subsequent steps. You don’t want to be too soon or too late in your follow-ups.
4. Attempts: Understand the optimal number of touchpoints to establish contact and build a relationship.
5. Messaging: Use the right messaging, content, tone, and personalization to engage with prospects.

It’s important to note that creating an effective plan is not a one-time process. It takes time and iteration to fine-tune your sales cadences.

Example: A sales cadence for inbound inquiries

Here’s an example of a sales cadence for responding to inbound inquiries.

• Target: Leads that have reached out through your website or other channels.
• Purpose: Focus on and respond to high-priority inquiries to improve your conversion rate.
• Description: By responding immediately and through multiple channels, you are more likely to achieve a higher conversion rate. Since responding within the first hour increases your chance to close the deal by seven times, start with an automated email response, then follow up with a phone call. Connect on a social platform like LinkedIn. Finally, send an email that provides relevant information about your product or services

Create a sales cadence with sequence designer

The sales accelerator capability in Dynamics 365 Sales helps sellers spend less time searching for the best next customer to reach out to. Design and build your sales cadences in the sequence designer. Sales accelerator gathers information from multiple sources to build a strong and prioritised pipeline, offers context, and surfaces recommendations throughout each step in the sequence, speeding the sales process.

You can use the sequence designer to configure sequences of activities for specific prospects, leads, opportunities, contacts, and so on, applying different strategies depending on priority. For example, leads of lower priority might have more automated email steps, whereas leads from your targeted accounts might have more personalized touchpoints.

As in the example sales cadence shown earlier, sequences can include multiple activities, with wait times between activities as needed. You can branch activities based on the response, such as if an email is opened or a reply is received. Using sales accelerator’s tight integration with LinkedIn, you can even send LinkedIn InMail or create a connect request as part of your sales cadence.

Next steps

A good sales cadence is necessary to improve seller productivity, increase conversion rates, and close more deals. As we adjust to virtual ways of working, digitising sales becomes a priority for most organisations. To get started, use sales accelerator in Dynamics 365 Sales to set up a sales cadence for the most common scenarios faced by the sales team. If you would like to get started with Dynamics 365 contact sales@spanishpoint.ie today.

We invite you to attend our upcoming Dynamics 365 Bootcamp to learn all you need to know about the Microsoft tool and kickstart your business transformation!

Register Here