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<p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Losing your job during the recession might be the biggest nightmare of your life. But what if it turns into reality?</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">According to research conducted by</span><a href="https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/tech-layoffs-2022/"><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#4a6ee0;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><u> </u></span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#FF508F;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><u>Crunchbase</u></span></a><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">, 38000 workers lost their jobs during the outbreak of layoffs at tech companies in the United States till mid-august of 2022.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Due to the increasing interest rates and skyrocketing inflation, companies cut down their costs and resort to mass layoffs and hiring freezes.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">In such a case, how do you find a sales job? Giving time for your emotional upheaval to subside, followed by a well-planned job search, works well. Read on to find out how.</span></p><ol><li><a href="#prepare-before-acting"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Prepare before acting</span></a></li><li><a href="#LinkedIn-Can-Be-Your-Savior"><span style="color:#FF508F;">LinkedIn Can Be Your Savior</span></a></li><li><a href="#Update-Your-Resume "><span style="color:#FF508F;">Update Your Resume&nbsp;</span></a></li><li><a href="#Learning-Must-Go-On"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Learning Must Go On</span></a></li><li><a href="#Build-Credibility-Through-Feedback"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Build Credibility Through Feedback</span></a></li><li><a href="#Identify-your-financial-pitfalls"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Identify your financial pitfalls</span></a></li></ol>

<h2>#: Prepare Before Acting</h2><p>Recession brings a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. But acting upon impatience and directly jumping to look for a job is not a good step. Accept your situation and let your emotions sink in.</p><p>You need to take some time to regroup and proactively prepare for the job search. Introspect your layoff rationally and understand that it is a part of a larger economic crisis and has nothing to do with you personally.</p><p>Francois-Henri Pinault, a French businessman, stated, “In a recession, you must be able to call into question everything you've done before.” Start by conducting an honest evaluation of the role in your previous sales position to search for the gaps that can be filled in your skill set. Then work on these shortcomings with a positive attitude and a survivor's mindset.&nbsp;</p>

<h2><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><strong>#2: LinkedIn Can Be Your Savior</strong></span></h2><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Social media platforms often take a backseat in our minds amid the panic of finding a job during recession. Recognize the potential of these platforms and leverage them to make your job search successful.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Statistics prove that more than</span><a href="https://financesonline.com/linkedin-statistics/"><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#1155cc;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><u> </u></span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#FF508F;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><u>72 percent</u></span></a><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#FF508F;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">of recruiters use LinkedIn to find employees. A Linkedin profile is your virtual resume and optimizing it should be your first step. Start by recreating your headline and cover photo in a way that displays ‘who you are,’ and ‘what you do.’ Adding a crisp summary and a detailed job description will further add to your advantage.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Layoffs bring you free time. Invest it in building a personal brand on LinkedIn. Besides writing consistently, connect and engage on the posts of recruiters and hiring managers of the companies you want to work with.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Use your prior work experience and domain understanding of sales to create pertinent content. This will broaden your reach and visibility while showcasing your knowledge to potential employers. Just as businesses leverage LinkedIn to find prospects, </span><a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/10-unique-linkedin-sales-message-templates-to-get-more-replies"><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#FF508F;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">get replies</span></a><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#FF508F;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">and make a sale, you can use it to find your next chapter.&nbsp;</span></p>

<h2><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><strong>#3: Update Your Resume&nbsp;</strong></span></h2><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">It is natural for you to be in haste to find a new job if you have been unexpectedly laid off during recession. But sending a year-old resume while pitching to new companies for a sales job can be your biggest mistake.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Update your resume and tweak it in a way that aligns with the sales position you are applying for. Optimize it according to the keywords and phrases found in that job description. Also, include new skills that you have learned during your previous work experience.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Stacking your resume with all your past experiences might be tempting but it is specificity and relevance that is desired here. To increase your chances of getting a positive response, customize your resume every time you send it out for a job application.&nbsp;</span></p>

<h2><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><strong>#4: Learning Must Go On</strong></span></h2><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Every company wants a versatile workforce. A firm will only be willing to hire you if you are able to convince them that you possess skills that others lack. Reliable employees with strong communication skills and a diverse skill set are more likely to survive layoffs.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Getting hired for a sales job during recession might require you to take on tasks in unfamiliar areas. And to stand out in this highly competitive market, you should be prepared for that. A layoff during recession is the best time to cultivate new skills and keep your curiosity ignited.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Use online platforms like</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#FF508F;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.coursera.org/"><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#FF508F;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><u>Coursera</u></span></a><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#FF508F;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">or&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.udemy.com/?deal_code=&amp;utm_term=Homepage&amp;utm_content=Textlink&amp;utm_campaign=Rakuten-default&amp;ranMID=39197&amp;ranEAID=%2F68Yt01SgtI&amp;ranSiteID=_68Yt01SgtI-jVVriSmozvJwixmsQI7h5g&amp;LSNPUBID=%2F68Yt01SgtI&amp;utm_source=aff-campaign&amp;utm_medium=udemyads"><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#FF508F;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><u>Udemy</u></span></a><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#4A6EE0;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">,</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"> to expand your knowledge on industry-specific topics and acquire certifications. You can even access podcasts or search for books in libraries to further enhance your sales skills.&nbsp;</span></p>

<h2><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><strong>#5: Build Credibility Through Feedback</strong></span></h2><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Going back to your previous manager and asking them for feedback can be difficult and embarrassing. But, if it increases your chances of getting a new job, you should make the move.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Feedback is a doubly beneficial enterprise. Besides building your credibility in the market, it develops and improves soft skills like communication, leadership, and empathy.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Don’t hesitate and seek advice from your previous executives. Question them about your strengths, weaknesses, areas that you can improve, and those in which you are best qualified. You can also request for skill endorsement and recommendations on LinkedIn.</span></p>

<h2><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;"><strong>#6: Identify your financial pitfalls</strong></span></h2><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Dealing with a financial crisis amid a job loss during recession can be devastating. Prioritize analyzing your finances and developing a strategy to avoid further anxiety in addition to what you may be going through.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Start by checking your existing savings to determine the timeframe for which you can last. Evaluate the extent to which you can cut down on your expenses. This will help you set a timeline to find a new job and make you more focused and purpose-driven.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Strategies are important to create, but they might not always work. So, have a backup to fall on. In this case, part-time jobs, freelancing, or even internships can be your potential alternatives.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">Finding a sales job after being laid off during recession can be challenging. But brooding over the loss won’t lead you anywhere. Instead, channelize your thoughts to develop a strategy that will help you get out of this situation.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0e101a;font-family:Avenir,sans-serif;">A positive attitude and the willingness to succeed are must-haves to battle this storm. The next time you find yourself in a crisis, refer to the list above to understand the steps you can take to make your job hunt effective</span></p>

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How to Get a Job After Being Laid Off 

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<p>Tracing the turbulence in the economy over the past years, <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/09/15/risk-of-global-recession-in-2023-rises-amid-simultaneous-rate-hikes"><span style="color:#E6E6E6;">The World Bank</span></a>, in its September 2022 press release, predicted a global recession in 2023. Interestingly, <a href="https://www.investors.com/news/economy/most-americans-think-the-u-s-economy-is-in-a-recession-ibd-tipp/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">58%</span></a> of the American population believes that the U.S. economy has already descended into recession. It is natural for your company to struggle with sales in such a scenario.</p><p>Reduced expenditure by customers and their lack of confidence in the future and economy directly impact your sales. Worse, your business also needs to come up with a plan to tackle reduced budgets, less revenue, and cash flow slowdowns.&nbsp;</p><p>‍<strong>In such a case, how do you manage to increase sales during the recession? Understanding the evolving customer pattern and tweaking your strategy accordingly works best. Read on.</strong></p><h2>#1: Prioritize Existing Customers</h2><p>Focusing on onboarding new clients is not an effective sales strategy during a recession. Instead, engage your sales team in finding ways to deliver value, support, and satisfaction to your existing customer base. Identify the changes you can make to systems, procedures, delivery, or contract terms to serve them with the best.&nbsp;</p><p>By approaching the problem from the customer’s perspective, sales reps can effectively provide a straightforward purchasing process and the security of a trusted brand. For instance, a client is more likely to buy a product with a one-year agreement than one with a three-year contract because of the uncertainty that a recession brings with it.</p><p>Your value proportion should be ROI-focused. It must state how the value you provide connects with customers and differentiates your products. If defined correctly, value proportion helps your company stand out in the market competition and retain your customers.&nbsp;</p><p>Low sales bring you extra time. Utilizing it to provide customer satisfaction is the best way to go. Engaging with your customers and seeking feedback is a good first step. Further, focus on improving your customer service and making your payment options more flexible. This will increase your capacity to serve more clients while reducing customer churn.</p><h2>#2: Automate Your Tasks to Increase Sales During Recession</h2><p>Automation is one of the best sales strategies that can recession-proof your business. It streamlines the workforce, reduces human error, and frees time for your team to focus on high-impact selling activities instead of manual tasks. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay</span></a> is here to help you with that.</p><p>With scheduled messages, workflows, and automated record updates of contemporary CRMs, you can leverage your sales efforts without increasing the number of members in your team. You can even respond to customer queries quickly and in a more personalized way, improving customer satisfaction.&nbsp;</p><p>When implemented efficiently, our <a href="https://outplayhq.com/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">sales engagement platform</span></a> improves the ROI of your business such that it outweighs the initial cost of the start-up. You can expect enhanced speed, accuracy, and reduced error risk with this lowered operational cost.</p><h2>#3: Invest in Training Your Employees&nbsp;</h2><p>Recession is likely to hit your company with lower projects and more free time at hand. Besides, in a scenario when bonuses and raises are out of bounds, upskilling your employees is the best alternative to increase job satisfaction and employee retention.&nbsp;</p><p>Job stagnation is a common trend in employees during the recession that leads to demotivated staff and poor performance. But upskilling can help you rectify it. Focus on colleagues' interactions and connecting across different departments in the organization. This will help you in diversifying an employee's expertise and relieving their frustration.&nbsp;</p><p>Upskilling also helps in increasing customer satisfaction. Your customers do not have to shift from one consulting branch to the other, as a trained employee can provide basic information and answers to all customer queries. These highly skilled employees add to the brand reputation while saving finances, time, and energy that is conventionally invested in hiring new members.&nbsp;</p><h2>#4: Seek Referrals From Customers&nbsp;</h2><p>Your company’s credibility and the customer’s trust are crucial factors that can help you attract new clients during a recession. Statistics show that referral leads convert <a href="https://www.invespcro.com/blog/referral-marketing/#:~:text=Did%20you%20know%20that%20referral,more%20customers%20to%20your%20brand."><span style="color:#FF508F;">30 percent</span></a> better than leads generated from other marketing channels, providing a 16% higher LTV.</p><p>An integrated referral program, if implemented correctly, can serve as an effective sales strategy. Engaging with your customers and asking if they have someone who might be interested in your product can be the first and most beneficial step in lead generation. Further, incentivize your customers to refer your business to their network. Paying referral commissions or referring leads to strategic patterns that serve your ideal customer profile (ICP) could be effective methods to do this.&nbsp;</p><p>Referral marketing is cost-effective. Contrary to the conventional <a href="https://medium.com/corl/how-to-calculate-lifetime-value-customer-acquisition-cost-ratio-for-your-saas-business-332510188726"><span style="color:#FF508F;">3:1 LTV to CAC</span></a> ratio, it has the potential to boost your company’s growth far beyond expectations. With a sharp retention rate of <a href="https://www.invespcro.com/blog/referral-marketing/#:~:text=Did%20you%20know%20that%20referral,more%20customers%20to%20your%20brand."><span style="color:#FF508F;">37 percent</span></a>, referred customers are trustworthy and loyal.&nbsp;</p><h2>#5: Keep a Check on Your Cash Flow</h2><p>Prioritizing cash flow during a recession is one of the sales improvement strategies that businesses often ignore. Recession can give a hard time to your company. With customers tightening their purses, you need to look out for even the slightest change in your cash flow.</p><p>Do not shy away from reducing transactions with nonprofitable customers who might waste your valuable time in extreme negotiations or late payments. Instead, invest in customers who pay within the prescribed time frame. Further, offer discounts on early payment to improve your sales, which in turn increases cash flow.&nbsp;</p><p>Before making any expense, look out for the accuracy of the charges and the necessity of the purchase or investment involved. Keep a check on profit margins with a cash flow forecast to get a clearer picture of your cash flow.&nbsp;</p><p>Dealing with reduced budgets, cash slowdowns, and layoffs during a recession can be stressful. But to alter the situation to your benefit, you need to shift your position from being a passive recipient of the changes to an active business strategist.</p><p>Make use of the right automation tools to streamline your business operations, make prospecting easier, and create personalized messages at scale. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay</span></a> can help you do that a lot more. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Check out our tool here</span></a>.</p><h4><strong>‍</strong><br><i><strong>LIKE WHAT YOU JUST READ? SUBSCRIBE </strong></i><a href="https://outplayhq.com/blogs"><span style="color:#FF508F;"><i><strong>HERE</strong></i></span></a><i><strong> FOR FREE TO READ MORE SUCH INSIGHTFUL BLOGS.</strong></i></h4>

5 Effective Sales Strategies to Sell During the Recession

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<p>Nothing turns people off faster than staid communication, be it via email or any other form of outreach. With people’s attention spans getting notoriously shorter, the opening part of the pitch can make or break your effort.</p><p>On average, an individual <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2019/apr/08/how-many-work-emails-is-too-many">receives 121 emails</a> daily, and the average open rate for emails across industries is <a href="https://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/articles/KnowledgeBase/5409-average-industry-rates?lang=en_US">31.5%</a>. Most of these emails go unnoticed because people don’t have time to read through them. Putting forth an email with entertaining content will increase the odds that your sales emails will garner both interest and attention from the prospects.&nbsp;</p>

<h1><strong>Using Humor in Sales Emails</strong></h1><p>When it comes to using a funny sales pitch, timing is vital. When would be the right time to sprinkle a bit of humor into a sales pitch?</p><ul><li>When you initially attempt an outreach, ideally introduce your proposition in a way that showcases your abilities and utilize research to back up your claims.<br>&nbsp;</li><li>The first email is only a nudge. Follow-up emails should emphasize the benefits of the offer and the pain points.<br>&nbsp;</li><li>The third and usually final email is your last push at attempting to connect. At this stage of the outreach, including sales humor memes or funny sales opening lines will make you stand apart from the competition and the endless flood of emails your prospect receives each day.&nbsp;</li></ul><h2><strong>Do's and Don'ts of Using Humor</strong></h2><h3><span style="font-size:21px;"><strong>1. Ensure Relevancy to Your Business</strong></span></h3><p>If you are looking to incorporate humor within your sales emails, pay heed to the following things:</p><ul><li>How you wish to portray your brand personality and niche.</li><li>Your target demographic (aka your potential customers).&nbsp;</li><li>The intent that lies behind sending the email in the first place.</li></ul><p>Avoid using humor that is likely to offend your readers. Play it safe and stick to harmless jokes and commonly used puns.&nbsp;</p><p>Among the <strong>funny sales opening lines,</strong> you could consider using, “Why are eating clocks so hard? Because it's time-consuming!” This is the kind of humor you need to share with your target audience without making it appear that you are trying too hard. The online world is a treasure trove of <strong>funny sales pitch lines </strong>that you could look up to find the ones you like.&nbsp;</p><h3><span style="font-size:21px;"><strong>2. Move Beyond the Humor and Convert Leads</strong></span></h3><p>While humor is indeed helpful in coming up with a <strong>funny sales pitch</strong>, the main objective is to generate business for your organization. Humor without a purpose means that your target audience will forget about your email as soon as they move away from it. Your emails should convey humor that increases brand recall among your target audience and encourages them to take the next step and become customers.</p><p>For instance: If you are running an eCommerce store, you could implement humor in the email you send to potential customers who abandon their cart. Next, analyze their response to it, and if they meet with a measure of success, you could use humor in your other email workflows too.&nbsp;</p><h3><span style="font-size:21px;"><strong>3. Play it Safe With an A/B Test</strong></span></h3><p>Plan for two variations of your sales emails. One with a formal or serious tone and the second with a pinch of humor. Evaluate the metrics of both emails and understand how they resonate with your audience.</p><p>If you feel the humorous approach works better and generates positive engagement, include humor in your emails. Consider using <strong>sales humor memes </strong>as a means to delight the prospect.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p><p>You could also run the email content by your friends or colleagues and ask them to think from the client’s perspective. Elicit feedback from all possible sources. If your instinct says your attempt at humor may not be well received, you need to revise your strategy.&nbsp;</p><h3><span style="font-size:21px;"><strong>4. Maintain the Right Balance</strong></span></h3><p>Every email you send out to your prospects need not include elements of humor. There is a fine line between being funny and professional. The fun element in your emails should be balanced, as it can affect your chances of converting prospects into customers.&nbsp;</p><p>If you keep sending your prospects the same kind of emails, you risk leaving them disinterested. So be sure to err on the side of caution and tone down the <strong>funny sales pitch </strong>occasionally.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>Use Humor to Your Advantage</strong></h2><p>The sales process is a serious affair—from communication to closing the deal. With <strong>funny sales pitch lines</strong> as an aid in sales emails, you can snag prospects’ attention to create a lasting connection.&nbsp;</p><p>Establishing a rapport and a memorable first impression will open the door to further interactions with your prospect. It also builds trust and higher brand recall among potential and existing customers.&nbsp;</p><p>Here are a few points you should remember when writing <strong>funny sales pitches</strong>.</p><ul><li>Understand your prospect and the kind of issues they are experiencing. Then use humor to connect it with your services and products.</li><li>Pay attention to what’s happening around you that resonates with your prospects, and identify common ground between you two.</li><li>Don’t be overly serious or funny. Find the right balance.</li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p><p>If you find writing emails the hardest part of your job, we have you covered. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multichannel-outreach/email">Outplay’s AI email writer</a> can help you with the first draft and personalized touch you need to connect with prospects. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo">Book a free demo today</a>.</p>

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How to Use Humor in Your Sales Emails

How to Pick a Meeting Scheduler for Multiple Time Zones

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<p>Nothing is more frustrating for a sales rep than sending emails manually. It’s tedious and unnecessary—and takes away from their selling time.&nbsp;Here’s a straightforward solution: Email sequence software. An email sequencing software eliminates manual outreach, automates follow-ups, and improves customer engagement.&nbsp;</p><p>Now, the problem: There are tons of email cadence software in the market. Which one should you choose?</p><p>We have combed through hundreds of software and come up with the seven best email sequence tools with their key features and pricing so you can choose the one that suits your business needs.&nbsp;</p><h1>&nbsp;</h1><h1>7 Best Email Sequencing Tools for Your Business in 2022</h1><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>1. Outplay</h2><p>Outplay is an email automation sequence software that allows you to send personalized emails and automate email follow-ups. You can set triggers to move prospects to the next step automatically.</p><p>With the email sequence automation tool, you can leverage features like A/B testing, built-in templates, and link tracking. You can also track prospect engagement in real-time to make instant data-driven decisions.</p><h4><strong>Connect Your Existing Email Accounts to Outplay</strong></h4><p>Connect your Gmail and Microsoft 365 to Outplay in a matter of minutes. You can also connect email accounts from different network providers using IMAP.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p><p><span style="font-size:17px;"><strong>Automate Outbound With Email Sequences</strong></span></p><p>Automate outbound using a mix of touchpoints, such as calls, texts, emails, LinkedIn DMs, etc. You can auto-trigger an email campaign or customize a sequence manually for a prospect. This process saves hours for the sales reps each week so they can focus on other activities that bring more leads into the pipeline.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<h4>&nbsp;</h4><h4><strong>A/B Test Your Email Variants</strong></h4><p>You don’t have to resort to A/B testing software to check which email works better with your audience. With our email cadence software, you can add multiple email variants to the sequence to see which has more impressions, open rates, clicks, etc. You can add different email variants within a sequence step and enable/disable them with a single click.</p>

<h3>&nbsp;</h3><h3><strong>Turn High-Performing Emails Into Templates</strong></h3><p>See which emails have the best engagement rates and turn them into sales pitches and cold email templates. Your sales team can use the templates next time they want to send an email or cold DM.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<h4>&nbsp;</h4><h4><strong>Leverage Real-Time Insights to Close More Deals</strong></h4><p>Stay on top of your team’s performance, track opportunity stages, sequence stats, prospect status, booked meetings, and more with our email sales sequence tool. You can analyze sales calls with the built-in feature to get more visibility into the team's performance.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<h4>&nbsp;</h4><h4><strong>Pricing:&nbsp;</strong></h4><ul><li>Free Plan: $0 /month</li><li>Starter Plan: $39/month per user</li><li>Growth Plan: $79/month per user</li><li>Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing</li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p><h2>2. QuickMail</h2><p>QuickMail is a cold email software that improves deliverability and automates follow-ups to score more leads. You can create complex email sequences and integrate them with tools such as HubSpot and Zapier.&nbsp;</p><p>Personalize each email to a recipient on your list and use attributes from the insert field that are unique to every recipient. This ensures that when your prospect receives an email, they don’t see it as another email but as a personalized &amp; customized nudge that speaks to their challenges.</p><h4><strong>Key Features:</strong></h4><ul><li>Create complex email sequences with multiple steps and delays between each step</li><li>Remove prospects from the list when they take the final action</li><li>Personalize email sequences by using unique attributes</li><li>Scale your campaign by adding multiple inboxes</li><li>Integrate with your existing workflow and other integrations&nbsp;</li></ul><h4><strong>Pricing:&nbsp;</strong></h4><ul><li>Auto-Warmer Plan: $0 for up to 50 inboxes</li><li>Starter Plan: $59/mo per user, $35/mo per additional inbox</li><li>Pro Plan: $79/mo per user, $45/mo per additional inbox</li></ul><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h2>&nbsp;3. MixMax</h2><p>MixMax is one of the most popular email sequence automation tools used by sales reps, SDRs, and managers. It allows you to launch multi-channel sequences and take advantage of the built-in email templates that enable sales reps to start more conversations with prospects. It also offers real-time integration with Salesforce to streamline the workflow and improve the team's efficiency.&nbsp;</p><h4><strong>Key features:</strong></h4><ul><li>Personalized email, calls, and social media sequences</li><li>Tracking email opens and clicks</li><li>Customizable email templates for Gmail</li><li>Email scheduling</li><li>Engagement report of every recipient</li><li>One-click meeting scheduling</li><li>Setting time zones</li><li>Integration with Salesforce, PipeDrive, Slack, and Dropbox</li></ul><h4><strong>Pricing:</strong></h4><ul><li>Free Plan: $0 /month</li><li>Starter Plan: $12/month or $108/year</li><li>SMB Plan: $29/month or $288/year</li><li>Growth Plan: $65/month or $588/year</li><li>Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing</li></ul><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h2>4. Spotio</h2><p>Spotio's email sales sequence software, AutoPlays, keeps follow-ups with prospects on auto-pilot. You can send automated emails and texts, schedule calls and meetings, and streamline the workflow easily. The tool indicates who to reach out to and the best time to reach out to the prospects. It’s created for sales reps on the go, so the platform is optimized for both desktop and mobile browsers.</p><h4><strong>Key features:</strong></h4><ul><li>Made for field sales teams who are always on-the-go</li><li>Sends automated texts, calls, and emails to qualified leads</li><li>Identify the leads you need to follow up with and suggest the best ways to reach to them</li><li>Reports &amp; insights on email sequence performance&nbsp;</li></ul><h4><strong>Pricing:&nbsp;</strong></h4><ul><li>Available after a demo</li></ul><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h2>5. Outreach</h2><p>Outreach is an email sequencing software that helps you to send multiple email sequences to your prospects and customers.&nbsp;</p><p>Made for large enterprise companies, Outreach allows you to set up multiple touchpoints as continued steps, such as sending emails, followed by a phone call, LinkedIn DM, and so on. The sales reps can duplicate the existing sequences. You can set up auto and manual email sequences with Outreach. While the automated emails get triggered as per the steps in the process, a sales rep can also edit and personalize emails to send to the prospects manually.&nbsp;</p><p>You can track all the important metrics with Outreach’s analytics, such as email open rate, click rate, email delivered, bounced emails, opt-out emails, and responses to the emails.</p><h4><strong>Key Features:&nbsp;</strong></h4><ul><li>Automated and manual email sequences&nbsp;</li><li>Targeted reporting with an easy-to-use dashboard</li><li>Prospects import via CSV/CRM</li><li>Wide range of integrations to streamline workflow</li></ul><h4><strong>Pricing:&nbsp;</strong></h4><ul><li>Starts at 140$/mo for one seat</li></ul><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h2>6. Salesloft</h2><p>Salesloft is a sales engagement platform that helps you to engage with qualified leads using several touchpoints such as calls, texts, and social media. The platform offers comprehensive visibility into the sales pipeline, leverages AI insights, analyzes revenue team alignment, and tells how effective is your communication with the prospects.&nbsp;</p><p>Recent updates to the software include dashboard customizations, mobile optimization, additional workflows, and cadence enhancements.&nbsp;</p><h4><strong>Key Features:</strong></h4><ul><li>Manage complex prospecting processes with AI insights</li><li>Automate scheduling of email sequences to sales leads directly from the platform</li><li>Built-in calendar scheduling to book the meetings easily</li><li>Email analytics and reporting</li></ul><h4><strong>Pricing:</strong></h4><ul><li>Starts at $75/month per user</li></ul><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h2>7. Yesware</h2><p>Yesware is an email sequencing tool that can be integrated into your Gmail, Outlook or any other inbox you use. This means the sales reps won’t have to learn to use another tool and can trigger an email sequence right from their inbox.&nbsp;</p><p>It’s quick and easy to use, and perfect for small businesses that don’t need a host of functions that other software offers.&nbsp;With Yesware, you can track emails, pass on the information to your CRM, customize templates and template reports, and take advantage of in-depth email tracking and performance.</p><h4><strong>Key Features:</strong></h4><ul><li>Reliable email tracking for small businesses</li><li>Trigger multi-channel sequences that include email, calls, LinkedIn, etc.</li><li>Customize email templates and share them with the team</li><li>In-depth email analytics to monitor the performance&nbsp;</li><li>Deep integrations with Gmail, Salesforce, LinkedIn, and more</li></ul><h4><strong>Pricing:</strong></h4><ul><li>Pro Plan: $19/user per month or $180/user per year</li><li>Premium Plan: $45/user per month or $420/user per year</li><li>Enterprise Plan: $85/user per month or $780/user per year</li></ul><h1><strong>Get the Right Email Sequence Software for Your Team</strong></h1><p>Time is ticking for sales reps. It’s important to use the right tools to eliminate repetitive, mundane tasks and focus on bringing new leads into the pipeline. As a sales leader, manager, or SDR, it’s your duty to equip the sales team with those tools, including powerful email sequence software.&nbsp;</p><p>The right automated email sequence tool will help them engage prospects with personalized emails and get more done with multi-channel touchpoints.</p><p>If you’re looking for an email sequencing tool that can help you with this and a lot more, check out Outplay. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Book a free demo here</span></a><span style="color:#E6E6E6;">.</span></p>

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How to Choose an Email Sequencing Software in 2022

<p>Time is of the essence in sales. If you miss the right time to engage with the prospects, you may never have the moment back. The prospect will move on and won’t display the same interest as before.&nbsp;</p><p>That’s why sales reps need to seize every opportunity to close the deal with the clients. Luckily, a good <a href="https://outplayhq.com/sales-cadence-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">sales cadence tool</span></a><span style="color:#FF508F;"> </span>can help.</p><h2>What is a sales cadence?</h2><p>A sales outreach cadence is a series of steps a sales rep takes to close the deal with prospects. It can include sending out pre-planned emails, calls, texts, voicemails, and social media messages over a scheduled period of time until the deal closes or the prospect decides not to move forward with the purchase.&nbsp;</p><h2>How to create a sales cadence?</h2><p>Building the best sales cadence practices will depend upon your customer research so you can create targeted messaging and decide the communication frequency to match your prospects’ needs. Start by getting these basics together:</p><h3>Group your customers</h3><p>Identify who is your target audience by establishing the buyer persona for your product/service. Are they VPs, Directors, C-suite level executives, or managers? If you deal with two or more buyer personas, group them based on position and authority and create multiple email sequences.</p><p>For example: For C-Level execs, you will opt for more personalized emails and fewer calls. If you’re creating a sales cadence for managers and supervisors, you can target an equal number of emails, phone calls, and social media touchpoints.</p><h3>Choose the best channel of communication</h3><p>Understanding what channels your customers are on is easier when you know your target audience.</p><p>Are you selling to C-level executives? These are busy people who are always on the move. Their inbox is filled with sales emails, so adding more phone calls and SMS touchpoints can help you get your message across. If your customers are active on social media, start a cadence with more social media touchpoints.</p><p>Another thing to consider is the channels your sales team is comfortable with. Are they good with cold calling? Can they nurture better relationships on social media?&nbsp;</p><p>And, more importantly, do they have the right B2B sales cadence software to help them navigate tasks easily? Whether they need to line up email sequences, automate replies, or use video messages to personalize cadence, they should be able to do this in a few clicks. Fortunately, Outplay’s sales cadence software does this and a lot more. Check it out <a href="https://outplayhq.com/sales-cadence-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">here</span></a>.</p><h3>Set clear goals with every touchpoint</h3><p>What action do you want your visitor to take? For example: If you’re dealing with an outbound lead, your goal may be to schedule a call to explain the product. If it’s an inbound lead, the goal can be to schedule a product demo with key stakeholders.&nbsp;</p><p>When you have clear goals tied to the outbound sales cadence, it will reflect in your messaging, SMS, phone calls, and emails. Once the visitor knows what action you want them to take, they can decide what they want to do about it.</p><h3>Decide your frequency and space outreach</h3><p>First, define how many touches you want with your prospects. This can be in the form of emails, phone calls, personal DMs, video messages, and social media messaging.</p><p>Typically, it takes 8-10 touches to get your prospects to respond. Optimize each touchpoint with the value proposition you want to convey. At the same time, space your outreach to not overwhelm the prospects. Consider that your prospects may need to research your product/service before they engage with you again. Space the outreach at least 2-3 days apart and give them enough time before approaching them.</p><p>It would help if you mixed up the communication channels. For example, if you’re targeting two touchpoints on the first day, ensure they’re from different channels.</p><h3>Decide when to end your sales cadence</h3><p>How long should you wait for a prospect to get back to you? We suggest anywhere between 2-3 weeks.&nbsp;</p><p>This also depends on whether it’s an inbound or outbound lead. If an outbound prospect hasn’t responded to any touchpoints in a while, you should consider ending the sales cadence.&nbsp;</p><p>But if it’s an inbound lead who demonstrated interest in your product and has not responded to the last few touchpoints, reach out to them again in extended intervals. If you still don’t get a response, you can end the sales cadence.</p><h3>Create quality content</h3><p>Now it’s time to create relevant content that you can send to your potential clients.&nbsp;</p><p>To make this easier, create email templates from the campaigns that worked before. With Outplay’s <a href="https://outplayhq.com/sales-cadence-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">sales cadence tool</span></a>, you can turn your best emails into winning sales templates and share them with your team.&nbsp;</p><p>Sales pitch scripts can give your sales reps an outline to follow on the calls. These can be based on the key pain points, lead segments, and the actions you want the prospect to take. When you create scripts for calls and voicemails within your cadence, it helps your sales reps target the right messaging and synchronize each touchpoint to achieve a common goal.</p><h1>How do you measure sales cadence?</h1><h2>1. A/B test your content</h2><p>“What gets measured gets managed”.&nbsp;</p><p>Take two different pain points and create two messages. A/B test the content in your sales sequence and see which one resonates better with the audience. Do this frequently and adjust the sales email cadence as needed.&nbsp;</p><h2>2. Measure results</h2><p>You won’t know your sales cadence's effectiveness unless you track metrics. Start with these:</p><ul><li>Email open rates</li><li>Email response rate</li><li>Call response rate</li><li>The number of calls or emails required to get a response</li><li>Number of touchpoints</li><li>Type of content with the highest response rate</li><li>Conversion rate</li><li>Rejection rate (the number of nos received at every touchpoint)</li></ul><h2>3. Track sales reps' performance&nbsp;</h2><p>Another thing you should look into is sales reps' individual performances. Look at who’s succeeding at the calls, doing better at social media, getting more email opens, and who’s at the top of the scoreboard for closing the highest deals using the outbound prospecting cadence.&nbsp;</p><p>Understand what strategies are working, double down on them, and improve the team’s performance.</p><h2>Use <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay’s Sales Prospecting Cadence Tool</span></a><span style="color:#FF508F;"> </span>To Close Leads Faster</h2><p>You cannot create a winning sales cadence without a multi-channel<a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement"> <span style="color:#FF508F;">sales engagement platform</span></a>. Outplay HQ has sales cadence capabilities that can help you to:</p><h2><strong>Turn high-performing emails into sales templates</strong></h2><p>Look into the best emails with the highest engagement and response rates and turn them into customizable templates with <a href="https://outplayhq.com/sales-cadence-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay’s Sales Cadence Software.</span></a> This can save your reps precious time, which they can utilize to create more opportunities and sell to new prospects.</p>

<h2><strong>Automate outbound with email sequences</strong></h2><p>Automate sales workflow by creating email sequences for various touchpoints such as LinkedIn, emails, Twitter, SMS, etc. This process can save hours each week so your sales reps can focus on generating more leads.</p>

<h2><strong>Leverage real-time insights</strong></h2><p>Monitor interactions with prospects with real-time data analytics. Track opportunity stages, sequence statistics, prospect status, meetings booked, and task execution with a simple click. Analyze sales calls to understand the strategies that work and don’t work. On the basis of this, refine the sales pitch and template within your cadence.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<h2><strong>Auto-detect replies</strong></h2><p>Get instant notifications when a prospect replies to you. Trigger an auto-response to move the conversation forward. You can also look at how often your email has been opened to schedule a follow-up.</p>

<h2><strong>Use video messages to personalize your cadence</strong></h2><p>With Outplay’s Vidyard Integration, send personalized video messages to get your prospect’s attention. Remember, your prospects receive thousands of emails in a day. This can help you to distinguish yourself from others and improve your response rates.</p>

<p>By combining the framework that we discussed above and personalizing the sales approach using <a href="https://outplayhq.com/sales-cadence-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay</span></a>, you can create the best outbound sales cadence that flows effortlessly and help you generate more leads in the pipeline. Want to know what this looks like in practice? Book a <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo"><span style="color:#FF508F;">demo</span></a> today.&nbsp;</p><p>‍</p><h4><i><strong>LIKE WHAT YOU JUST READ? SUBSCRIBE </strong></i><a href="https://outplayhq.com/blogs"><span style="color:#FF508F;"><i><strong>HERE</strong></i></span></a><i><strong> FOR FREE TO READ MORE SUCH INSIGHTFUL BLOGS.</strong></i></h4>

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How to Use a Sales Cadence Framework to Close More Deals

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<p>It’s hard to disengage when you work in the sales industry. There is no concept of 9-5 PM. You have to be ready to engage whenever a prospect is available. No weekends or holidays truly exist.</p><p>Sales teams are constantly chasing goals, crushing monthly quotas, and beating KPIs. It’s impossible to catch a break—and for this reason, sales reps and managers find themselves burnt out, depressed, and anxious.</p><p>A 2019 survey from the <a href="https://saleshealthalliance.com/state-of-sales-can-meaningful-work-improve-mental-health-happiness-sales-performance/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Sales Health Alliance</span></a> found that 2 in 5 salespeople (43%) experience mental health issues. What’s more interesting is post-COVID-19, the number has significantly increased. The new 2022 report shows that nearly <a href="https://www.uncrushed.org/content/2021/9/21/3-in-5-are-struggling-state-of-mental-health-in-sales-report-2021"><span style="color:#FF508F;">3 in 5 salespeople</span></a> (58%) now struggle with their mental health.</p><h1><strong>How Mental Health Affects Sales Performance</strong></h1><p>Everyone knows how critical mental health is to workplace productivity. But only a few companies invest in resources and initiatives that can improve the mental health of salespeople.</p><p>Investment in mental health is hard to quantify, and most companies don’t know where to start or how this will positively impact their business.</p><p>To put a figure to it, poor mental health in the sales team costs at least $2,469 USD per rep/per year, as per <a href="https://saleshealthalliance.com/the-mental-health-cost-of-your-sales-team/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Sales Health Alliance</span></a>, considering your team has people aged between 18-39.</p><p>If your team has 10 sales reps, it’s around $24,690 USD per 10 reps/per year.</p><p>Research has shown that improved mental health has a direct correlation to sales reps hitting their monthly target and improving the company’s revenue.</p><p>According to the <a href="https://www.uncrushed.org/content/2021/7/6/state-of-mental-health-in-sales-report-2021"><span style="color:#FF508F;">2021 State of Mental Health In Sales</span></a> report, 70% of salespeople with good mental health rated their performance as very good or excellent. On the other hand, only 22% of people with poor mental health rated their performance as good or excellent. People with better mental health perform at least 3x better than those with worse mental health and bring in more revenue to the company.</p><h1><strong>5 Strategies to Improve the Mental Health of Your Sales Team</strong></h1><h2><strong>Set group targets rather than individual targets</strong></h2><p><br>Adam Grant’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXRYgjQXX0&amp;list=PL9UKTUFtRDcOU48kCpy4dsp8KeuSXy-ZR&amp;index=4"><span style="color:#FF508F;">research</span></a> on Givers, Takers and Matchers explains that human beings broadly fall into the following three buckets:</p><p>Givers enjoy sharing their expertise and knowledge with others. Takers exploit others for their personal gains, and Matchers believe in an equal give and take in relationships.</p><p>Grant’s research shows that a company performs better when more people are giving. In fact, on an individual level, people who are givers tend to be the top performers and bring the most revenue into the company.</p><p>When a company employs ‘individual targets’, it leads to unhealthy competition, toxic culture, and a lack of trust and support in the organization that contributes to poor mental health.</p><p>But with ‘team only targets’, a company can create an environment where the giving culture is fostered. This eliminates the ‘takers mentality,’ and everyone approaches the project as a team which leads to better results and improved mental health. Motivation and accountability are at an all-time high because people feel safe, connected, and incentivized by <a href="https://saleshealthalliance.com/how-to-support-sales-team-mental-health/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">team success</span></a>.</p><p>While this can be tricky to implement initially, the approach behind ‘team-only targets’ can improve employee morale and satisfaction and contribute to long-term growth.</p><h1><strong>Take Help Of Data Jars</strong></h1><p>A concept by Jeff Reisely of <a href="https://saleshealthalliance.com/date-jars-can-help-mental-health-in-sales/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Sales Health Alliance</span></a>, Data Jars, is effective in combating the lack of motivation and improving mental health in the workplace.</p><p>It’s a simple technique: Each person writes an activity they want to do at the end of the week and drops it in the jar. A few random chits are pulled out at the end of the week, and everyone decides amongst themselves what they want to do.</p><p>When we anticipate something we’re looking forward to, such as a birthday, a friend’s wedding, a vacation, etc., our brain releases dopamine. The dopamine can be so strong that it helps us enjoy the current events more than the actual event and can help salespeople move past the stressful triggers they encounter in their job.</p><p>To keep motivation from running dry, take the help of Data Jars, so employees have something to look forward to at the end of the week.</p><h1><strong>Set SMART Goals</strong></h1><p>Setting SMART goals can protect the mental health of your sales team.</p><ul><li>S: Specific</li><li>M: Measurable</li><li>A: Achievable&nbsp;</li><li>R: Relevant&nbsp;</li><li>T: Time-specific&nbsp;</li></ul><p>The most important part of the strategy is ‘A’, i.e., achievable. When a sales rep is unable to meet their target, revisit the strategy and do a course correction. The targets set for the sales team need to be data-backed and strategic, which can help them meet their goals.</p><p>Do This SMART Goals Exercise To Set Achievable Targets</p><p>Determine conversion rates at each stage of your pipeline to understand how much volume is required to hit targets.</p><p>You can determine the conversion rate by looking at the calls made and emails sent and the number of people converted from them. Then match against your targets and see if it’s possible to meet those numbers in a month.</p><h1><strong>Set Cyclical Targets</strong></h1><p>When the sales team is constantly chasing results and does not take time to rest and recover, they can easily burn out.</p><p>To counter this, deploy cyclical targets that will allow the team to slow down before they can gear up and cycle between recovery and stretch targets.</p><p>During the recovery target phase, team targets are set lower than the previous month. Sales team incentives and commissions revolve around self-care and personal development achievements.</p><p>In stretch targets or the Big Game, team targets are substantially higher than recovery targets and also higher than the previous stretch target. The incentives can be around metrics such as emails sent, calls made, etc.</p><p>When your team has fully recovered during the recovery phase, they’d be able to do more during stretch targets.</p><h1><strong>Start Employee Recognition Awards</strong></h1><p>Your company may have certain employee programs in place, but you may not be doing enough to satisfy the needs of the employees in the workplace.</p><p>To keep your top employees motivated, you need to make them feel recognized and important. Employee awards are one of the best ways to do it. This initiative makes them feel their hard work is valued and their contribution has significantly impacted the company.</p><p>Take inspiration from this list of awards:</p><p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 1. Employee of the month/quarter/year<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 2. Years of Service Award<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 3. Teamwork Award<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 4. Employees’ Choice Award<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 5. Most Creative Award<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 6. Leadership Award<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 7. Cultural Harbinger Award &nbsp; &nbsp;</p><p><br>Another way to keep your employees motivated is through a sales leaderboard. It’s an application with important metrics to keep the score of the individuals and groups. This is a great way to promote healthy competition and a thriving performance-based culture.</p><p>Here are the metrics you can cover in your sales leaderboard:</p><p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 1. Biggest deal closed<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 2. Lifetime revenue&nbsp;<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 3. Percentage of revenue contributed to the team target<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 4. The current streak of weekly targets achieved<br>&nbsp;</p><h1><strong>Better Mental Health = More Productive &amp; Efficient = More Deals Closed</strong></h1><p>Stress at the workplace is inevitable, but most of us can agree that sales is more intensive and difficult, so taking care of your mental health is even more important. Look into the strategies we have outlined above to improve mental health at your workplace.</p><p><i>‍Liked what you read? Dig into our </i><a href="https://outplayhq.com/blogs"><span style="color:#FF508F;"><i>knowledge hub</i></span></a><i> to learn more about how you can improve productivity at the workplace with the </i><a href="https://outplayhq.com/features"><span style="color:#FF508F;"><i>right set of tools</i></span></a><i>.</i></p>

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How to Improve Your Sales Team's Mental Health

<p>What comes to your mind when we say outbound sales? Is it annoying sales calls and spammy emails that you wish never existed? Well, we’re with you on that.</p><p>Outbound sales get a lot of bad rep because of cold calling and aggressive sales pitches. Businesses, especially with small budgets, depend upon these ‘pushy’ and ‘salesy’ age-old tactics to get customers. What this does is alienate customers instead of engaging them.</p><p>Done right, outbound sales have the potential to generate a full pipeline and keep the business wheels rolling. <a href="https://salesinsightslab.com/sales-research/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Reports</span></a> suggest outbound sales still contribute to a larger share of generated leads (55% vs. 27% for inbound sales) and remain crucial to businesses, especially those in the enterprise market segment.&nbsp;</p><p>But to make outbound sales success, you need to equip your sales team with the <a href="https://outplayhq.com/outbound-sales-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">right sales software</span></a> that will allow them to deal with a number of prospects easily, automate top-of-the-funnel activities, and save precious time which they can use to build meaningful relationships with the prospects.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h1><strong>Things Outbound Software Can Do For Your Sales Team</strong></h1><p>&nbsp;</p><h2>Set Up Advanced Email Outreach</h2><p>Scheduling sales sequences and automating follow-ups is easier with an outbound automation tool. You can personalize emails on the scale and nurture one-on-one relationships with the prospects.</p><p>Create bulk emails, schedule follow-up reminders, and track open rates, response rates, and conversion rates with the advanced features of an outbound sales platform.</p><p>Connect your existing email accounts to an outbound tool such as <a href="https://outplayhq.com/email-sequence-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay</span></a> to have everything in one place. Outplay enables direct connection with Gmail and Microsoft Office 365. You can also connect email accounts from different email providers using IMAP.</p><p><br>&nbsp;</p>

<h2>Develop Outbound Sales Scripts &amp; Templates</h2><p>With outbound prospecting tools, you can create a variety of sales pitches and templates to help your sales team convert better. Understand the critical pain points your potential customers are struggling with. Then address them on the call with a prospect and tell them how the software can solve their problem.&nbsp;</p><p>Ensure the script has a playbook that both marketing and sales teams can refer to. This will ensure the members follow the steps correctly, such as when to reach out to a prospect, offer a product demo, and follow up.&nbsp;</p><p>Typically, it can take weeks for prospects to get back to you. At this point, you should know what stage they’re on and from where to pick up the conversation. Outbound prospecting tools make it easier by tracking prospects throughout the journey.</p><p>With <a href="https://outplayhq.com/solutions/outbound-sales"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay</span></a>, you can create winning templates from past email campaigns that have worked in your favor. You can either duplicate or edit them to use them for other outbound sequences.&nbsp;</p><p><br>&nbsp;</p>

<p>An outbound sales automation platform makes it easy to find and access information when you need it. Especially with automated dialing, it’s essential to have software that pulls up customer details, so the reps have absolute clarity on who they’re dealing with.&nbsp;</p><p>With Outplay, you can employ filters and find relevant contact and company information of the prospect. You can seamlessly handle bulk actions — save, export, and manage the prospect list in just a few clicks.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p><p>Our outbound automation tool not only helps with verified email addresses and phone numbers but critical information such as job title, industry, company funding updates and revenue, amongst others. It saves you the precious time lost on sourcing websites and lead qualification and instead reaches the right decision makers at scale and moves them up your funnel faster.</p><p>The entire communication along with the information about each contact is on a single screen. This means fewer clicks and better productivity. Learn more about the feature <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/lead-sourcing"><span style="color:#FF508F;">here</span></a>.</p><h2>Native CRM Integration Without Any Friction</h2><p>Data is essential in refining and evolving the sales strategy. To collect usable data, you need to track everything—from marketing, sales, and customer support data.</p><p>But it’s impossible to do this without native integration. Outplay’s <a href="https://outplayhq.com/outbound-sales-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">outbound sales platform</span></a> smoothly integrates with various marketing tools such as Pipedrive, Salesforce, Hubspot, and Zoho CRM, allowing sales managers and team members to collect, sort, and analyze data.&nbsp;</p><p>“The ability to set up custom triggers. i.e., contacts are automatically added to specific sequences after it’s created in your CRM. We use Pipedrive as our CRM, and the native integration means we can set as many triggers as possible. The automation is just phenomenal.'' mentions our customer, Ash Dhillon, Mytoor’s Business Development Manager.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<h2>Monitor Outreach Efforts With Analytics&nbsp;</h2><p>The best outbound sales tools are easy to access and read. They give a simple overview of important metrics, such as activity, quality, and conversion, without making it too complicated with deeper and complex insights.</p><p>With <a href="https://outplayhq.com/outbound-sales-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay’s dashboard</span></a>, you can find all the insights on a single dashboard to determine the success or failure of your sales campaigns. You can get a detailed report of sales sequences, prospects, templates, etc., to measure what worked and what didn’t.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>At every stage, you can monitor the interaction with your prospects, stay on top of your team’s performance, and track opportunity stages, sequence stats, meetings booked, and tasks executed. You can analyze sales calls and get greater visibility into your sales pipeline and performance.</p><h2>Use Video Messages To Personalize Your Cadence</h2><p>‍<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Best+Sales+Engagement+Software+For+Your+Business&amp;oq=Best+Sales+Engagement+Software+For+Your+Business&amp;aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64j69i61l2j69i60.1016j0j7&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;waldo-d=browser%2F"><span style="color:#FF508F;">54% of sales reps</span></a> think it’s harder to get in front of prospects today than five years ago. Sales reps need to find new ways to engage prospects, and personalized communication tops the list.</p><p>No one wants to read long emails about your product or company. Personalized video messages do a great job of engaging customers and nudging them to take action.&nbsp;</p><p>Your email doesn’t have to be another email in your prospect’s inbox. With <a href="https://outplayhq.com/vidyard-integration"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay’s Vidyard integration</span></a>, you can send them a video message that will engage them and build trust and rapport with them. Use this feature to add a human touch in today’s remote sales world and see your response rates shoot up.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Drive More Business With <a href="https://outplayhq.com/outbound-sales-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outbound Sales Software</span></a></h2><p>While CRM can help you execute basic activities, a <a href="https://outplayhq.com/outbound-sales-software"><span style="color:#FF508F;">sales outbound tool</span></a> can help you gain a competitive advantage over competitors. With features such as email automation, native integration, video messaging, auto-dialers, market intelligence, in-depth reporting, and much more, you can free up the precious time of your sales reps and still get more meetings booked.</p><p>Want to know what this tool looks like in action? Book a free demo <a href="https://outplayhq.com/solutions/outbound-sales"><span style="color:#FF508F;">here</span></a> or check out <a href="https://outplayhq.com/solutions/outbound-sales"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay HQ</span></a>.</p>

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How to Use the Right Outbound Sales Software for Better Efficiency

<p>Personalized messages convert more leads than generic ones. But if sales reps spend all their time writing emails, they will never be able to scale up or hone their skills. So, what should they do?</p><p>The simple answer is to leverage the sales engagement software. From personalizing your automated messages to boosting productivity, the benefits of using sales engagement platforms are many. According to a recent study, <a href="https://www.revenue.io/ebooks/2022-customer-acquisition-and-revops-team-benchmarks"><span style="color:#FF508F;">51% of B2B</span></a> companies currently use sales engagement software, with another 13% planning to invest in the sales platform in the near future.</p><p>However, with more than thousands of sales outreach platforms available in the market today, choosing the right tool can be a challenge. Here is a complete guide on sales engagement tools, their benefits, use cases, and the factors to look for in an effective platform.</p>

<h1><strong>What is a sales engagement platform and how does it work?&nbsp;</strong></h1><p>A sales engagement platform (SEP) facilitates efficient communication between your sales reps and prospects/customers. It diversifies the communication channels and allows the reps to connect with prospects on the phone, send voicemails, text messages, and emails, and hold video meetings. The <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/sales-engagement-platform-and-crm-why-you-need-both"><span style="color:#FF508F;">best sales engagement platforms</span></a> allow sales teams to:&nbsp;</p><ul><li>Build custom communication sequences. For example, you might start with a phone call with new leads and then follow up through an email three days later.&nbsp;</li><li>Efficiently unite all communication data in a single place, so sales reps don’t have to toggle between multiple programs in search of specific information.&nbsp;</li><li>Sell smarter by tracking calls, emails, and social media engagement.</li></ul>

<h1><strong>Which is the right sales engagement platform for you?&nbsp;</strong></h1><h2><strong>Outreach vs Outplay</strong></h2><p>While both are fantastic options, Outplay is a fairly more affordable option when compared to the $800 premium package you have to pay for the Outreach onboarding. Plus unlike Outreach, Outplay works out-of-the-box with major CRMs - Salesforce, Pipedrive, Hubspot, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho CRM, and your other everyday apps. Seamless two-way sync with your CRM that eliminates admin work and improves rep productivity.</p><p>Not to forget the Outreach call-sync option comes with issues of its own. Calls under two minutes will not sync with your CRM, while Outplay comes with built-in call recording and call coaching capabilities that help you understand the impact of every sales conversation. It’s an easy choice really.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>Salesloft vs Outplay</strong></h2><p>Most sales engagement platforms (SEP) aim at a multi-channel outreach, and these two are the best. However, Outplay gets bonus points here with its Magic Chat option - a live chat that your prospect can click on via your outreach channel.</p><p>Plus, Outplay has power-packed AI capabilities to help you rise above the competition and drive momentum into every deal. Outplay also comes with native integrations with major CRMs - Salesforce, Pipedrive, Hubspot, Zoho, and Microsoft Dynamics - that help your sales reps focus on more important tasks like closing prospects over manual data entry.</p><h2><strong>Klenty vs Outplay&nbsp;</strong></h2><p>Both Klenty and Outplay are great tools to use. But unlike most SEPs that have a basic dialer, Outplay comes with the capability to coach your sales reps in real-time with live call barge-in, whisper, and listen-to options. Not to forget its Magic Chat option - a live chat that your prospect can click on via your outreach channel.</p><p>Outplay also has an AI-based email writer that helps with hyper-personalized email outreach, which considers a prospect's interest, product information, and recent activity. You get amazing customer support too - so you know which SEP to pick.</p>

<h1><strong>What should you look for?&nbsp;</strong></h1><p>A great sales engagement tool can significantly boost productivity and sales, whereas the wrong platform can cause serious headaches and disappointments. When choosing a sales engagement software, look out for these features that will help you scale the business:</p><p><span style="font-size:21px;"><strong>#1 – A single platform for all communications&nbsp;</strong></span></p><p>For sales teams working with several high-ticket clients, researching, updating, and keeping track of all the information can be overwhelming. The best sales engagement platforms leverage the power of AI to capture vast amounts of engagement data and make recommendations on how sales teams can improve workflows and communications. What’s better, all this information is stored in a single place. Meaning, no matter what mode of communication your customers prefer, all of it can be accessed by your reps from a single dashboard.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<p><span style="font-size:17px;"><strong>#2 – Workflow automation tools&nbsp;</strong></span></p><p>The faster you engage with your leads, the higher the chances of converting them into customers. That’s why sales engagement software that can automate several parts of your workflow can be a game changer when it comes to improving outreach sales engagement.</p><p>Good automation results in more accurate data by reducing human error and relieving the sales team from the burden of data input.</p><p>Platforms like OutPlay HQ’s <a href="https://outplayhq.com/sales-engagement-platform"><span style="color:#FF508F;">sales engagement tool</span></a> process large amounts of data and automate all repetitive tasks so your sales reps can spend less time scheduling meetings, data entry, or sending follow-up information. Furthermore, based on your needs, the tool allows you to either trigger auto-emails or send manual emails. This means you get to save hours each week to refocus your teams’ efforts on <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/how-to-find-business-email-leads-best-practices"><span style="color:#FF508F;">generating more leads</span></a> in your pipeline.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<p><span style="font-size:17px;"><strong>#3 – Scoring and sales performance analytics&nbsp;</strong></span></p><p>A sales engagement tool should not only help businesses efficiently engage with prospects but also help them generate leads and track them accurately.</p><p>So, when choosing a sales engagement tool, look for one with a sales reporting feature, such as Outplay HQ’s <a href="https://outplayhq.com/sales-engagement-platform"><span style="color:#FF508F;">sales engagement platform</span></a>. It offers accurate, easy-to-understand, real-time insights, so every member of the team is on the same page. It also helps to identify areas of the sales engagement process that can be improved.</p><p>With <a href="https://outplayhq.com/sales-engagement-platform"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay</span></a>, you can monitor every interaction your sales reps have with potential customers and track their performance, opportunity stages, sequence stats, prospect stats, meeting booked, task executions, and more. This offers greater visibility into your sales pipeline and performance, so you can alter it for improvements and craft excellent and personalized customer journeys.</p>

<h1><strong>Sell more with the right sales engagement software solution&nbsp;</strong></h1><p>Sales engagement software can be a great investment to boost your business’s sales efforts and make processes more efficient. However, you should evaluate each platform based on its ability to support various use cases across teams before purchasing one.</p><p>The right tool will help your sales team become more productive, gather more data, waste less time doing meaningless tasks, streamline processes and workflows, and achieve better success rates.&nbsp;</p><p>If you are looking for a sales engagement platform to take the stress off your sales reps’ shoulders, give Outplay HQ’s<a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/5-myths-busted-about-sales-engagement-platforms"> <span style="color:#FF508F;">sales engagement tool</span></a> a try. A perfect platform for all your sales needs, this powerful platform engages prospects on multiple sales channels, automate manual non-revenue generating tasks, and analyzes sales outreach leveraging powerful analytics. Plus, it allows deep integration with all the tools sales teams depend on, such as Zapier, HubSpot, Pipedrive, and more.</p><p>Book a <a href="https://outplayhq.com/contact-us"><span style="color:#FF508F;">free demo</span></a> here.</p>

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How to Choose the Best Sales Engagement Software in 2022

<p>Personalized email marketing can be done in two ways—either by prying on your potential consumers or wooing them. With the former method, you research and gather personal and professional information about your customers to draft the perfect email. However, when it gets to the receiver, they wonder how you got the information and mark the sender as spam. All that effort immediately goes down the drain.</p><p>People want brands to understand them and make them feel valued. The most effective way to achieve this is by staying authentic and serving relevant content to your audience. And what's a better option than permission-based email marketing to circumvent the guessing game and send highly customized and targeted content?</p><p>The strategy you leverage to find business emails affect the user experience, making people either stay or leave the site. For instance, pop-ups, the most popular way to get business email addresses can result in a<a href="http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/experiments/the-truth-about-email-subscription-opt-in-popups/"> <span style="color:#FF508F;">10.20% drop</span></a> in average visit duration.&nbsp;</p><p>So the question remains: How to politely ask the leads for their email ID without annoying them?</p><p>Take a look at these 6 creative strategies that you can leverage to find business email addresses without being creepy or intrusive:&nbsp;</p>

<h1><strong>Snoop Around LinkedIn And Twitter&nbsp;</strong></h1><p>LinkedIn and Twitter are two goldmines for global sales teams—and for a good reason. Being the top publicly accessible channels to connect with your target prospects, finding email addresses on LinkedIn and Twitter is as easy as searching for the names or going through the company page to find people who work there. From there, you can get in touch with the prospects directly through messages.</p><p>While it might be tempting to send a connection request without customizing it, adding a note can increase the chances of your request being accepted. Ideally, you should include a message telling your prospect how you admire their work or share a valuable piece of industrial information. This gives them a reason to connect with you rather than a connection request without a note that says, "I'd like to join your network for no particular reason."</p><p>The same goes for Twitter too. You can follow a prospect and tweet at them or DM them with an attractive message. Make sure to do your research beforehand. Go through their profile and figure out where their interests lie and what they have been sharing. Depending on this, craft a personalized introductory message just like on LinkedIn, but shorter. The goal here is to flatter your prospect and ask them to share information with you by engaging in a casual conversation.</p><p>Based on how your prospect responds, take the conversation forward. Once you see that the conversation is going well, ask them if they would like to continue the conversation over email. If they agree, voila, there you have another email lead.</p><p>Alternatively, you can also use the advanced search option on Twitter. It helps you narrow your search to find past tweets and correspondence from your prospects that might include an email address. Go to the advanced search and type in words and phrases that you think are relevant to your leads. For instance, search for terms like email, reach me, contact, etc., and see what you get.</p>

<h1><strong>Google Your Prospects Using This Formula&nbsp;</strong></h1><p>No matter what your doubts are, you will have your answers if you "Google it." You can use Google to your advantage to find company emails, regardless of what details you know about them—their name, role, company name, or something else.</p><p>All you have to do is Google whatever details you know about that person. For instance, John Smith, Data Analyst at XYZ.</p><p>Depending on how lucky you are, you might end up with links to the company or the prospect's social media handles on the first page or with no information at all. However, there is a way to filter down your search. Use this shortcut—site:sitename.com, "name of the person." That’s it!</p>

<h1><strong>Get A Spot On Your Prospect's Email List&nbsp;</strong></h1><p>If you get a chance to be on your prospect's email list, don't hesitate. This puts you in a position where you can easily access their contact details right from your inbox. In fact, all you have to do is hit the reply button and send an irresistible email. Although finding email addresses through this method can be tough and complicated.</p>

<h1><strong>Pay Their Website A Visit&nbsp;</strong></h1><p>Let's get back to the basics. On every website, you will find two essential pages that can potentially lead to your prospect's email address—Contact Us and About Us pages.</p><p>The Contact Us and About pages are two obvious places for businesses to include their contact details, including email addresses. Sometimes, you might find company email addresses too generic, such as general@business.com or contact@business.com. Such emails lack originality and won't help you directly reach the person you need.</p><p>But if you are lucky enough, they might take you to key departments or employees, meaning you can still make your presence known.</p>

<h1><strong>Check Out Their Author Page&nbsp;</strong></h1><p>A few business websites also include author pages with their <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog"><span style="color:#FF508F;">blogs</span></a> and newsletters. These author bios often have contact information. Even if they don't, you will still get an idea about their role, the company they work for, and some personal information like hobbies and how they like to spend their weekends. This can help you personalize your outbound emails and craft a killer sales pitch.</p>

<h1><strong>Up Your Business Email Search Game With </strong><a href="https://outplayhq.com/"><span style="color:#FF508F;"><strong>Outplay HQ</strong></span></a></h1><p>According to studies,<a href="https://www.bluetext.com/email-marketing-gtm/#:~:text=Email%20is%20one%20of%20the,channel%20for%20generating%20leads%20online."><span style="color:#FF508F;"> 48% of marketers</span></a> believe email marketing is an effective strategy for generating online leads. However, your business will struggle to engage with customers and grow revenue without the right email marketing system.</p><p>Outplay HQ's <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement"><span style="color:#FF508F;">sales engagement tool</span></a><span style="color:#FF508F;"> </span>allows you to find corporate email addresses, manage tasks, draft personalized emails, and much more from a single platform. Furthermore, <a href="https://outplayhq.com/chrome-extension"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay Connect</span></a>, a free business email finder, lets you extract detailed contact records of prospects—company name, phone number, email, and more—from LinkedIn and Gmail within a single click. The prospects are then dropped into automated sequences making other tasks easy.</p><p>If writing emails tire you, tap into Outplay's template library. Here you will find a list of the most effective sales emails from companies like Drift and HubSpot, which you can copy and make your own.</p><p>Furthermore, you can run campaigns, track performance, test, and create reports from a single platform. Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? Then why not give it a try? Request a demo <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo"><span style="color:#FF508F;">here</span></a>.</p>

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How to Find Business Email Leads: Best Practices

<p>Sales is a psychological game, particularly when you’re starting out. You need to be able to engage in actual conversations with prospects to generate more sales. Especially when <a href="https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics?__hstc=210964170.55d75eade41f37fde2ca0f0dcefa13fb.1666254113272.1672858285053.1672889953853.117&amp;__hssc=210964170.1.1672889953853&amp;__hsfp=1038082720"><span style="color:#FF508F;">63%</span></a> of marketers say their biggest challenge is generating traffic and leads.&nbsp;</p><p>While most people understand the importance of this practice, only a few know what it takes to score more sales meetings. This is where an embeddable calendar comes into the picture, making scheduling meetings less complicated.&nbsp;</p><h1><br><strong>How Does An Embeddable Calendar Help The Sales Team?</strong></h1><p>According to several studies, only <a href="https://instapage.com/blog/landing-page-contact-forms"><span style="color:#FF508F;">2%</span></a> of your traffic eventually fill out a form or contact you from your landing page. When a potential customer reaches out, time is of the essence.</p><p>After all, they might be researching similar service providers and browsing your competitor’s sites. So, the longer you take to respond to a request, the more likely they are to lose interest. However, contacting every request you receive from your website and scheduling meetings can slow down the sales process. That’s why embedding a calendar in a web page can help.</p><p>A calendar widget for website helps visitors instantly book sales meetings instead of leaving a contact request. This enables you to grab your leads’ attention faster without directing them away from your valuable content. Additionally, embedding a calendar in a web page allows your leads to move the process forward. By doing so, you get to filter qualified leads, promote quicker back-and-forth, and increase the likelihood of your prospect showing up for the meeting.</p><h1><br><strong>3 Approaches To Embed Calendar On Website</strong></h1><p>Adding a calendar embed widget on your website can sound pretty straightforward. Potential clients choose a time to connect, all the necessary information is filled out, and your sales reps receive a notification.&nbsp;</p><p>Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Here are three ways you can choose to embed calendar on your website:</p><h2><br>1. Inserting An Embeddable Calendar Before The Form Submission</h2><p>Also referred to as the calendar-first approach, here you let the visitors schedule a sales meeting before they have to fill out a form.</p><p>The primary benefit of this approach is that your visitors have minimal legwork to do. So, you don’t have to worry about prospects dropping from your funnel because of a lengthy opt-in form. Additionally, the calendar-first approach is ideal for reps who are good on the phone and prefer to talk to leads before researching them.</p><h2><br><strong>2. Inserting An Embeddable Calendar After The Form Submission</strong></h2><p>Contrary to the previous approach, the prospects get to the calendar only after filling out a form.</p><p>The upside of this approach is that you can gain valuable information about your leads before you actually get into a conversation with them. So, it’s a great way to assign leads to relevant reps and determine the main talking points to cover before the meeting.&nbsp;</p><p>Nearly <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/buyers-speak-out-how-sales-needs-to-evolve?_ga=2.219298777.1595917523.1582002448-289770330.1527012149&amp;__hstc=210964170.55d75eade41f37fde2ca0f0dcefa13fb.1666254113272.1672858285053.1672889953853.117&amp;__hssc=210964170.1.1672889953853&amp;__hsfp=1038082720"><span style="color:#FF508F;">61%</span></a> of buyers reported that sales reps offering relevant information about products and services are more likely to create a positive sales experience. Using the data from the opt-in form, sales reps can gather relevant information about the prospects to help them close deals faster.&nbsp;</p><h2><br><strong>3. Inserting An Embeddable Calendar In A Form</strong></h2><p>This is similar to the approach above— the only difference is scheduling a meeting is an optional part of the form.</p><p>A <a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">meeting scheduler tool</span></a> does have a greater potential of helping you close more sales meetings. But what if a prospect isn’t ready to commit to a call? Making it mandatory for them to pick a date and time to submit their information will only have them bounce to a competitor’s site.</p><p>By embracing leads who aren’t interested in a meeting, the process of qualifying and closing them becomes more direct. Furthermore, it also saves your reps from dealing with fake leads.</p><h1><br><strong>How Can You Score More Leads Using Embeddable Calendar?&nbsp;</strong></h1><p>Companies today are spoiled for choices when it comes to embeddable calendars. So, it's worth taking a look at some features you should look for in sales scheduling software to ensure it will help you score more high-quality leads.</p><h2><br><strong>1. Instant Notifications And Follow-Ups</strong></h2><p>Time is of the essence in sales. So, the faster you follow up and establish a sales cadence, the more likely your prospect will take the desired action. An embeddable calendar ensures timely communication, reducing lost leads via prompt notifications.</p><h2><br><strong>2. Complete Visibility Of Your Funnel</strong></h2><p>An embeddable calendar offers in-depth reporting and analytics to help you track everything from PPC conversion to redirects, Google ads, and more. This way, you get a bigger picture of where your leads are coming from and the marketing channels that drive your MQLs. Furthermore, you can boost your conversion rate by figuring out drop-off points in your funnel.</p><h2><br><strong>3. Make Every Lead Count</strong></h2><p>The ideal <a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">meeting scheduler tool</span></a> will capture leads through form submissions even if they don't end up booking a meeting. All the information is then sent to your marketing automation platforms and CRM that can help you fill the gaps in your customer database, optimize your outreach, and help reps better understand leads for efficient meetings.</p><h2><br><strong>4. Seamless Integrations</strong></h2><p>Most embeddable calendars can be easily integrated with your marketing tools or lead capture forms. For instance, a Salesforce integration will help you capture the leads' information and route them to the right reps. Similarly, integrations with web forms mean you can be worry-free about having to start from scratch or replace an efficient component in the lead capture process.</p><h1><br><strong>Book More Meetings With An Online Embeddable Calendar</strong></h1><p>Who doesn't love quality inbound leads? However, wouldn't it be better if they directly appeared on your calendar? With Outplay’s <a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Meeting Scheduler</span></a>, you can achieve that and much more.</p><p>Our calendar embed widget helps you save time and eliminate back-and-forth while scheduling meetings. It makes the sales process much more efficient, leads to better-quality sales meetings, and delivers a better customer experience.</p><p>No more negotiating schedules and managing calendars manually. Our <a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">online meeting software</span></a> takes care of that, so the sales reps can focus on honing their skill and closing more leads.</p>

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How To Get More Sales Meetings With An Embeddable Calendar

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<h2>Overview</h2><ol><li><a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/how-to-decide-between-salesloft-vs-outreach#Outreach"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outreach</span></a></li><li><a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/how-to-decide-between-salesloft-vs-outreach#Salesloft"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Salesloft</span></a></li><li><a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/how-to-decide-between-salesloft-vs-outreach#Klenty"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Klenty</span></a></li><li><a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/how-to-decide-between-salesloft-vs-outreach#Lemlist"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Lemlist</span></a></li><li><a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/how-to-decide-between-salesloft-vs-outreach#Why-is-Outplay-a-better-solution"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Why is Outplay a better solution?</span></a>‍</li></ol><h4><i><strong>Summary: </strong></i><a href="https://salesloft.com/"><span style="color:#FF508F;"><i><strong>Salesloft</strong></i></span><i><strong> </strong></i></a><i><strong>and </strong></i><a href="https://www.outreach.io/"><span style="color:#FF508F;"><i><strong>Outreach</strong></i></span></a><i><strong> are both popular sales tools for cold outreach. But are they right for your business? Let’s find out.</strong></i></h4><p>Salesloft and Outreach are both <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/how-to-choose-the-best-sales-engagement-software-in-2022"><span style="color:#FF508F;">sales engagement platforms</span></a>. Both aim to shorten the sales cycle by streamlining and automating the way to reach out to prospects. This includes setting up outreach sequences, reporting engagement data, and tracking sales numbers.&nbsp;</p><p>While both can make prospecting easy, they can be super expensive, especially for small businesses. They don’t offer a free trial, and you have to request a quote after filling in your information on the website's pricing page.&nbsp;</p><p>Salesloft can be clunky and difficult to use and may require extensive training. What’s worse? If you run into a problem and require immediate help, Salesloft’s support team takes days, sometimes a week, to respond to customer queries.</p><p>When you switch to Outplay, you don’t have to go through that hassle. You get priority access to the <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/how-to-decide-between-salesloft-vs-outreach#"><span style="color:#FF508F;">support team</span></a><span style="color:#FF508F;"> </span>that's there for you 24x5.</p><p>With <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a>, monitoring interactions with prospects, tracking real-time insights and team performance, and getting better visibility into the sales pipeline is easier. And the best part? It’s made for you and your business. It has a single-price slab that covers all the top-tier features. No hidden costs. No rigid contracts.</p><p>Let’s look at a brief comparison between Outreach vs. Salesloft, a few more players in the field, and then talk about how Outplay stacks up against them.<br><br>&nbsp;</p><p><img class="image_resized" style="width:480px;" src="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62678b8d0b177c0710b689ef/633161a5327d569f811db80f_giphy%20(10).gif" alt="" loading="lazy"></p><p>‍</p><h2><strong>Outreach</strong></h2><p><a href="https://www.outreach.io/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outreach</span> </a>is a sales engagement platform that helps the sales team to manage workflows, gain actionable insights, and shorten the complex sales cycle.&nbsp;</p><p>Outreach has a lot more features than Salesloft and is a preferred choice for sales teams looking to build customized experiences for their customers. In addition to the automatic outreach sequences, they provide buyer sentiment analysis, success playbooks and messaging guides, and AI-powered real-time coaching.&nbsp;</p><h4><strong>What does not work?</strong></h4><p>Outreach comes with its drawbacks. Customers often complain about their complicated and difficult-to-use interface, integrations with HubSpot and Salesforce, and poor quality customer support.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img class="image_resized" style="width:480px;" src="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62678b8d0b177c0710b689ef/6331607e6777dcd91b3d3f65_harry-potter-turns34-today-07_z3fgcs.gif" alt="" loading="lazy"></p><p>‍</p><blockquote><p>One of the<span style="color:#FF508F;"> </span><a href="https://www.getapp.com/sales-software/a/outreach/reviews/?rating_rounded%5B%5D=1&amp;rating_rounded%5B%5D=2&amp;rating_rounded%5B%5D=3"><span style="color:#FF508F;">reviewers</span></a> said, “<i>Outreach has issues regularly. There's always something wrong with it. What's worse is that when you put in a support ticket, they always give you a generic issue on the customer's side.</i>”</p></blockquote><p>Another <a href="https://www.getapp.com/sales-software/a/outreach/reviews/?rating_rounded%5B%5D=1&amp;rating_rounded%5B%5D=2&amp;rating_rounded%5B%5D=3"><span style="color:#FF508F;">reviewer</span></a> mentioned, “The integration with Salesforce is poor at best. The interface is not user-friendly. I have difficulty navigating the software despite using it for over a year.”</p><p>‍</p><h2><strong>Salesloft</strong></h2><p><a href="https://salesloft.com/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Salesloft</span></a> is a sales engagement platform that helps to prospect more, close bigger deals, increase conversion rates, and shorten the deal cycle. The platforms give the sales reps visibility into everything happening at all stages.</p><p>Similar to Outreach, Salesloft offers a variety of features to simplify outreach efforts, such as dialer + messenger capabilities, cadence automation, deal forecasting, and more. It also provides metrics on Zoom calls, such as transcript recording or automatic analysis of the call to understand the impact of sales conversations.</p><h4><strong>What does not work?</strong></h4><p>Salesloft has fewer features than Outreach, but it’s easier to use and more preferred among the two. But it isn’t free from its problems. Customers have complained about the Salesloft dialer, especially the click-to-dial feature, and occasional bugs and glitches.</p><blockquote><p>One of the <a href="https://www.getapp.com/sales-software/a/salesloft/reviews/?rating_rounded%5B%5D=3"><span style="color:#FF508F;">reviewers</span> </a>reported, “<i>The salesforce integration is glitchy, and I have to refresh SF constantly to get it to work. Click-to-dial is a joke.</i>”</p></blockquote><p><a href="https://www.getapp.com/sales-software/a/salesloft/reviews/?rating_rounded%5B%5D=3"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Another</span></a> one said, “The dialer/phone is the worst thing about the platform. I would say it works about 60% of the time, and if you don't have a direct line, there's no point in calling since you won't be able to go through the names directory or dial EXTs. Also, there is a consistent call quality issue, and nothing is worse than getting a prospect on the phone when they can't hear you.”</p><p>‍</p><h2><strong>Klenty</strong></h2><p>There are also other platforms like Klenty - a multi-channel sales engagement platform that helps to send personalized emails to prospects and engage with them at the right time and place. They do this on the basis of real-time data and insights, ensuring data-driven sales strategies. They also have the option to automate CRM and other admin work that wastes precious time.</p><h4><strong>What does not work?</strong></h4><p>Klenty comes with certain drawbacks like this <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/klenty/reviews/klenty-review-6940871"><span style="color:#FF508F;">user</span></a> faced.</p><blockquote><p>‍<i>"Once you import all your leads and set up your triggers to automatically pull new leads from our CRM - it did not do that. Only the manually uploaded list, in the beginning, worked, which left us losing time and money. Also, I would create cadences and all of a sudden they would disappear. The frustration of losing all that work was overwhelming."</i></p></blockquote><p>The product is great, no doubt, but still has a few basics to get right - like the usability of the product. Another <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/klenty/reviews/klenty-review-4664923"><span style="color:#FF508F;">user</span></a> said, "The click-through rate is horrible. Also, the system randomly refreshes when I am typing an email, and then all the progress is lost. That's very frustrating."</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img class="image_resized" style="width:480px;" src="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62678b8d0b177c0710b689ef/63526f94180416c7e2810477_734z.gif" alt="" loading="lazy"></p><h1 style="margin-left:0px;">‍</h1><h2><strong>Lemlist</strong></h2><p>Another platform that you'll come across is Lemlist - an all-in-one outbound solution for all outreach automation issues. It personalizes cold emails, automates follow-ups, and engages with leads across all channels.</p><h4><strong>What does not work?</strong></h4><p>Lemlist is quite expensive for what they offer. One <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/lemlist/reviews/lemlist-review-6984089"><span style="color:#FF508F;">user</span> </a>said,</p><blockquote><p>"HubSpot manual task synchronization does not exist, tasks sometimes can be absent(yes, you can create a campaign, and tasks can be absent for some prospects), UX isn't intuitive, and reports don't look nice with all those stupid emojis. But all that is nothing the worst thing is numerous bugs. The system can be down during your working process and you can do nothing but sit and wait till your ticket is done. It's inappropriate for such expensive software."</p></blockquote><p>They also have to smoothen out their user-friendliness like this <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/lemlist/reviews/lemlist-review-5470052"><span style="color:#FF508F;">user</span> </a>says, "Our team needs to deal with Lemlist's bug on weekly basis. In short, new week - new bug."</p><p>‍</p><h2><strong>Why is Outplay a better solution?</strong></h2><p>Outplay is an all-in-one multi-channel sales engagement <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/5-myths-busted-about-sales-engagement-platforms"><span style="color:#FF508F;">software</span></a><span style="color:#FF508F;"> </span>that helps your sales team become more <a href="https://outplayhq.com/ebook/become-the-most-efficient-salesperson-ever"><span style="color:#FF508F;">efficient</span></a> and drive more revenue. Here’s why it is the right fit for your business:</p><h4><strong>More Affordable Than Salesloft And Outreach</strong></h4><p>Both Salesloft and Outreach don’t mention their pricing on the website. You have to request a quote after filling in the information. The reason they don’t mention it upfront is that they’re super expensive for a small business—charging $140 per seat with added implementation costs. Salesloft also has a minimum number of seat restrictions in their plan.</p><p>With Outplay, you pay what you see. We have a single-slab pricing plan that covers all the features. No hidden fees, implementation costs, or complicated pricing model. We are all about transparency.&nbsp;</p><h4><strong>More Intuitive And Easier-To-Use</strong></h4><p>With Salesloft, the sales reps have to spend months in training before they can start using the software.&nbsp;</p><p>None of that hassle with Outplay. Sales reps can sign up and launch multi-channel sales sequences in minutes. The interface is clean and simple to navigate, and they can easily understand where to go and what to do.&nbsp;But don’t take our word for it. See what our <a href="https://www.getapp.com/sales-software/a/outplay/reviews/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">reviewers</span></a> have to say.</p><blockquote><p><i>“This is THE most modern and user-friendly sales engagement platform available. It is super easy to use, with excellent analytics and setting options.”</i></p></blockquote><p>Here's another review for you to consider.</p><blockquote><p><i>”Solid sales enablement platform for organizing touch points and outreach. An extensive list of features, more than most would even use. Great salesforce integration, unique time-saving sync method. The dialer and call recording system is solid and great for managing teams. Great job taking feature requests/ feedback and implementing those ideas.”</i></p></blockquote><h4><strong>Better Tracking Of The Real-Time Data</strong></h4><p>Drive repeatable growth with easy-to-read, real-time <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/how-to-measure-sales-performance-metrics-a-guide"><span style="color:#FF508F;">insights</span></a>. Salesloft and Outreach have a complicated reporting dashboard with hundreds of variables that can quickly become overwhelming for sales reps.</p><p>With Outplay, you can easily monitor every interaction with your prospects. Track sequence statistics, opportunity stages, meetings booked, prospect status, and task execution in a click. Analyze sales calls with the help of AI. Get more visibility into the sales pipeline and team’s performance. It’s easier to navigate than both the tools combined.</p><h4><strong>Better Customer Support</strong></h4><p>Salesloft and Outreach’s customers regularly complain of their poor customer service. It takes days and weeks for the Salesloft team to respond to customer queries.&nbsp;</p><p>When you switch to Outplay, you get access to a priority support team available for you 24x7. One of the main reasons customers love Outplay is our quick and responsive support team that offers immediate solutions to your problems.</p><blockquote><p><i>“We have been using tools like Outreach, Reply.io, and a few other tools for sales outreach. We then purchased OutplayHQ. We couldn’t have been happier. Their support team is so awesome that it’s superior to some of the enterprise software products we purchased for more than $30K to $50K per year. They’re super helpful and will even go out of their call of duty to ensure you’re successful. They have also been continuously improving their product. Since I started using their product in the last two years, they have added dozens of new features and several integrations. For instance, we use HubSpot for marketing automation. It integrates seamlessly with HubSpot and keeps things synced well. Overall, I would give them an A+, and I wish I could rate them higher.”</i></p></blockquote><p><img class="image_resized" style="width:355.996px;" src="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62678b8d0b177c0710b689ef/633167f00ccc0a5101417e1b_200.gif" alt="" loading="lazy"></p><p>&nbsp;</p><h2>Try Outplay For Free</h2><p>Think Outplay is the right solution for your business? Why not give it a <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo"><span style="color:#FF508F;">try</span></a>? As a part of our process, we first understand your prospecting needs, walk you through our product demo, and show you how it can be custom-tailored for your organization. If you want to know more about us, check out <a href="https://outplayhq.com/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay HQ</span></a>. To book a demo, click <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo"><span style="color:#FF508F;">here</span></a>.</p>

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<p>Sales, as an industry, has always been competitive. Whoever hit the sales quota took the trophy home. The stress and pressure that accompanied, led many sales reps to burnout or quit the industry altogether.</p><p>Things are a lot better today. With automated systems and processes in place, a lot of work is offloaded from the reps' shoulders, leaving them time to hone their skills and close more leads.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Round robin scheduling</strong> is one such technique that helped to democratize the sales process so that everyone has an equal opportunity to serve prospects.</p><p>In this post, we will break down:</p><ol><li>The basics of round robin</li><li>How round robin works?</li><li>How round robin scheduler can help your sales team?</li></ol><h2><strong>What is round robin scheduling?</strong></h2><p>To put this in definition, a round robin scheduling is a means to equally distribute leads among team members, with each lead going to the next sales rep in queue. This ensures a fair and equitable distribution of leads and gives everyone an equal chance to serve the prospects.</p><h2><strong>How round robin works?</strong></h2><p>Imagine the leads as a deck of cards. Now, you, being the sales team leader or manager, distribute the cards (or, in the sales world, the leads) evenly between the five members of the team. You deal one card to player 1, player 2, player 3, player 4, and player 5, and then back to assigning a card to player 1. You do this until all the cards are dealt.&nbsp;</p><p>Now, apply the same logic to <strong>round robin assignment. </strong>Each member gets a lead rotationally assigned by the software. When the last member is assigned the lead, it comes back to the first member.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>How does a round robin scheduler help the sales team?</strong></h2><p>Besides reducing the time for sales leaders to appoint the leads manually, the round robin scheduler eliminates cherry-picking of the leads by the sales reps.&nbsp;</p><p>When companies let sales reps choose their leads, they can pick those which align with their interests and leave out the rest. This means a few types of prospects are chosen over others, and the ones that are ignored by the sales reps never potentially become the customers.</p><p>Round robin schedule eliminates this possibility of bias by creating a level playing field for everyone. Here are the specific ways it helps your sales team:</p><h2><strong>Accelerate lead response time</strong></h2><p>Believe it or not: Response time can make or break a sale. When a prospect has shown interest in your brand or product, you need to move fast to keep their interest.</p><p>But <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2019/09/10/step-by-step-guide-to-following-up-with-b2b-leads-generated-by-sdrs/?sh=b03435223093"><span style="color:#FF508F;">data</span></a> suggests that most companies fail to do so. The average lead response time is 47 hours, enough time for a prospect to approach a competitor or lose interest in the product or service altogether.&nbsp;</p><p><a href="https://www.leadsimple.com/sales-course/improve-response-time"><span style="color:#FF508F;">LeadSimple</span> </a>suggests calling the prospect within five minutes is likely to lead to real conversations. If the communication falls prey to 30 minutes, the chances of selling reduces.</p><p><a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;"><strong>Round robin meeting scheduler</strong></span></a><strong> </strong>can help you to accelerate the lead response time. With its powerful routing system, you can reach out to the prospect the minute they’ve expressed interest in your product/service. Depending on the prospect’s availbility, a call can be immediately scheduled or at a later time that is convenient to them.</p><p>Remember: Fast responders win up to <a href="https://www.servicebell.com/post/lead-response#:~:text=According%20to%20LeadSimple%2C%20calls%20received,10%25%20less%20likely%20to%20respond."><span style="color:#FF508F;">50% of the sales</span></a> and you want to be one of them.</p><h2><strong>Give everyone an equal opportunity</strong></h2><p>There are two ways to assign leads to the team members: manually or through an automated sequence (i.e., round robin distribution).</p><p>Sales leaders can assign leads manually to the reps based on their expertise, location, and other variables. But this approach comes with its own set of challenges.</p><p>First, managers and sales leaders have to spend a lot of time deciding which leads to assign to whom. Then, there is a possibility of bias where leaders may prefer certain employees to work on advanced leads while others get the remaining cases. This can create friction among team members and lead to a toxic work environment.&nbsp;</p><p>The round robin <a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">meeting scheduling tool</span></a> hits two birds with one stone. It frees up managers' precious time and assigns leads equally to everyone on the team. With custom read routing rules, the managers can set up more meetings across various stakeholders, without having to liaise with the sales reps to know the open slots on their calender.&nbsp;</p><p>If you want to improve everyone’s chances of becoming a better salesperson, a round robin meeting is a fair and effective way to go about it.</p><h2><strong>Manage routing for unavailable sales reps &amp; different time zones</strong></h2><p>People take days off from work. It can be because of vacation, sick leave, health issues, or other reasons. Round robin assignment takes this into account and gives an option to pause lead routing for those who are unavailable or busy. But that doesn’t mean the prospects should sit idly or unassigned. The software assigns the lead to the next available agent.</p><p>Another thing that round robin scheduler makes easier is dealing with prospects in different time zones. This is especially important for global companies who need to be responsive at all times to serve their customers. Round robin <strong>online meeting software </strong>deploys sales reps to different time zones when they can be responsive to customers and make the approach sustainable in the long run.</p><h2><strong>Gain insights through comprehensive reporting&nbsp;</strong></h2><p>It’s important to have data in place to weed out organization inefficiencies and double down on strategies that work well.</p><p>Although this functionality can be limited to a few <strong>meeting scheduler tools</strong>, but having an integrated reporting dashboard can streamline goals between the team and management and help to answer the following questions:</p><ol><li>The criteria that define the round robin distribution</li><li>The total number of leads the sales reps reached out to</li><li>Sales reps who are unavailable or busy</li><li>The next rep in the queue to serve the prospects</li></ol><p>This data help to understand the overall team performance and also how an individual is performing. Based on the insights, you can restructure the team’s alignment, eliminate poor strategies, and ensure everyone gets an opportunity to prove their mettle.</p><h2><strong>How to work out round robin scheduling for your team?</strong></h2><p>Whether you offer a SaaS-driven product or service, you have to schedule meetings frequently with the prospects to walk them through the demo. Outplay’s <a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">meeting scheduler</span></a> makes it so much easier.</p><p>Prospects can easily book a meeting when they visit the website, courtesy of the embeddable calendar. Just generate a code and embed the calendar that shows your availability to the prospect.&nbsp;</p><p>You can create custom lead routing to set up meetings across various stakeholders. Our sales scheduling software auto-distributes the leads as per the open slots of team members on the calendar, minimizing back and forth and saving time for the sales managers.</p><p>With our<span style="color:#FF508F;"> </span><a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">meeting scheduler</span></a>, you can effortlessly create and schedule meetings, sync everyone’s calendars, and set up your team for success. Interested in learning more? Check out <a href="https://outplayhq.com/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay</span></a> or book a demo <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo"><span style="color:#FF508F;">here</span></a>.</p><p>‍</p><p>LIKE WHAT YOU JUST READ? SUBSCRIBE <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blogs"><span style="color:#FF508F;">HERE</span></a> FOR FREE TO READ MORE SUCH INSIGHTFUL BLOGS.</p>

Round Robin Scheduling: A Method for Setting Meetings Efficiently

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<p>Imagine this: You receive an email to try out a free software application. You see that it’s useful for your business, so you decide to give it a shot. You get connected with the sales team, but it turns out they know nothing about the free software trial. After a few discussions, the sales team offers a discount instead of a free trial, so you decide not to take it up.</p><p>What follows after is nothing short of a nightmare. You are bombarded with calls and emails with new offers and discounts. Frustrated, you ask the company to remove you from the mailing list. But the emails and phone calls don’t stop. At this point, you’ve sworn to never engage with the company or its products. What's worse is that you have passed on this experience to your friends and family, who may also never buy their software.&nbsp;</p>

<p>This isn’t a unique scenario. Many people have also gone through a similar experience that soured their buying experience with a company. More often than not, this is a direct outcome of the lack of synergy between sales and marketing teams. Sales teams aren’t aware of the marketing strategies in place, and the marketing team doesn’t have the accurate insights to tap into the target audience.</p><p>A <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/business/marketing/blog/content-marketing/introducing-the-art-of-winning-marketing-and-sales-orchestration-ebook"><span style="color:#FF508F;">study</span></a> by LinkedIn shows that in the US alone, the lack of B2B sales and marketing alignment costs companies an estimated $1 trillion annually. It’s time the companies look into driving a cross-departmental strategy to drive the efforts and sales and marketing teams simultaneously to increase the pipeline growth and revenue.</p><p><strong>In this article, we will cover:</strong></p><p>1. What is sales and marketing alignment?<br>2. The problems sales and marketing teams can solve together<br>3. 5 basic ways you can start aligning sales and marketing teams</p><h1><strong>What is sales and marketing alignment?</strong></h1>

<p>Sales and marketing alignment, also known as smarketing, is an agreement between the two teams to share a system of communication, goals, and strategy so that they can operate in a unified manner. Both the teams have the same end goals to deliver a seamless experience to the customers, increase conversion rate, and boost annual revenue.</p><p>Previously, sales and marketing worked as two separate departments, where marketing teams looked at the top of the funnel activities, and the sales team focused on the bottom of the funnel.</p><p>The straightforward approach isn’t possible today. Customers are engaged with the brand before the purchase and even after the deal closes. Both teams can benefit from a real-time dashboard of the customer engagement data that can help to serve customers where they are. A continual collaboration loop between sales and marketing professionals ensures a responsive, authentic, and relevant customer experience.</p><h1><strong>Common problems the sales and marketing teams can solve together</strong></h1>

<h2><strong>Low-quality leads</strong></h2><p>The sales team often ignores the leads generated by the marketing department and recycles the older, unused leads from before. Marketers struggle with data disconnect because they don’t know where the leads are coming from and which leads are getting converted. This makes finding high-quality leads difficult for marketers, and the sales professionals waste their resources pursuing older leads who may not have an active interest in buying the product anymore.</p><h2><strong>Poor customer data</strong></h2><p>Both sales and marketing teams work in silos with different data sets that might not solve customers’ pain points effectively. Synchronization of data between the teams can help to discover hidden trends that can help both sales and marketing to function seamlessly. The high-definition customer view with real-time data ensures both the sales and marketing teams are on the same page with the customer journey.</p><h2><strong>Underutilized sales content</strong></h2><p>Marketing teams often create and develop sales assets and collaterals without inputs from sales reps. This is unusable for the sales team, which leads to a significant waste of resources and time.</p><p>When the sales and marketing teams are aligned, marketers can create content relevant to the buyer persona and target audience to help sales rep understand their prospects better and close deals quickly.</p><h2><strong>Unnecessary long &amp; complex sales cycle</strong></h2><p>There is a dramatic shift in buyer behavior, and the old promotional tactics such as cold emails and cold calls don’t work as well anymore.</p><p>In order to know where your customers are in the buyer journey, sales and marketing need to be unified through various stages such as segmentation, targeting, content development, nurturing, closing deals, customer engagement, and post-purchase support.</p><h2><strong>No demonstration of marketing ROI</strong></h2><p>It can be challenging to quantify the return on investment from the marketing efforts. This is more difficult for B2B marketers focussed on lead gen with a long and complex sales cycle.</p><p>Aligning sales and marketing efforts helps to understand how one impacts the other, which can justify the investment in marketing efforts. The marketing team can match the results against the internal KPIs and other metrics to know which strategies are bringing results and which are ineffective.</p><h1><strong>5 ways to ensure sales and marketing alignment for your business</strong></h1>

<h1><strong>#1: Set shared goals</strong></h1><p>To align the sales and marketing teams, both teams need to agree upon the shared goals and vision, whether it’s increasing overall revenue or launching a new product line.</p><p>Here are the parameters to align sales and marketing effectively:</p><ul><li><strong>Lead Scoring</strong>: Lead scoring is a methodology used to determine the worthiness of leads depending on the interests and behavior of the potential customers towards the products or services. This is based on their current positioning in the buying cycle, the interest they demonstrate, and where they fit into the business. It’s used by both sales and marketing teams, but when used together, it can help to generate more revenue and strengthen the buyers’ journey.</li><li><strong>Lead generation:</strong> Once the lead moves from the ‘friendly’ to ‘interested’ stage (from the top to the middle of the funnel), It’s important to start qualifying them. Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) are those leads that have displayed interest in your product or services. A sales qualified lead (SQL) is the MQLs passed by the marketing team, which the sales team had interactions with, and then identified as sales-ready. While these functions can work separately, companies double their leads and revenue and decrease back and forth when both teams work together.&nbsp;</li></ul><h1><strong>#2: Create joint KPIs</strong></h1><p>Key performance indicators or KPIs are benchmarks designed to help the sales and marketing teams measure progress against the objective.</p><p>Sales and marketing teams measure different KPIs. For sales teams, it can be getting new leads, signing customers, and renewing customer contracts. For marketing, the KPIs can be the number of leads, quality of leads, and campaign results. When these are not aligned, the results are often different. Creating and tracking joint KPIs allows both sales and marketing to identify problems in customer acquisition, which can help to fix the leaks in the funnel.</p><p>Ensure frequent meetings between the teams where marketers and sales teams can collaborate on OKRs (objectives and key results) and agree on shared metrics to measure performance.</p><h1><strong>#3: Unify workflows, processes, and communication</strong></h1><p>As both teams start to work together, creating shared systems and processes is important to eliminate confusion.</p><p>Determine how the sales and marketing teams will interact with each other. Will it be hierarchical or ad hoc communication? How will the teams give feedback to each other? How will they set goals and KPIs?</p><p>While creating the process, it’s also important to determine modes of communication to keep everyone on the same page. Dedicated tools such as Slack or Gmail can be the team's go-to for communication. The sales team knows which activities the marketing team is focused on right now that can help with their current objectives and vice versa.</p><h1><strong>#4: Work together for post-purchase growth and customer retention</strong></h1><p>The buck doesn’t stop at converting leads, especially when it can <a href="https://www.markinblog.com/customer-loyalty-retention-statistics/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">cost up to <strong>7x</strong></span></a> to acquire a new customer than to retain old ones.</p><p>After a customer has bought the product, the marketing team needs to ensure the customers stay with the business, get them to try new products, offer discounts and free trials, and post-purchase customer support. The sales team must work with marketing throughout the process and be ready to step in when a customer wants to know about a new product or service.</p><h1><strong>#5: Invest in sales enablement</strong></h1><p>Sales enablement is the process of assigning tools, content, and other resources to the sales team to sell faster and better.</p><p>Marketers can help with sales-ready content that increases engagement and attract leads. For instance, sales enablement can ensure the assets are presented to the sellers after training, so the marketing content is used by the sales team. Similarly, the marketing teams cannot create content without sales reps’ inputs, so the information is aligned with the sellers’ interests and can help them to close deals faster.</p><p>The alignment of sales and marketing can create a reliable hub of information that both teams can benefit from.</p><p>Are your sales and marketing teams aligned?<br>Aligning your sales and marketing teams is the only way to grow your business to an enterprise level. Both teams must come together for data-driven insights into the sales process and marketing strategies to help them better serve customers.</p><p>Marketing teams often don’t know how to <a href="https://outplayhq.com/chrome-extension"><span style="color:#FF508F;">capture leads</span></a> and <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/track-prospects"><span style="color:#FF508F;">track their prospects</span></a>. An integrated tool can help with the data disconnect, so the marketers reach out to the right prospects at the right time and always know the next step. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/sales-analytics"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Sales Analytics</span></a> can help sales reps to understand their leads and drive better quality prospects with accurate insights.</p><p>Outplay makes it easier for both the teams to move into ‘smarketing’ and drive efficient, authentic, and relevant customer experience. Want to know how we do that? Book a <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo"><span style="color:#FF508F;">demo</span></a> today and find out.</p>

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How To Ensure Sales & Marketing Alignment

<p>Did you know, an average salesperson spends 66% of his time on <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/blog/four-cornerstones-sales-productivity/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">non-selling activities</span></a>?</p><p>Yes, that's true!</p><p>The <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/blog/four-cornerstones-sales-productivity/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">top activities</span></a> that consume their workday are scheduling meetings, logging activities, and entering sales data and customer notes in the system.</p><p>In shouldering these responsibilities, <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/blog/four-cornerstones-sales-productivity/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">57%</span></a> of the sales rep miss their quota every year.</p><p>I'm sure, your sales team loses time in these activities too.</p><p>So, how do you get them to sell more?</p><p>By getting them a <a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">meeting scheduler</span></a> as part of their tech stack. It will make their lives easier, as they can stop worrying about sending back and forth emails to book appointments, following up with the prospects, managing communication across time zones, and rescheduling meetings. Owing to this, your sales reps will not only have more time on their hands to improve prospecting and refine their sales processes but also get time to close more high-quality leads.</p><p>Now, if you're wondering how to choose the best scheduling software, I've got you covered. What you need to look for is the set of features it offers.</p><p>So, given below is a list of 8 functionalities that can make a world of difference in your sales reps’ lives.</p><p>Let's have a look, shall we?</p><h1><strong>8 Cutting-edge Features to help you choose the best meeting scheduler</strong></h1><h2><strong>1., Adaptable &amp; Integrated Calendar&nbsp;</strong></h2><p>With a meeting scheduling tool, you can set your schedule, block availability, and let prospects book your time when they want to.</p><p>Your sales team probably uses an embeddable calendar to schedule and book meetings. But having a <a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">sales appointment scheduling software</span></a> that integrates with your existing calendar and syncs all the activities, helps you view all the upcoming meetings in one place. This includes new appointments, rescheduled appointments, and canceled appointments.</p><p>Customers receive an email as soon as they make the booking and get instant notifications if the sales rep has rescheduled or canceled the meeting. They also get a reminder before the meeting to eliminate confusion at both ends.</p><h2><strong>2. Intuitive &amp; User-Friendly Interface&nbsp;</strong></h2><p>When a prospect is trying to book a meeting with you, they should be able to do it easily without facing any hiccups.</p><p>The <a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">scheduler app</span></a> should make adding new participants, sending a meeting invite, editing the invite, or canceling the meeting easily. Moreover, the prospects should also be able to accept the meeting easily, respond to the invitation, and attach files if need be.</p><p>Another important thing is you should look for a meeting scheduling tool that is mobile-friendly. Most of us are always on the go, so it’s important that the scheduling app is responsive and adaptable to different screen sizes, such as tablets, smartphones, PCs, and laptops.</p><p>Before purchasing the tool, test it on different devices to check for navigation and ease of use.</p><h2><strong>3. Integrations with other apps</strong></h2><p><a href="https://www.salesforce.com/blog/15-sales-statistics/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">81% of salespeople</span></a> believe it’s important to have a connected view of data, via integrations.</p><p>Salespeople work on several apps to manage different aspects of the sales process, so it’s important to pick a scheduling app that offers a lot of integrations. This allows the sales reps to integrate scheduling into the workflow organically.</p><p><a href="https://outplayhq.com/"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay</span></a> for instance offers several integrations such as PipeDrive, HubSpot, Zapier, etc. to easily schedule meetings, coordinate with the prospects, and manage internal communications between the sales team, managers, and SDRs.</p><h2><strong>4. Easy rescheduling&nbsp;</strong></h2><p>A flexible scheduling app allows customers to reschedule or cancel an appointment. Having an option to reschedule means a prospect will take the chance and book a new date rather than canceling the meeting.</p><p>Ensure the meeting scheduler you’re planning to buy for your sales team has this functionality to prevent valuable leads from slipping through.</p><h2><strong>5. Automated Message Templates</strong></h2><p>Your sales team has a long list of tasks to complete in a day, so the more activities that can be automated, the better it is for the team. Turns out, you can automate a whole lot without losing the human touch.</p><p>Meeting invites to the prospects can be automated with pre-written message templates, which can be later customized as per the client. Not all meeting schedulers offer this feature, so look for the software that offers similar functionality, if not the same.</p><h2><strong>6. Lead Routing</strong></h2><p>Lead routing entails distributing incoming leads among the sales reps. Rather than a manager assigning leads, a good meeting scheduler platform automatically assigns appointments to sales reps based on their availability.</p><p><a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay</span></a> can help to liaise with team members by auto-distributing the leads among the representatives, freeing up the time and space for sales managers.</p><h2><strong>7. Round robin distribution</strong></h2><p>The basis of round-robin scheduling is there should be an even and equal distribution of leads within the sales team. The distribution rules are built on numeric logic, which is then implemented in a sales software system to schedule and assign leads. This takes place on the basis of qualifiers such as ‘next free agent,’ ‘best call agent,’ etc.</p><p>If you already use this distribution method or are thinking of implementing it, it’s wise to look for a meeting scheduler that supports the round-robin assignment.</p><p>With the <a href="https://outplayhq.com/meeting-scheduler"><span style="color:#FF508F;">Outplay Meeting Scheduler</span></a>, you can set up your own robin rules, introduce them into the workflow, and ensure equal distribution of leads among the sales reps.</p><h2><strong>8. Conversion rate optimization</strong></h2><p>&nbsp;It’s great to score more sales calls or meetings, but it’s important to know how many prospects convert into customers. This is one of the most important features to look for in a meeting scheduler app because it tells you about the leaks and gaps in your current prospecting and helps you create strategies based on the leads that convert.</p><p>Sure, you can track conversions on external software, but wouldn't it be great to have everything in one place? Track bookings from open to close, generate comprehensive reports on scheduling metrics, and analyze results to improve performance, all within the same platform.</p><h1><strong>Wrapping Up</strong></h1><p>Your sales team has a lot on its plate. Make their lives easier with an all-comprehensive, intuitive, and responsive meeting scheduler that can automate booking, reschedule or cancel meetings, send timely notifications, and more.</p><p>There are common functionalities that can be found in all scheduling apps, but only the best meeting scheduling software offer the features we mentioned above. Another important element to pick is the right <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features"><span style="color:#FF508F;">sales engagement platform</span></a> that can help significantly boost sales reps' efficiency and productivity while reducing and automating their time on clerical tasks.</p><p><br><i><strong>LIKE WHAT YOU JUST READ? SUBSCRIBE </strong></i><a href="https://outplayhq.com/blogs"><span style="color:#FF508F;"><i><strong>HERE</strong></i></span></a><i><strong> FOR FREE TO READ MORE SUCH INSIGHTFUL BLOGS.</strong></i></p>

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