RumRum

Enterprise AE

When reaching out to Execs, do you need more or less touches?

I work in tech, selling cloud DevOps solutions to companies 2-5K employees, 2-4mo sales cycle.

My target is that midlevel management tier, but sometimes they don't respond and I want to try the top down approach, by reaching out to the execs.

My thoughts are: 1) They can get back to me and speed up the sales cycle, or 2) get blocked faster.

Fail fast and fail often, no?

Anyway, in your experience, would you add more touches to an exec, or keep the same (8-12)? What are your thoughts on increasing frequency of touches? Are calls dead when reaching to execs?

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CoorsKing

WR Officer

Retired King of the Coors Knights

Fewer touches, higher quality, and significantly less words than you probably have.

3-4 sentences max, if it doesn’t fit on your phone screen they won’t read it.

paddy

WR Officer

Director of Business Development

I heard somewhere that you need 36 touches per month...LinkedIn followed by an email, then a phone call (leaving a voicemail), followed by an ambush at the local grocery store where they shop.

CoorsKing

WR Officer

Retired King of the Coors Knights

Nah you have it slightly off - it’s 35 followed by post it’s on their door followed by ambushing them at their kids school

paddy

WR Officer

Director of Business Development

Shit you're right. If they don't respond by the 34th touch, is the 35th touch the headshot with my sniper rifle since they're clearly not interested and dead to me?

CoorsKing

WR Officer

Retired King of the Coors Knights

Hostages

funcoupons

WR Officer

👑

Have you heard of the Chris Voss method of demanding they watch u shower if all else fails? I heard it increases likelihood of engagement by at least 69%, not including the phone calls to the local police dept.

CoorsKing

WR Officer

Retired King of the Coors Knights

Well Chris Voss did make his name from negotiating hostages soooo if I took one thing from that… hostages get deals done

funcoupons

WR Officer

👑

You can't use the hostage method if the person has worked for Gong, Gartner, or Gary V tho. Because hostages have to be friends or family and we all know those ppl don't have any of those.

CoorsKing

WR Officer

Retired King of the Coors Knights

Tony Robbins says everyone has tons of “family” though

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

Im not as funny as the rest of this thread but I had this convo with one of my AE's about 15 minutes ago. He likes to write a god damn essay for every email and they never get responded too.

I made him watch me read the email so he saw how long it took and just goes "holy fuck, I gotta fix this shit ASAP"... uhh ya think?

funcoupons

WR Officer

👑

With execs you need to have quality touches. Incessant/irrelevant spamming will get you blocked and screened. Call at times where they're more likely to have time for you (early in the morning, later in the day.) Come with your A-Game.

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

I would argue that you need to have fewer quality touches

Biznasty

Opinionated

Lead Business Development Manager

Yep better just come correct on the first few tries or get black listed.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Here's the sequence I'd use:

Day 1: Phone call, voicemail
Day 1: Short WYWYN Email (must be personalized from scratch)--5 sentences max.

Day 3: Reply-in-thread to original email as a "bump up"

Day 5: Phone call, voicemail

Day 8: Social proof email with 2-3 relevant competitors/lookalike companies that you work with already, and how you solve one challenge for them. 5 sentences max

Day 12: Phone call, voicemail

Day 15: "I know you're busy, so here's an educational resource for you."

Put it on freeze for 30 days.

RumRum

Good Citizen

Enterprise AE

Thanks- WYWN in 5 sentences. I assume you have to be very direct and avoid the "How've you been?" "I've noticed that youre X at Y"

Can you give me an example of your first sentence?

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Check out my full post here: https://bravado.co/war-room/posts/outbound-email-tip-of-the-week-why-you-why-you-now

RumRum

Good Citizen

Enterprise AE

Solid, thanks!

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

I always go with less touches that add more value!

mitts2

Politicker

Account Executive

QUALITY > Quantity with execs. The first email should be highly personalized with reference to articles, quotes, investor reports, podcasts, company news, etc. Follow up is a simple bump / call / LI message.

Send your first email to yourself and read it on your lock screen. Need to be able to get to "Why you, Why now" stuff in the first few sentences.

beerisforclosers

Politicker

Account Manager

100% start at the top. I usually include something about how busy and important they are and something to the effect of "If you don't have the bandwidth, I'd be happy to connect to the right member of your team." Frequently they pass me down to the mid level manage who would have ignored me and now feels obligated to respond!

TheNegotiator

Arsonist

VP of Sales

It’s not about how many touches, but where you touch them and what technique you use. Some touches can be completely irresistible. Others will get you arrested.

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RumRum

When reaching out to Execs, do you need more or less touches?

21 comment

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