This is the blog transcript of our video “What Is Sales Automation”. If you’d like to see more of our videos, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here.
What if you could increase the number of meetings that you got from things like networking events by upwards of 30%?
If that seems like it’s too good to be true, hear me out because, believe it or not, it is possible!
Hey everyone, I’m Ian Campbell, CEO of Mission Suite. Before we jump into today’s video, do me a favor and hit the subscribe button and ring the bell so that you’re notified whenever we post new videos.
I know that a 30% in meetings from your prospecting efforts might seem like a pipe dream. I remember when I first heard that, it didn’t make any sense at all.
But then I tried some of the automation strategies that people were talking about and, believe it or not, it actually worked!
When I implemented those strategies, I saw a huge impact in my business and suddenly I was a believer.
So let’s talk a little bit about sales automation and why it works.
So what is Sales Automation?
A lot of times, the answer to this question is going to depend on who you’re asking.
There are some people out there who believe that sales automation is simply the ability to use a system to create task reminders and remind you when to follow up with your prospects and leads.
Really, sales automation is significantly more effective than that.
Sales automation isn’t just the use of a system that makes it easier to follow up.
Sales automation is a system that actually follows up FOR you.
Sales automation will actually send out follow emails based on any number of criteria that you define.
Let’s say you want to send a series of five emails to people who you’ve finished a demo with, but if they give you a verbal confirmation, you want those emails to stop.
Sales automation can do that for you. It doesn’t just tell you what emails to send and when to send them. It actually does it FOR you.
Or maybe you need a follow up series of phone calls, text messages and emails to people you meet prospecting.
Your sales automation system will be able to send those emails, send those text messages and remind you when you need to make those calls while they’re in that “prospect follow up” stage, and then stop them when they engage with you beyond that.
Sure, you need to make the phone calls yourself, but it’ll do the rest for you!
Why Should You Use Sales Automation?
Well, that’s actually a pretty simple question to answer…
Sales automation saves you time, makes you more productive, and makes you money.
It saves you time because you don’t have to waste time on the manual task oriented follow up that most people have to do manually. Sure, it may only be five minutes per task, but add those up and suddenly it’s a pretty big chunk of your day that you’re able to get back.
It makes you more productive because those same tasks are also the tasks that most people let slip through the cracks. They’re the ones that are easy to forget about or easy to put off because they often feel less important than the other work you have to do.
How many times have you said “I’ll just send that email later…”?
And it makes you money because those tasks are also the tasks that move the needle and help you find new qualified leads. They’re also the tasks that help you move deals through the different stages of the sales cycle.
Have you done anything with sales automation in the past? What sort of success have you seen with it?
If you have used sales automation, hit the like button, and let us know what kind of success you’ve seen in the comments.
What Should You Expect from Sales Automation?
Honestly, you can expect a lot from sales automation. What it’s not, though, is a silver bullet.
Depending on your industry, of course, you probably still need to ultimately pick up a phone and make a phone call at some point or do some sort of manual work.
What you CAN expect from automation, though, is a system that will save you time and make you more productive.
Let’s take your prospecting efforts as an example.
When you go to a networking event, you’ll meet 10 people or so and walk away with their business cards.
Without some sort of automation, you’ll need to write up an email to each person (usually it’s the same email just written 10 times), figure out if and when you want to follow up with them, create the contact in your CRM, schedule that activity in your CRM, and then finally move on to the next business card you collected.
For most people that I’ve talked to, that’s about a five minute process for each card. On its own, that’s fine, but multiply that by 10 and suddenly that follow up has taken up an hour of your day!
WITH automation, however, you get to program your different follow up processes into your platform (for example, A, B, and C) and simply select which process you want to activate as you’re entering their information into your CRM, and BOOM, the follow up happens for you.
If you go to three or four networking events per week (which, in most markets, certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibility), that’s going to save you three or four HOURS per week in follow up!
What’s more is that, since you’re ACTUALLY following up with these people, and not just setting their business cards to the right of your laptop, you’re getting more meetings, having more conversations, and ultimately getting more deals!
So there you go, time savings, sales productivity, and revenue.
And that’s just one example! I could go on and on and on about this, but that could easily make this video a bit longer than either of us want it to be.
Suffice it to say, there are a lot more ideas I could provide…you’ll just have to subscribe to hear more of them 🙂
So lastly, let’s talk about some of the things that you should NOT automate.
Now obviously, I love automation and have seen some amazing results from it, but there are certain things that I’ve seen either blow up in my face (or sometimes in my clients’ faces). And I’ve also seen instances where automation really does just come across as offensive.
For example, I always advise against using a booking calendar to book initial “get to know you” meetings with new referral partners or prospective clients.
I know that there are a lot of people who are going to disagree with me on this because they love their booking calendars. And I love mine, too, don’t get me wrong!
But when you’re introduced to somebody new and then, instead of working together to find a time that works for you to meet you just tell them to find a time on your calendar, it’s a bit too impersonal. And can even be a bit of a slap in the face.
After that first meeting, by all means use a booking calendar if they’re open to it. Or offer it as an alternative option as you’re working through scheduling that first meeting because yes some people would actually prefer just picking a time that works for them from that calendar.
But if you just say “great to meet you – here’s how you can find a time to meet with me”, it can easily come across as a bit arrogant.
Hey I hope you got something out of this video. And if you did, go ahead and give it a thumbs up and maybe a share so that others can see it too. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell so that you’re notified whenever we post new videos and while you’re at it, check out these videos too!
We’ll see you next time around!