Marketers think in terms of campaigns and touch points, whereas traditional sales people think about one-to-one sales calls. This conflict is being riled up by a few factors:

• Less selling involves in-person contact (more demos are online or remote)
• There's an increased volume of leads coming from marketing
• It's hard to hire more bodies to interact with them with all leads

Tawheed Kadar has solved for these conflicts by making each sales person a mini marketing organization with his 5x5 Method, which he spoke about the Sales Hacker Conference today. Oh and if you haven't guessed yet, his company ToutApp will help you do this.

The 5X5 Method

 

5 Pre-Planned Templates

These are the five touches a sales person will need to make with an inbound lead. These can be emails, phone calls, tweets, or LinkedIn messages.

5 Days/Weeks/Months Apart

Each touch is going to be 5 days apart. You may elongate the schedule but unless the prospect is super engaged, you don't want to overwhelm them with touches too close together.

5 Strategic Touches

You'll give a little bit and take a little bit over five contacts with the prospect.

1. Introduce yourself: First touch is simple, don't ask for anything!
2. Provide value: Again–don’t ask for anything! Just provide information that the customer will value. Not about your product but about their needs.
3. Offer help: Next you offer them help with a need they have.
4. Engage for feedback: Build rapport.
5. “The Ask”: Only after all these touches, do you actually ask to meet.

Is This Sales Automation?

Yes and no. You’re using your staff to run a drip campaign but with their active involvement so you’re building a better funnel that engages sales people. You don’t want these emails to look like designed marketing emails. The email should look personal.

Best Practices for Touches

• Automate when possible: You may want to automate certain inbound lead collection funnels.
• {{Personalize}} as much as possible: Make sure your email system pulls in multiple data points to personalize the email touch points.
• Use Engagement Data to drive next steps: Front-load leads that visit your blog or pricing page. If your prospect is engaging you online, your rep needs to skip waiting 5 days and call now.
• Constantly iterate and test new messaging: Someone on the team needs to be testing new subject lines and messaging to create the ultimate text.

How You Can Provide Value to the Client in Your Touch

• Use LinkedIn: Research who you’re actually talking to and what the people above your lead are asking them to do.
• Check Glassdoor for Employee Reviews: Are employees leaving? Can you offer help in retention? What do employees complain about? Do you solve for that?
• Check Indeed for Jobs: Hey it looks you’re hiring VP of Sales, do you want my lead list of VPs of Sales that I just interviewed?
• Read their Blog: “Gateway to the soul of the company.” Incorporate what they care about into your touches.

Will This Work In Your Organization?

Check out the ToutApp blog for more sales education materials.