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Want More High-Quality B2B Leads? Change How You Prospect.

Wissam Tabarra

Wissam Tabarra

Mar 01

Want More High-Quality B2B Leads? Change How You Prospect.

Currently, B2B sales are controlled by the B2B buyer, which implies that attaining the sales quota of a business is only possible using B2B buyer leads.

When your B2B sales team is looking to boost its revenue, the answer often lies in prospecting. But what if I told you that there was a better way?

What if instead of having Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) reach out to cold outbound prospects with templated emails, you could have more confidence in your outreach?

In this article, I propose a paradigm shift in how you have been prospecting for B2B leads to help you close more. With this new paradigm, lead quality increases, and so do the B2B leads in your funnel.

To understand why you need a new way of prospecting, let's look at how traditional B2B prospecting works.

Traditional B2B Prospecting: Let's Spam This B2B Leads List

Getting your B2B sales prospecting right is essential since it helps you identify potential leads and nurture them so that they convert into a sale.

Do you remember back when you used to pick up the phone and call someone about your product? You were likely to connect with sales decision-makers and set up an appointment for a demo -- if you could charm them on the call.

Or maybe you sent 500 emails using B2B email leads a day to your "leads" list that you bought off a marketplace and hit your numbers for qualified leads and demos.

That's not enough anymore. Why?

Firstly, you can't spam and expect results anymore, and second, Business-to-Business (B2B) buyers are humans (which can either be producers, resellers, governments, and institutions) who want the same experiences as Business-to-Consumer (B2C) shoppers – personalized and efficient.

Cold Calling Is On Its Deathbed: Reducing Sales Quota

Over 200 million people on the national do-not-call list… Corporations not taking calls unless you have a named contact… Isn’t it crystal clear that our desire to speak with people on the phone is dwindling? Especially if those calls are unsolicited.

 

Only 1-2% of cold calls are successful. Likewise, more recent research shows that less than 2% of cold calls result in a meeting.

 

The Harvard Business Review reported cold calling is ineffective 90% of the time. Another research shows that 63% of sales reps admit that cold calling is the worst part of their job. In comparison, only 1-2% of cold calls are successful. Likewise, more recent research shows that less than 2% of cold calls result in a meeting.

Research points out that cold calls will not work in the 21st Century. “Instead, when sales reps conduct some research on prospective clients, understand who they are, their pain points, and what solutions they need, they will be better placed to convert them.”

Your reps will have difficulty convincing a "stranger" on the phone even if your product is fantastic. For most parts, your prospect is already aware of your competitors and the best practices in your industry.

In short, your prospects don't need a call from you, and the dwindling success rates from your cold calls speak for that.

Hence, another struggle on how to increase B2B leads for your company!

B2B Email Leads: Someone Just Reported Your Cold Email As Spam

Few would deny that cold emails nowadays will get you flagged by spam filters and blocklisted in your prospect's inbox. According to SilverPop, 82% of all cold emails get reported as spam.

According to a review by Statista, 57% of people who receive cold emails perceive them as spam, even before opening them. 

You must understand that spraying cold emails isn't sustainable.

Yeah, while you were reading this article, some of your prospects reported your email or your rep's cold email as "spam." This means that if your company sends 50 cold emails a day, then every three days, you will have 20 of them automatically go into the garbage can of a random person.

That doesn’t do you any good, does it now?

You’ve got to expect this just because the method was flawed from the start. You must understand that spraying cold emails isn't sustainable.

Not only does this hurt your deliverability metrics, but it also impacts how many opportunities get passed along – if not directly impacting revenue.

Looking for an alternative to increase your sales quotas is the only way to move forward!

How To Increase B2B Leads: Yesterday's Ways Will Not Get You To Your Goals

Cold calling is as old as the first yellow pages, and cold emails are as old as the internet. So, if you think just scaling your Sales Development Representative (SDR) or Business Development Representative (BDR) team can help you hit your revenue goals, then you are mistaken.

With a broken top-of-funnel process, no matter how many reps you have on your team, the results are always going to be "we hit 70% of our quota" or worse.

But We Are Prospecting!

If prospecting for you means sending a bunch of emails and calling people without any prospecting tools, you might as well give up. You are better off spending time getting to know them from the very beginning with a platform that will allow you to prospect smarter, not harder.

With limited success from their prospecting, your reps will feel demotivated. And so, enter into what I call "prospecting hell" - a state of limbo where you are working, but nothing's moving.

Prospecting means talking to people about the value of your product or service – it is NOT spamming or just cold calling. The good news is you can prospect smarter, not harder.

Let me be crystal clear about this: prospecting means talking to people about the value of your product or service – it is NOT spamming or just cold calling. The good news is you can prospect smarter, not harder.

BUT it requires a change in your approach.

B2B Buyer Leads: Prospecting Hell Leads To Another Wasted Quarter

If prospecting hell is allowed to persist, reps will start to skip prospecting activities or postpone them to the last minute.

For some, this means more time playing video games or watching cat videos on YouTube. Just kidding.

But I am sure you get my point – lack of motivation leads to a drop in performance. And all this leads to poor sales results, which inevitably leads to another quarter with unachieved targets.

Salesforce's state of sales 2019 report states that, on average, almost 60% of sales reps miss their quota every year. I hope your reps aren't one of them, and if they are, then it is time for a change.

AI – Artificial intelligence FTW!

Do you want to get out of the prospecting hell? Do you want to start hitting your revenue goals? I can offer you a way.

Stop trying to be different… Get qualified leads that convert into sales opportunities and qualified opportunities that will turn into closed deals.

 

With less time spent finding leads, your reps can focus on revenue-generating activities like email personalization, getting referrals for warm calls, and finding valuable content to share with prospects.

 

AI-based prospecting software can give you this ability. AI-based prospecting tools find relevant prospects for your reps by using Natural Language Processing (NLP). It can ask questions on your behalf and find patterns, something only humans can do today. Hence, this applies to online sources such as review sites, blogs, forums, contact databases, social media sites, and other public data sources.

While you get to have a consolidated view of your prospects without having to spend time on research, the best part is that the prospect never knows you were trying to sell them something – not even a cup of coffee!

With less time spent finding leads, your reps can focus on revenue-generating activities like email personalization, getting referrals for warm calls, and finding valuable content to share with prospects.

AI can give you a substantial competitive advantage over your competitors who still rely on the old ways of doing things.

That's where Truebase can help. We have built a state-of-the-art AI-based prospecting software that can help B2B teams find high-quality leads from their ICP in no time.

With Truebase, you can find decision-makers, influencers, recommenders, and economic buyers in a B2B buying group. When you are confident about the role of a person in your buying group, you can connect with a relevant message.

How Does Truebase AI work?

Truebase is an AI-based B2B sales acceleration platform that enables revenue teams to prospect faster and connect smarter. Without any manual searches, Truebase finds you lookalike leads while surfacing connections for warm intros to prospects. Using ML, Truebase keeps your CRM full with new lookalike accounts and leads.

Truebase works by capturing, enriching, and analyzing data from different sources before presenting them to your sales reps as potential prospects. The best part is that your reps don't have to search for leads.

All you need to do is share your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), and voila, Truebase understands who you want to target. With more than 100M data points, the AI analyzes and finds you the best-fit prospects who might need your products.

Truebase can do all the heavy lifting for your reps, and all they need to do is craft their email, get a referral for that warm call and sit out while hot leads pour in the funnel.

Relevant qualified sales opportunities mean a higher return on investment and higher quota attainment – not to mention happy customers!

That's an easy win-win for you and your reps.

Want more qualified leads for your sales pipeline? Sign up for a free Truebase account today.

 

Time to launch into your AI prospecting journey

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