Creating close plans for every step of the sales process (Jeremey Donovan, EVP, Sales & Customer Success, Insight Partners)

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1. 9:31

   So this should truly be a close to full sales cycle tool. You're too late if you're you know, if you're already at that stage. It's also you make me think it's also a way to test your champion. Right. So how do you tell the difference between a champion and a coach? Right. And to me, the classic test is that they're going to introduce you to the economic buyer. “But it's also just that they're willing to multithread you at all.” Right. If that person not willing to multithread you, they're not a champion. And when you kind of pull out this mutual action plan and if they react like, I don't want to spend the time, whatever on this, you know that they're not a serious buyer as well.

   In Champion identification

2. 12:00

   the deal? I hold off on who signs the deal for quite some time. And so what you're describing is, I know you're a big fan of Medic, and we talked about it in the prep call as well. And also in your actionable takeaways is you should probably eventually know who's going to need to make a call on a decision. “And that's one of the D's, but you need to map the decision process.” But once you start asking inflammatory questions early in the process, like who's going to sign this thing, yada, yada, yada, it actually really turns up this level of defensiveness with your buyer. But I want to go back to the first thing that you talked about, Jeremy, which is super important

   In Buying process discovery

3. 12:41

   in with a curious tone and ask them, have you bought software before? And you will get a variety of different answers. And if you can, you can ask it in seven different ways. But you can say when you've bought X tool in the past, who are the people who have been involved? “What are the steps that happen?” When legal got back for the first time, how long did it take, right? And if they're like, oh, legal is going to take three days. I'm thinking, oh God, you have no idea how a legal process actually runs. And so there are three or four parts of your sales cycle that you know need to happen. And you know how long they typically take. Ask them about those steps.

   In Buying process discovery

4. 25:13

   you about my profile? Nine times out of ten, that no. No one responds back at all. So you know it was just BS to begin with. So I think my tip here is at the top of the funnel when you're reaching out on LinkedIn, just don't get rid of all that garbage. “I would say one of two things, something super authentic.” And if you have the time and you're doing more of an enterprise prospecting, where the time is worth it, then do the light personalization, only a sentence, super short. If you're doing more mass prospecting, just send a blank, just use the default connect. Don't get clever. You know, nine times out of 10, if I'm sending a connection request, I just, I don't actually

   In LinkedIn connection request outreach

5. 25:27

   just don't get rid of all that garbage. I would say one of two things, something super authentic. And if you have the time and you're doing more of an enterprise prospecting, where the time is worth it, then do the light personalization, only a sentence, super short. “If you're doing more mass prospecting, just send a blank, just use the default connect.” Don't get clever. You know, nine times out of 10, if I'm sending a connection request, I just, I don't actually put anything in there if I'm, you know, unless I'm trying to get to power of some kind. A hundred percent true. The only connection requests I decline are the ones where I get a crappy message like that. Send me a blank one and then pitch me later if you really want to do that garbage.

   In LinkedIn connection request outreach

6. 25:37

   And if you have the time and you're doing more of an enterprise prospecting, where the time is worth it, then do the light personalization, only a sentence, super short. If you're doing more mass prospecting, just send a blank, just use the default connect. Don't get clever. You know, nine times out of 10, if I'm sending a connection request, I just, I don't actually “put anything in there if I'm, you know, unless I'm trying to get to power of some kind.” A hundred percent true. The only connection requests I decline are the ones where I get a crappy message like that. Send me a blank one and then pitch me later if you really want to do that garbage. Jeremy, thank you for joining us. Everybody stick around for a 60 second recap coming up soon. Today's show is brought to you by Insightly, the CRM that helps you spot deal risk early.

   In LinkedIn connection request outreach

7. 28:20

   And then last piece, number four, just because I have a personal affinity towards it, don't throw a bunch of junk in your LinkedIn invitations, folks. It is very obvious when you're saying you had an interesting background or it looks like we are in a similar space and I would like to connect. Don't send a blank connection request. “Don't use fake tailoring.” All righty, Nick, how can people help us out here? Well, just like I like sharing good internet connection and good crispy bagels with my friends, I also like sharing great podcast episodes with my friends. And this is one that you may want to consider sharing with your team because in order to

   In LinkedIn message personalization

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