Just as irksome as your neighbour conveniently forgetting to clean up after their dog did a number on your front lawn, sales can often be a gruesome fest of all things unwelcome.
There’s things we hate that SDRs do and then there’s things we really really hate that SDRs do. So we ran a poll with 4 of the most common things you’ll hear decision makers complain about to see who comes out king.
The 4 Worst Things SDRs Do and How You Can Stop Doing it NOW
So here it is!
1. Bad-mouthing competitors
Bad-mouthing competitors might seem like the logical thing to do when trying to convince a prospect to choose your product over your competitors’. However, it works against your favor in almost every way imaginable.
Firstly, it’s something that almost every sales rep resorts to. So prospects aren’t listening to anything new when you do this.
Second, it comes off as a measure of desperation and frustration when you don’t have any other value to provide. It may seem as though you haven’t really taken the time to get to know your prospect and address their actual pain points and concerns.
Third, you’re diminishing the value of your product by basing its existence off your competitors’ flaws. Highlighting competitors’ flaws doesn’t paint the full picture. So you’re leaving out crucial aspects of their product that prospects may have actually found value in.
How do you overcome this?
As a salesperson, doing your research and gaining insights about prospects to help drive value delivering conversations is non-negotiable. If your conversations aren’t loaded with personalized insights addressing genuine problems that your prospects face, then you’re setting yourself up to lose the deal.
By taking the time to actually know your prospects, you can avoid resorting to bad-mouthing your competitors and actually optimize your interactions for conversion.
2. “Just following up” follow-ups
As you may have guessed, scrolling through your inbox to find “just following up” follow ups to mails that you CHOSE not to respond to in the first place can make you want to bite someone’s head off.
Unless you make your follow-ups a lot more compelling and personalized, you’re going to be doing a lot more harm than good.
How do you overcome this?
Scour through your prospects’ social media feeds and you have a goldmine of content to create quirky follow-ups that actually get them to listen to what you have to say. There’s a lot you can do to generate curiosity with your follow ups.
Also if you need to follow up, there’s no prizes for guessing, but your initial message lacked value and personalization. So go back to the drawing board and see how you can deliver a ton of it through your messaging.
In spite of this, if you’re still being left on read, then you’re probably spraying and praying, targeting the wrong people.
3. Jabbering on about features and RoI
No one likes a motormouth that goes on and on about features and RoI. Prospects don’t want to be bombarded with an instruction manual the first time a stranger reaches out to them. If they are going to be open to your proposition, you want to convey how you can solve an actual problem they have.
How do you overcome this?
If a prospect is to buy from you, they want to know how exactly your product is going to solve a problem they have. Sales is always about them, not you. So stop hard selling your product, and genuinely try to make your conversation all about helping them.
Again, it all comes down to giving the prospect what they want to hear. Make your conversations relevant, don’t just try to force-fit all that you can into the small window of interaction you get. There’s only so much you get to say before you’ve overstayed your welcome and are tossed into the spam folder with all the other overkill.
4. Subject lines with “synergies” in them
Speaking of overkills, this one seems to be the master of them all. Almost every other connect message seems to be one that nearly holds you ransom to the possibility of “exchanging synergies,” or whatever that means. If you’re going to copy-paste then at least try and be covert about it.
Subject lines are the first thing people see when they make a decision on whether to read your message or not. No one’s going to want to hear what you have to say if you’re saying exactly what everyone else is.
How do you overcome this?
Context is king, so add value wherever you can, especially in your subject lines. Since it’s the first thing someone reads before they choose to open your message, you want to make it as compelling as you can.
If you’d like to craft effective openers that generate replies, then check out our LinkedIn Outreach Guide to help you do so.
What We Have Gathered Thus Far
Spamming prospects is something that won’t work in the raging 2020s. You’re going to have to go that extra mile if you want to make it big in sales. And there’s only one way you can do that — giving your prospect the information they deserve.
Personalization equals relevance equals value — the ultimate sales messaging formula to live by in the modern day. If you’d like to learn more about getting your sales messaging on point, I urge you to read our article on how to effectively prospect on LinkedIn.
