I'm pleasantly surprised by the receptivity of my two of more recent posts which focused on Sales 101: Three Slides to Shrink Sales by 30%+ and Three Focus Areas to Fill the Funnel. So, I decided to keep going with other Sales 101 best practices and various tips and tricks.
Three pet-peeves of fintech CEOs and B2B salespeople
No signature line on emails
Generic outreach on LinkedIn
Waiting forever to follow-up
Signature Line.
Honestly, I just don't get it. Why would anyone with sales responsibility exclude their contact information in every email? Here are the excuses I've heard. Warning: some of them will flabbergast you! "They already have my information.", "I prefer email over a phone call.", and my favorite, "I don't want any phone calls." All I can respond with is that if you're not looking for as many ways as possible to expand your professional network and make it easy for anyone to get in touch with you, get out of sales. Oh and by the way, if you're the CEO, you're in sales!
LinkedIn Invitations.
My LinkedIn network is pretty vast, and I'm fairly liberal in my acceptance rates. However, I do not accept any connections if they that state, "I'd like to add you to my professional network.", "Your profile looks very interesting; let's connect.", "I viewed your profile and I think we should connect." Nor do I accept invites from anyone with a sparse profile (if you're not willing to tell me about you, why would I connect?). In a B2B world, there's a finite list of prospects so take the time to personalize it. 1) Use the person's name, 2) Recognize their area of expertise by recapping something in the press, a post, or from their profile, 3) State why you'd like to connect: Learn from them? Share industry perspectives? Do NOT talk about your product. Also, just because someone connected with you on LinkedIN, you have not earned the right to barrage them with INmails about your product. LinkedIN is the world's best professional networking tool. Use it for networking, not selling.
Thank you and follow-up immediately.
After having a call with anyone, you must immediately send a thank you/follow-up note. Ok, it need not be immediate but it should be within 24 hours. (Yes, 24 hours not 1 business day.) I find informal emails tend to work best, and of course, include any attachments that you reviewed when you met. It is better to send a timely response recapping the agreed-upon next steps than to wait a week to respond with all the deliverables they requested.