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Outbounding
Win New Customers with Outbound Sales and End Your Dependence on Inbound Leads
William (Skip) Miller • HarperCollins Leadership © 2020 • 336 pages

Marketing / Direct Marketing / Cold Calling

Sales

Take-Aways
• Marketing for inbound sales no longer garners the results it once did. Outbounding – reaching out to
prospects – suits today’s world.
• Effective B2B salespeople explain the importance of needed change to clients and then show how they
can satisfy that need.
• B2B salespeople must understand their customers’ perspectives.
• Salespeople must meet the needs of above-the-line (ATL) and below-the-line (BTL) buyers.
• Focus B2B sales calls on your prospects and their need to change.
• Sales calls have three parts: 1) the intro, 2) the middle and 3) the end. The most effective sequence is: the
end, the intro and then the middle.
• To outbound successfully, manage your time with care.
• The “PowerHour” – which you may repeat several times during a workday – is the time slot you devote to
outbounding.
• B2B sales is a numbers game.
• B2B salespeople must believe their offerings truly help their customers.

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 Recommendation
Expert sales trainer William (Skip) Miller teaches B2B salespeople how to line up sales. First, Miller
recommends, you need a thoughtful, well-developed outbounding strategy. Make sure your communications
focus on your prospects – who they are, what they care about and what they need – and not on you, your
offerings or your solutions. Miller explains how to plan and structure your messaging – emails, phone calls,
sales conversations and social media content – to secure prospects’ attention and make them curious about
your wares. B2B salespeople will welcome Miller’s results-oriented prospecting advice.

Summary

Marketing for inbound sales no longer garners the results it once did. Outbounding –
reaching out to prospects – suits today’s world.

In 2005, HubSpot CEO and co-founder Brian Halligan introduced inbounding, a sales approach which
uses content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization and branding to attract
consumers to your offerings and – in the process – to develop inbound leads salespeople can follow up. This
follow-up represents 40% to 100% of the typical B2B company’s lead development activities. But inbound
leads are drying up.

“Sending a thousand emails out hoping three stick is not the way to do it anymore.”

Outbounding – prospecting for leads and other proactive lead-generation activities – is the logical solution.
Unfortunately, outbounding is not going smoothly for many B2B firms because:

• Companies don’t train inbound salespeople to develop outbound leads.

• Outbound salespeople rely too heavily on sales development representatives or business development
representatives for their leads.
• Most outbound salespeople don’t use formal outbound sales processes.
• Most B2B sales managers know only the model of flipping an inbound lead to an account executive. They
haven’t developed an outbound-lead model.

With inbound sales, buyers know what they need and contact the vendors who can meet that need. In
outbound sales, buyers don’t yet know they have a need. Outbound salespeople must initiate a process to
supply buyers with what they need – often something the buyers know little or nothing about and, therefore,
don’t know that they want it.

Effective B2B salespeople explain the importance of needed change to clients and
then show how they can satisfy that need.

B2B salespeople must discover and discuss which changes prospects need to initiate to fix the problems they
face. Tailor these change-related questions to each prospect:

• Why should a change occur? – Why is it important to do things differently?

• Why should it happen now? – What prompts this need for change?

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 • What would be the best result? – What does the prospect want to achieve?
• What measurable return do you want?” – How can the prospect best evaluate results?
• What information will lead to a go-ahead? – Should the prospect institute change?

B2B salespeople must understand their customers’ perspectives.

Remain curious and work to help your prospects determine what changes their company would benefit from
instituting.

“You need to see things from your customer’s chair before you can be effective in selling,
period.”

Work on your abilities to listen, get your point across and sell. Continue to learn, master your craft. Believe
in yourself and your offering so you can communicate with confidence.

Salespeople must meet the needs of above-the-line (ATL) and below-the-line (BTL)
buyers.

The three golden rules of B2B sales are:

1. Companies buy and pay for B2B equipment or B2B software or services.
2. Individuals within companies select the vendors and order their goods or services.
3. Every B2B sale involves two decisions: a choice made below the line (BTL) and a choice made above the
line (ATL).

The ATL buyer is usually a senior executive or vice president; the BTL buyer is a manager or the primary
user of the B2B equipment or service. Each buyer has a distinct way of thinking. In small firms, the ATL
buyer and BTL buyer may be the same person. Even when this person performs both functions, two different
mind-sets and value propositions apply.

The ATL buyer can fund a purchase and wants that investment to save or earn money. In a larger firm,
the ATL buyer establishes a budget for the BTL buyer. The BTL buyer needs the purchase to work well and
to offer a marked improvement over the current equipment or service.

“Great salespeople aren’t the ones with great answers and statements. They are the ones
with great questions.”

Usually, ATL buyers initiate the need for a change, based on their understanding of the scope of a
problem. However, BTL buyers set the criteria for the purchase, because they define what the new
equipment or service must do. Because generally they are responding to a pressing problem, ATL buyers
know they must institute a change, but they want to limit costs and risks. If the ATL buyer doesn’t set a
course or make decisions quickly, and instead leaves the details to BTL buyers, the BTL buyer will often take
a long time to recommend a specific purchase.

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 Below-the-line buyers are under pressure to find the best alternative for their company – so they
take seemingly forever to investigate, consider and reconsider all options. You should love this category of
buyer – they want to buy what you sell.

For successful outbounding, show that you understand the concerns that motivate both ATL and BTL
buyers. Focus your sales conversations on what they care about – themselves and their needs – and not on
what you care about – yourself and your needs.

Your proposition to ATL buyers is that your offering provides the perfect solution to their problems. It fits
their budgets and meets their BTL buyers’ needs. Your solution is economical, saves time and reduces
risk. However, most B2B salespeople skip the ATL value proposition as if it doesn’t exist. Mistakenly, they
heed only the BTL way of thinking.

Focus B2B sales calls on your prospects and their need to change.

A great sales call discovers why a prospect needs or wants a change. Your mission is to get your outbounding
prospects to want to speak to you about that change.

Don’t present as if you “have a solution looking for a problem, rather than the other way
around.”

These factors motivate prospects to talk:

1. Recommendations – According to HubSpot, 83% of customers who feel positive about their sales
experiences will provide referrals for the salespeople who worked with them. Prospects prefer to
purchase from people they care about, and referrals trade on the likeability factor.
2. Curiosity– Inspire prospects to want to know about you and your offerings.
3. Self-interest – To get prospects’ attention, focus your communications on them.
4. Specific data – People like the concreteness of lists and numbers. Include them in your
communications.
5. Time sensitivity – Refer to pressing time issues. For example, mention that a special offer is
expiring. However, don’t use the word “discount” and don’t offer discounts, because that cuts the rate
of closings by 17%.

Sales calls have three parts: 1) the intro, 2) the middle and 3) the end. The most
effective sequence is: the end, the intro and then the middle.

Sales calls go through three stages beginning with the intro, which opens the sales call and can also
be the start of a face-to-face encounter. You could also put your intro in the first sentence or two of a
letter or email. Normally, the middle portion outlines the call’s primary content or agenda. The end is the
conclusion of the call. From here, you move onto subsequent steps in the sales process. The best salespeople
use an end-intro-middle sequence in their calls. Sales is always about where you end up, not where you start.
Focusing on the end is the best way to build a sale.

“More than 40% of salespeople say outbounding is the most challenging part of sales.”

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 As a B2B salesperson, you must know the next step you want to take place in the sales process. Set goals that
emphasize the end of the sales process, not the beginning.

To outbound successfully, manage your time with care.

Apportion your time according to the likely amount of business your prospects will represent for you in the
next 90 to 120 days.

“Do you spend a lot of your time going after little fish when you could spend more time
going after whales?”

Your most important prospects should be prioritized in a maintenance group. These core
customer companies have spent money with you in the past and show promise for lucrative future
business. If you find super hot prospects, invest most of your prospecting time on them.

The “PowerHour” – which you may repeat several times during a workday – is the
time slot you devote to outbounding.

Make a PowerHour a regular part of your time-management planning. Devote an hour daily – five hours
over the course of a week – to tasks related to outbounding. Once you schedule your PowerHour, never
fail to honor it with outbounding activities. Each week, after you complete your five-hour outbounding
commitment, reward yourself with a treat, gift or fun activity.

“The use of collaborative words has a positive impact on your outbound messages. Using
‘we’ instead of ’I’ increases success rates by 35%.”

You may want to allocate two PowerHours per day to outbounding activities. Or your business may require
you to spend the majority of your day on prospecting and other outbounding activities. In this case,
batch outbounding activities in 15-minute segments so you don’t burn out.

B2B sales is a numbers game.

B2B sales success depends on salespeople making a sufficient number of telephone calls, face-to-face sales
calls, prospect contacts, and so on. One tally suggests the typical sales development representative should
make 33 telephone calls every day, plus 2,000 calls, 200 connects and 30 meetings every quarter.

“The more you can get the prospect’s attention and the less you talk about yourself, the
better.”

Telephone calls are the best way to begin an outbounding relationship. Fully 45% of salespeople believe the
phone is their most powerful sales mechanism. Before you make prospecting calls, practice how you sound
by using your voicemail system.

Follow this optimum, five-part telephone calling plan: 1) know exactly why you are making a call, 2) know
what the prospect will expect, 3) plan the first 20 seconds of the call, 4) be ready to deal with any objections
and 5) set an initial goal for each call of scheduling a follow-up contact with the prospect.

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 Use the “ASTRO” approach for the opening of your telephone call:

• Attention– Say the prospect’s name to get his or her attention.

• State – Announce your name and organization.
• The purpose – Refer to a result or action step.
• Reframe – Explain why the prospect should give you a couple of minutes.
• Options – Discuss what you want to happen next.

For cold calls, ask numerous questions early in the call. Questions engage people’s brains, so also end your
call with a question. Your basic goal is helping the prospect attain a specific objective.

Expect objections. To handle objections, begin by listening actively. Repeat the objection in your own
words and follow up with relevant questions. Respond in a thoughtful, deliberate way. Never react
emotionally. Instead, validate the prospect’s concerns, whatever they may be.

Use email or social media to communicate with a company’s handful of top ATL buyers before you
communicate with a BTL buyer. Keep emails to 120 words or fewer, because your goal is that prospects open
at least 35% of your emails.With social media, aim for one cellphone swipe. You may occasionally want your
communications to ATL buyers to come from someone higher up in your company, like your supervisor or
even your chief executive.

B2B salespeople must believe their offerings truly help their customers.

Successful B2B salespeople have faith in themselves, their companies and their products. They
must believe with rock-solid certitude that through their offerings, they can help customers institute
successful change that will improve their operations.

“The average B2B prospect gets more than 50 prospecting emails every day and takes
less than two minutes to delete them. You have to get through the noise.”

The central truth of B2B sales is that, to be effective, you must understand your customers and see things
from their perspectives.

About the Author

William (Skip) Miller is founder and president of M3 Learning, a sales and sales management training
company in Silicon Valley. Outbounding is his seventh book.

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