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If you missed my last newsletter, copy and paste this subject line in your email; ‘‘How SDRs can use content to give ‘‘value’’.

Fun Fact: I ran my first FREE masterclass yesterday. 885 people registered, 450+ turned up! I’ll do another in November.

Most sellers think sales is a binary game. It’s either a yes or a no and that’s that.

This line of thinking is normalised by leaders giving sellers targets that force them to think short-term.

For example:

• 100 calls everyday

• 50 emails every day

• 20 meetings every month

The list goes on.

Sure, as selfish human beings, we want things fast and that’s no different when it comes to wanting pipeline.

But have we ever stopped for a hot second and thought about the negative impacts of this? Probably not.

Have you ever considered how many sales you miss because someone just isn’t ready right this second to have a discovery call so we disqualify them? Probably not.

Have we ever wondered why someone we called and was a ‘‘no’’ 3 months ago just signed with a competitor instead? Probably not.

It’s a fine balance but the impact of learning to nurture at the top of the funnel will impact sellers results significantly.

In this newsletter, I’ll give you a 4 step process so reps stop disqualifying accounts that may not be ready to buy today but will be ready in the future.

Let’s dive in. L

Step 1 - Qualify:

Lots of prospects say ‘‘not right now’’ to sellers (or words to that effect). The challenge for us as sellers is to understand if the prospect actually truly means ‘‘not right now’’.

I use a very simple question to qualify whether a buyer is real about not right now in order to qualify whether they are worth my time nurturing.

I say ‘‘tell me what will change between now and X time frame that will make this a priority at that point’’?

If the prospect can answer this with other priorities. I move to step 2 below.

If the prospect can’t answer this I look to disqualify by saying ‘‘feels like you don’t know what will be a core priority for you in X timeframe, shall we agree to go our separate ways from here’’?

By the end of this stage, I want to know there is a good chance the nurture work I am about to do will be spent on prospects who actually will be in the market.

Step 2 - Flag In The Sand:

Now you’ve got a prospect who you feel is legitimately going to be in the market when they said they would be it’s time to hold them accountable to it.

The next step is to ‘‘get a flag in the sand’’ otherwise known as book a meeting or set a placeholder.

For example, if the prospect said December would be a better time. I would aim to get a meeting booked for December.

Making sure you have a mutually agreed date to work towards WITH your prospect is important for steps 3 and 4.

Step 3 - Agreed Steps:

You’ve done great so far and booked a meeting for the future. Now the issue is you need them to actually turn up. This is where most reps go wrong.

They either:

1. Ignore the prospect until that date by which time the prospect has forgotten them

2. Send the prospect generic information or random event invites with no context

Instead, you want to agree on the types of steps your prospect would like.

Here’s how I do it:

‘‘Now we have the meeting for December I will make sure we stay in touch a few times. How do you prefer consuming info? We do lots of written, video, and event-based content’’?

‘‘Great, now I know you prefer written, I’ll make sure to send you relevant trend reports, case studies etc but I’ll chop them up so they’re not very long, sound good’’?

The point is that I want to know how to nurture my prospects best, on their terms, not on mine. If I know how they like to consume I can tailor to that.

Step 4 - Execute the Steps:

Now it’s all on you as the salesperson. Either you get lazy with the steps or you put the work in.

Here’s an example of nurture I created over 3 months from booking to the prospect being ready to take the meeting:

Step 1 - Qualify they’re real

Step 2 - Flag in the Sand (3 months time)

Step 3 - Agreed steps - they like video and events

Step 4 - Sent an invite to an event straight after the call focused on the problem we discussed

Step 5 - 3 weeks later - Sent a short video clip (4 mins) about how their persona is solving the same problem my prospect had. Used a PS. Excited to chat in 2 months.

Step 6 - 4 weeks later - Invited to a conference where I met some speakers who would be discussing the problem we had discussed 6 weeks earlier. Used a PS. Excited to chat in a month.

Step 7 - 3 weeks later - Sent a short video reminding them of our chat including a story about how I’d solved the same problem for an existing customer. Included a PS. Excited to speak in a week.

All I did was link every step I took back to the original problem to make it relevant.

I then made it easy to consume because it was either really short or via a channel I knew they liked most.

I was confident the prospect had got enough relevant value from me and they had actually consumed enough to take our next call.

Hope this is helpful.

Quick Summary:

• Qualify if they’re worth your time

• Get a meeting booked in the diary

• Agree on what the next steps will look like

• Make the steps easy and relevant to consume

This Week’s Action Step:

Try building your own nurture steps with ‘‘not right nows’’. It’s a skill that anyone can master.

If this is helpful, share it with your team!

Good luck!!

My Next Product:

I’m taking 6 weeks in November and December to improve my existing products but also look at building something new for 2024.

Of course, I want to build what people want so if you would be able to answer my mini poll below I’d really appreciate it.

Weekly Send-Off:

I hope you all have a great weekend. My parents are here this weekend so I might finally get someone to babysit Isaac so I can take Bridge out on a date. Wish me luck.

Until next Friday at 1.05pm, au revoir from me, Bridge, and Isaac 🙂 

PS. My number is +447814904622. If you need me, Whatsapp me.

Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

—> SDR Leader Bootcamp - The next leader bootcamp will be in January. Join 50+ others and save your seat here.

—> SDR>AE Skills Bootcamp - The next bootcamp will be in January. Join 50+ others and save your seat here. The