7 Keys To A Successful Sales Cadence

Sales cadences are not just for big businesses with large sales teams. A cadence can turn an ad hoc approach to selling into a well-oiled, profit-producing sales system.

Creating a successful sales cadence is all about knowing how to develop one that works for you, your business, and the potential customers you are targeting. In this article, we run through 7 ways to achieve sales cadence success.

What is a Sales Cadence?

Here’s a definition of the term ‘sales cadence’:

“A sales cadence is the sequence of actions you take in the hopes of closing a sale with a prospect. It includes every contact attempt a salesperson makes with a prospect, including emails, phone calls, voicemails, and social media interactions.”
copper.com

A cadence is important if you want to create a repeatable formula for success. Having a tried and tested cadence will supercharge your sales, make training new sales representatives easier and provide a base from which to test new sales techniques and ideas.

For example, a sales cadence may look something like:

Day 1: Connection request on LinkedIn

Day 3: An introductory email

Day 6: Phone call

Day 7: A follow-up email

Day 10: Following them on Twitter

Day 12: A morning call

The length of the cadence and every step depends on your product, target market, and preferred methods of communication.

How to Create a Successful Sales Cadence

Here are the building blocks you will need to create your own successful sales cadence.

1. Use Your Data

Using quality historical data collected from your customers is a great starting point when developing your sales cadence. Quality data collected via a platform such as a CRM will allow you to identify which methods of communication work best and at what times.

For example, logging phone call times can help you identify the best time to contact prospects.

You may also talk directly to key customers to understand their preferred methods of contact and what messaging resonates with them. Using this information will introduce a level of best practices when developing your cadence.

2. Define Your Cadence

It’s important to define and record the various steps involved in your sales cadence to help you develop consistency in delivering your cadence. Once clearly defined, you can assess your sales cadence and the potential to scale it up.

The sales manager should gather information from all sales representatives to define the final cadence. A tool such as Omnigraffle will allow you to map out your cadence and export as a PDF to share with the whole team.

3. Measure & Adapt

Measuring key indicators of performance at each stage of your sales cadence offers insight into potential areas of weakness and success. For example, if you record the number of proposal requests by each stage, you may notice some stages which see few or no requests at all.

A lack of desired outcome will highlight the ineffective parts of your cadence. When that happens, it’s time to adapt and test again.

4. Automate Steps

Automating steps can aid efficiency.. For example, after your initial LinkedIn request has been sent, you may then automate a follow-up email if no other contact has been made.

Automation has clear benefits, but should also be carefully considered. People generally do not like to feel that they are being sent an automated message, so spend time ensuring your approach to automation allows your messaging to be as personalized as possible.

5. Leverage Buyer Personas

The information contained within well-researched buyer personas can be used to help you create a cadence and messaging that appeals to your target audience. A good buyer persona will have information on key areas such as personality types and where your customers’ attention is focused.

Let’s say you work for an interior design business. Your buyer persona may highlight the heavy use of social media platforms, such as Instagram. In these cases, contacting prospective clients via Instagram direct messaging may be a better method than a connection request on LinkedIn. Find where your people are and go there.

6. Incorporate Personality

Some industries call for a very formal approach to sales. However, most businesses can differentiate themselves by building a more human connection through their cadences by using personality.

Introducing personality doesn’t mean taking an informal approach. Balancing professionalism and friendliness can help to generate familiarity and the trust needed to make sales.

Consider relaxing the style of your communications as they go on, with the first few being more formal, before introducing a more casual tone of voice.

7. Switch It Up

Grabbing the attention of prospective customers may take some fine-tuning over time. By introducing new and unusual methods of communication you will be able to quickly assess what works and what doesn’t.

Trying something new will also help you cut through the noise of the many other businesses trying to grab your customers’ attention.

Some ways you might ‘switch it up’ in your cadence include:

Having someone different contact them – the higher the authority the better, such as a director

Varying your length and style of emails

Trying different and potentially provocative subject lines

Using different methods of communication such as a handwritten letter

Switching up your methods and approach as you come to the end of your cadence is a smart way to try and reignite interest at a later stage in the process.

Sales Cadence Success

Successful sales cadences take time and effort to perfect. But it’s worth it when the sales roll in. Use the tips we have outlined in this guide to ensure that your sales cadence can be used to increase profit and drive sales for years to come.

What steps make up your sales cadence?