Calendar CTAs, Demo Software, Holiday Prospecting Etiquette

Should you include calendar links in your cold outreach? What about sending a cold email on Thanksgiving? Raj and Tyler debate, while Will Aitken gives his top tips for giving great demos after Reprise received $62 million in funding.

All this and a side of mashed potatoes on this week’s episode of Full Funnel.

Full Funnel Resources: 

TOFU:
https://mesg.ai/blog/dont-ask-for-a-meeting-in-your-first-sales-outreach 

MOFU: 
https://venturebeat.com/2021/11/09/product-demo-and-analytics-platform-reprise-raises-62m/ 
 
BOFU https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/avoid-selling-dead-zones-youll-win-big-holiday-season-devin-reed/ 

Transcript

0:00

You should definitely include a calendar link in your cold outreach. Reprise raises $62 million. What does that mean for the future of demos? And will you send cold emails on Thanksgiving Day? We got the turkey, the stuffing and the taters on this Thanksgiving edition of Full Funnel. Hey, everyone, I'm Raj Nation, he's Tyler Lessard, and this is Full Funnel, the weekly show that scores a disappointing 16 points on a standard Scrabble board full final is where we break down three hot topics happening in the world of sales. All the help you go out, show out and fill up your funnel. Let's dive right in... top funnel! Earlier this week, I got a cold DM on LinkedIn. The seller was sending a follow up to their first message that I did not respond to, and the follow up said, When can we connect? Here's my calendar to book a time. I do not like this for one, maybe two very specific reasons. Your failure to provide a calendar link was not what was standing in the way of me responding in the first place. The message probably was bad. Just adding a calendar link isn't going to make me be like, Oh, you know what? I actually forgot that I read a bad email or a bad prospecting outreach. I will book that meeting now. I want to empower the prospect to tell me what they think is the right next step, but I definitely don't put a calendar link in there. I'd rather they reply and say, What's the next step? And then I can reply with a calendar link from there because they've shown interest. Well, Raj, in this case, I think you're completely wrong about this, including a calendar link in your messages is the right thing for reps to do because, hey, we're all trying to create the conversations and allowing somebody to raise their hand and book a meeting with you instead of having to get into a back and forth email or DM exchange actually could be very respectful of their time. But the problem is, a lot of reps are always using the calendar link as their main call to action. So instead of that, make sure that you are using your messages to ask interesting questions to pique curiosity and end with interest based CTAs or questions like; Is the problem that I referenced here something you may be trying to solve as well? Then you could include your link afterwards with a little note that says If you're interested in chatting more about this, feel free to book a time in my calendar. Here's my link. So if I'm hearing you correctly, do use it, if you're able to gather some type of like interest, call to action and then below that, having an if so, here's your opportunity. Yeah, I think don't be afraid to have it there. You don't always have to remove it, but don't always rely on it as the only or primary call to action. Well F*** you... Mid Funnel! sales software company Reprise landed $62 million in Series B funding last week. Now, Reprise offers a Chrome extension that allows any sales rep to create their own interactive product tour. For more on reprises product and the impact of their funding round, plus some fire demo tips. We've got sales feeds on Will Aitken reporting live from the Chrome browser. That's right, gents Reprise just raised an absolutely humongous$62 million Series B funding round. Their solution is all about giving better demo experiences, which is great because demoing is something that I see so many reps get so, so wrong. Here are some tips to make sure that your next demo absolutely lands. first up, show only the most relevant parts of your solution. Use what you learn in discovery to highlight the parts that are going to impact your customer the most. Make it personalized. No one wants to feel like they're watching something that they could have found on YouTube, so try and tie in your customers name, logos, existing clients, their team to make it feel more personalized to them. For every point or feature that you show, make sure you tie it to some kind of benefit or outcome for your customer. Squeak Squeak Get that mouse under control. If you're not using your mouse, don't touch it. It's super distracting to see a cursor moving around the screen while you're trying to listen to someone or have a conversation. Slow down. You've probably done your demo one hundred times, but this is the prospects first time seeing it, so make sure you slow down to let it all sink in. Ask questions. If the client isn't being talkative or asking questions of their own, then feel free to prompt them by asking questions like How does this compare to the way you do it now? Don't be afraid to leave some silence after you show important parts of your solution. People need time to process, and if you move on too quickly, you might miss an important question that they have. Close your tabs only have the tabs open, which are relevant to your demo. Having too many tabs open will mean that your prospect will try to read every single one of them and become distracted. Look for tools like Reprise, Limelight, Zoom presenter tools to make your demo stand apart. If your prospect is reviewing several solutions, you want yours to be the most memorable. And last but not least, turn those notifications off. Slack emails Even if they don't distract your prospects, they might distract you and throw you off your flow... Bottom Funnel! The turkey is in the oven. The casserole is almost ready. The lions are losing, again. What better time to kick back and read a cold email, what! Everyone treats Thanksgiving and the holidays as a sacred time, it's family time, et cetera. But do you know what actually happens on Thanksgiving? Yeah, you're with your family, but you're also very quickly sick of your family. So why not schedule a sequence to go out on Thanksgiving morning? Hi. I know it's Thanksgiving, and if you're like me, you're probably still checking your phone because your family's already bugging you. And then here's why I'm reaching out. I bet you will break through the noise and get a few smirks and a few responses along the way. Tyler, what's your Canadian perspective on this? Oh, well, if you haven't picked up on all of my eh's and aboots so far, I am coming at you from north of the border and here in Canada, I mean, our Thanksgiving was last month. None of you give a s*** about that, but that's fine. But for your Thanksgiving, not only do I agree with Raj, it's actually a fun time to put some messages out there and put a little bit of a spin on it. But you could also prospect people like me. Us Canadians, we're working away on that day and our inboxes are actually pretty quiet as well because the rest of North America is doing what you do. So feel free to hit my inbox, hit everybody at vidyard's inboxes because we're all working on Thanksgiving Day... The Close! we've reached the end of our funnel. Let's recap. In top funnel, we asked to calendar link or not to calendar link? In mid funnel, we talked about reprise's raise and what it means for your own demo experiences. And in bottom funnel, we made a compelling case for doing prospecting on Thanksgiving morning. Our funnel is full. We hope you can get back out there now and fill up yours. Please like, comment, and subscribe before you head out. He's Tyler Lessard. I'm Raj Nation. You've been watching Full Funnel exclusively on Sales Feed. We are taking our own Thanksgiving break, but we will be back with you the week after. Until then, though, just remember dial nine for outgoing.