Skip to content
January’s closer was Sean Higgins. Sean shared the story of ilos videos and how he built the sales and business development team from the bottom up. He crammed so much detail into this talk and if you’re early in the development of a sales strategy, the video is worth a watch! Here are a few high points that I took away from the chat.
Early on in ilos videos’ growth, they practiced skimming by outbound emailing all the contacts in a wide spectrum and seeing who responded. As specific titles started floating to the top, they were able to gather data points, informing the building of better lists. Ilos hired freelancers through Upwork to build their lists. They cut costs by giving freelancers a list of companies to gather contacts from and tested the accuracy of lists using briteverify.
Using an effective email subject line to break through the noise of a busy person’s email box. Split test your cold emails and see which subject line gets more opens. Sean mentioned keeping it short, sweet, and just vague enough to interest someone, e.g. “Quick Question: Video Management Software”. Once you identify the right person, then get them on the phone.
A quick breakdown of his sales process email touch points:
- Email 1 – Standard introductory email – keep this short and think of it like a tweet, you must be able to read this on a mobile phone.
- Email 2 – Threaded follow up to email 1 – very simple
- Email 3 – Case Study – send a content piece pointing to a customer similar to them
- Email 4 – Email Break Up – Give a couple options to reconnect in the future.
Sean’s Tool Suggestions
SalesLoft
Pipedrive
Streak
Hubspot
ZenProspect
Cliently
Sean’s Book Suggestions
The Sales Development Playbook
Predictable Revenue
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
Sean’s Podcast Suggestions
Tim Ferriss
Thought Leaders Sean Pays Attention To
Kyle Porter of SalesLoft
Pipedrive Blog
Close.io Blog
Jason Lemkin of SaaStr
