How to Set Sales Cadences That Lead to More Qualified Conversations

A good sales cadence can set the pace for the conversations that you’re having with prospects. If you’re thrown off by the word “cadence” you aren’t alone. There are many people, even those who’ve been in the sales field for years, who just aren’t familiar with this term. 

Essentially, a cadence is just a sequence of timed or outlined steps. The word is most familiar in the music world, where it’s used to express the sequence of chords or notes that end a musical piece. In sales, it’s an expression of the steps that you use to end the qualification process and start turning leads into customers. 

Knowing that, here’s how you can make the most of your sales cadences to ensure you’re maximizing your time and qualifying more leads. 

Define your sales goals 

You can’t take steps to a destination that doesn’t exist. Otherwise, you’re just wandering aimlessly, and in lead prospecting that’s probably one of the worst things that you can do. Before you can start creating your cadences, you need to have clearly defined goals for your sales efforts. 

Choose measurable, achievable goals that are clear and structured. Make sure people know things like how many meetings to schedule each week or how many qualified leads are coming in. This can help them with sales development, but also understand their role in the bigger picture. 

Use different cadences for different audiences

You’re not going to use the same sales pitch for every lead or audience. Why would you use the same sequence of steps for qualification or conversion? Every audience will have its unique journey that you’ll need to figure out. While they might be similar, the steps might come in a different order or certain ones may be omitted, based on who you’re trying to reach. 

Many companies struggle with successful cadences because they create one or two blanket options for their sales teams and don’t consider tailoring them to the audience. However, when you offer a more personalized approach even from the first outreach, you’re that much closer to qualified conversations. 

Optimize and plan touchpoints and timing 

Sales cadences create a timeline for communication. However, that timeline is not static because each lead will have different needs. You should be able to teach your team how to assess whether they should alter the timeline for a lead or stick to the plan. That way, you can make sure that your resources are being allocated properly and your leads aren’t left hanging. 

Part of your touchpoint planning should include check-ins with your team to make sure that the sales cadences are hitting the mark. This will give your people the opportunity to let you know how things actually work in practice and whether they’re finding it to be effective. 

Feel free to ask your team for input and suggestions after your sales cadences have been in place for a little while. They might have insights and perspectives that you didn’t consider that can help improve things. 

Automate routine tasks and sales activities 

When your team is bogged down with scheduling, managing the pipeline, email campaigns, and other efforts, they’re not spending time on those leads that deserve their attention. That can also impact the sales cadence, including how effective it is for your team. The solution? Automate everything that you can. 

There are several tools that you can use to help with automation, or you can outsource to a team like the virtual receptionists at Smith.ai. Our live agents can help you eliminate sales burnout by handling things like lead intake and appointment scheduling, outreach campaigns, and even live chat and virtual assistance, thanks to our chatbot and AI voice assistant. 

The more that you can automate, the more time your sales reps can spend on qualifying those leads and improving the sales cadence. The caveat, of course, is to make sure that you’re not automating tasks that require human attention. For example, you can automate your email sending, but you should take the time to create the email content yourself first. AI-generated content just isn’t there yet, and may never be. 

What does a sales cadence look like?

So, now that we’ve covered the bulk of what you need to know about making the most of sales cadences, it may help you to get an idea of what that looks like. If you have an interested lead, it could look something like:

• Phone call on day one
• Email or text on day three
• Social media message or phone call follow-up on day five
• Phone call on day eight 
• Email or text on day 15
• After 15 days, switch to one message/email/call per month

As you can see, there’s no real back-to-back communication, and as the process goes on and the lead doesn’t convert, the time between communications gets longer. After a certain point, leads just aren’t worth your time and you’ll want to put them in “maintenance mode” where you’re only reaching out about once a month to remind them that you have solutions they could benefit from. 

When the cadences are set, will you have the right resources in place?

Even if you don’t enlist the help of a team like the virtual receptionists at Smith.ai during earlier parts of the process, you’ll find that it can come in handy once those leads start flowing. While your sales reps are focusing on the influx of qualified conversations, our agents can act as your 24/7 answering service to ensure that you never miss a lead. 

Plus, as mentioned, we can provide support for lead intake and appointment scheduling, and even assist with your outreach campaigns in the first place. We know how much work you have in a day, and we take pride in alleviating that where we can. 

To learn more, schedule a consultation or reach out to hello@smith.ai. 

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