#220 Luigi Prestinenzi and Dave Fastuca - Sales Outreach Techniques That Work in 2023

Luigi Prestinenzi: 0:00

Your CRM should be your source of truth. So, even though you could be using intent data platforms like Lushar, that's telling you that this company is looking for sales training, you pull that into your CRM, because that's where your place of knowledge bank, of capturing information, and then you build your outreach messages or whatever messaging framework that you want to build or whatever pursuit plan that you're looking at. Do some research, find a reason to reach out, give a little bit of value through an insight. Let's approach. Don't be so forceful in asking for a meeting Right. It doesn't always have to be like that. It can be a nurture that approach and over time it will deliver a return on investment. Welcome to another episode of the how to Sell podcast. I'm your host, Luigi Pressinendi. I just want to say thank you very much for showing up. If this is the first time you are joining us, welcome. We're really, really excited to share this content with you. Now, this is a podcast which is a little bit different. Yes, it's all about how to sell, but we look at things from a different perspective. We actually interview buyers and we look at the process from the buyer's lens so that we can help you determine what buyers need to go through, what process they're going to go through to get to that point of decision. And if you're a long-time listener, we just want to say thank you for showing up and please don't forget to subscribe to wherever you're listening to this podcast. This way, it will allow us to continue to bring great guests and great content. So I'm joined by my co host, Dave, so welcome, dave.

Dave Fastuca: 1:29

Thanks, Louis. I was wondering when you were going to introduce me. It was taking a while to get there.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 1:34

Well, mate, I'm still struggling and for those, if you are a long-time listener, you'll know that I held this seat on my own for a long time, so I'm still struggling with that whole concept of being a co host.

Dave Fastuca: 1:45

You get there, you get there.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 1:48

I was struggling this week because you changed your title on LinkedIn to cohost of the how to Sell podcast and it was a bit of a you know and pardon me, dave. I thought to myself, do I really need you to host this podcast?

Dave Fastuca: 2:02

Well, you do need a bit of a bit of carrying, so who else is better?

Luigi Prestinenzi: 2:07

It's kind of like that. It's kind of and I know, look, not all of our listeners would love football, right, or the round ball, the real. Well, I say real football, right. I want to piss some of our listeners off, but it's kind of like saying Chelsea don't really need a coach to lose. They're going to lose pretty much with any coach they've got right.

Dave Fastuca: 2:26

Louis, how do you say that? Well, why would you say that?

Luigi Prestinenzi: 2:30

So you know, just to bring again, let's bring a bit of personality. So David is a Chelsea supporter and Unfortunately, they're going through a really, really great period where they can't even win a game, even after buying like 40.

Dave Fastuca: 2:43

So really you don't go there, because this is not a point. Rebuilding, everyone goes for it. We're rebuilding, just a little bit more expensive.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 2:51

Rebuilding a whole league with the amount of plays. But we know we're not going to go. This is not a podcast. You know what we actually should create a sales podcast for people that like football, that would be. That's actually a pretty good idea. But, Dave, let's jump in. Last week we decided to do it. This week we're doing a bit of a, let's say, solo episode. Right, because it's just. It's just me and you. But we're building on the episode we did with Tim, because there were so many great takeaways from Tim, who's director of enablement at Lucia, and there was a moment at the end where Tim spoke about how we initially reached out to him and the process.

Dave Fastuca: 3:30

Yeah, like he mentioned during that episode that you reached out to him via email when he started a new role. So I'm hearing that trigger alert in the head. Yeah, so talk to us about how. How did you know he started a new role? Share the process on that initial outreach message and what value did you provide to Tim in order for him to pick up the phone? Cause I imagine you know anyone starting a new role they're getting information overload. It's crazy, it's busy, Let alone getting hit up by saying congratulations on a new job, whichever one gets, a thousand times now when they change roles. Only then, what did you do? What did you do?

Luigi Prestinenzi: 4:09

Yeah, I mean that's a good question and that's why I wanted to. You know, we spoke about building on the episode with Tim right To make this a very, very tactical podcast, a very tactical episode for our listeners and our audience on the playbook that I ran to not just Get Tim into a conversation but help him or move that conversation to a point of decision, which was ultimately a contract right. So, and you are right, I used the trigger event of Tim starting a new role, but I think the first thing to identify is that I Already had a list Designed in on LinkedIn, so I was using a sales navigator. There was some a search that I had pulled of certain companies of a certain size, and I Essentially set up a trigger so that if there was any ever chat, if if there was any ever change, any change that occurred in that Organization, it would then let me know that there's, you know, been a person that started in the role.

Dave Fastuca: 5:10

And so it has that little alert like saying they're hiring or they've just hired Because you weren't a connection with Tim before he joined the new show, so you didn't get that automatic thing that everyone gets when someone they're connected to moves. I wasn't, I wasn't connected with him.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 5:25

Okay, so I let, I let the tech, I let the tool. So in sales never in sales navigator you can set it up so that if there's any ever change in leadership, it'll let you know. You can also do the same in in, for example, if you set up Google RSS feeds or a Google feed right, you can have a Google yeah and it'll tell you if the companies in the news but I set this up in LinkedIn sales navigator so it was automatically, you know advised that hey, they've got a new person. So what I did was I then checked and went, " you know what perfect, perfect persona, the enablement leader?" So that was my first thing I had and those alerts happening all the time. So I'm seeing it in my target accounts. Not just my target accounts, but it's particular lists that I've built. I'm Letting the tool do the work for me To tell me when is the right time to potentially reach out, because that new hire or starting a new role Is a really, really powerful trigger to be leveraging in the outreach process.

Dave Fastuca: 6:32

Question for you now. These triggers are coming in now could be thick and fast, depending on what's happening in the market. Were you reactive and you know we're trying to multitask and then went out to team or do you Set yourself up with a certain amount of time today to check these triggers or to check these lists? Do you have a bit of a process? Is what I'm trying to get to you for that, because we all get too busy and you can let a lot of this slip. Yes, so what's your process?

Luigi Prestinenzi: 7:01

Yeah. So look, from a business development perspective, I have a certain target. I've got a list of people, of companies that I'm targeting right. So at any given time, there's my hot list, which are the companies that my ideal customer profiles, that I'm like you know what. These are kind of perfect. They're in the perfect Quadrant for what we do, yeah, or for what I do. So Obviously, I'm always checking that to make sure, because for me, those accounts, there's a higher propensity for converting when I talk to them right. Then I've got my other list, but then my main list is the one that I'm constantly, you know, checking because I'm not just always. And this is the thing we also have to discuss as well. Right, a lot of people think about prospecting and go. You know what? I just need to prospect. I need to develop a cadence, hit this list as many times as I can in the next two weeks and then I'll move on to the next, next record if I don't engage with them. That's a very, very short-term strategy. What do you know if you've got a huge TAM? So you know what? Just TAM if you've got a huge addressable market and you've got an endless list of customers to talk to. Yeah, that could yield a return for you, but for me, I'm like I want to squeeze as much juice out of my list as possible. Yeah, and I'm not just looking at the first two weeks. I mean, I'm building relationships and nurturing prospects for, like, in some cases, six to 12 months. So I'm not always looking to talk to them today about closing a deal today, because in some cases, the timing is just not right. Yeah, for a whole variety of reasons. This is why building a robust relationship funnel is actually really important. So, just to answer your initial question, I've identified my hot list of companies that I'm always kind of looking at. Some are in a cadence of outreach that I'm using because of timing, there's certain triggers, there's particular messages that I'm using, and some are just sitting there where I'm just watching. Yeah, it's like I'm a watchlist, it's like a stock market. Yeah, you've got your watchlist. You haven't bought them yet. You're waiting for the right time to purchase, right?

Dave Fastuca: 9:18

How are you managing the list? I just want to get a little bit nitty gritty there. Is it in your CRM? Is it just a sales nav? Are you putting it into a spreadsheet? You know everyone always gets it? You know I need a tool for this or that. They have to go to management and request funds for a tool. You know, is there a low takeaway?

Luigi Prestinenzi: 9:35

At that time. At that time when I was talking to Tim, it was in HubSpot, right. So HubSpot was kind of my, that was my gold list, that's where I would put all my data in. Yes, it's kind of working simultaneously with a sales navigator. So something triggered. Great. I'd bring that trigger, pop it into HubSpot, put my notes, come up with my message and then start the outreach process right Now. Again, I also want to put a caveat on this. You know, this is not a model where you can go. You know what I'm going to be running a thousand contacts through some sequence and I'm just going to put you know this personalization at scale and all that crap. This is not that model, right, and for those critics who might be saying, oh yeah, but you probably won't close as many deals, I actually mapped this out in a and you were part of that process. You know, when I did this, I mapped out like a six week prospecting campaign and from that six week prospecting campaign we closed, you know, nearly 750K in business and we booked, from 57 prospects a book, 27 meetings and we closed that much business. So we actually mapped it all out. We mapped pretty much every particular metric from that cadence just from that contacts, right, yeah, obviously the things that were booked in the third, the second and the third month, but just that set of contacts that we put through from that list that I initially developed and Tim was part of that list right? So just to go back a sip, your CRM should be your source of truth. So, even though you might have, you could be using intent data platforms like Lucia that's telling you that this company is looking for sales training, you could be pull that in, pull that into your CRM, because that's where your place of you know your knowledge bank of capturing information, and then you build your outreach messages or whatever messaging framework that you want to build or whatever you know, whatever pursuit plan that you're looking at, because you know we might have a pursuit plan which, with Tim, it was an email phone, it was linked in email phone actually.

Dave Fastuca: 11:42

So explain that to everyone listening. So you emailed, you hit him up on LinkedIn and you called him. Was this all? Like one after the other, Bang, bang, bang, yeah pretty pretty, pretty pretty much together, right.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 11:54

So it was a multi-channel outreach I threaded. I first initially did my LinkedIn and said you know, it was a really simple, I think, maybe the exact term, I think something like congratulations on you know the role at Lucia, huge Lucia lover, right, actually, put that there, huge Lucia fan being part of the being a customer from you know pretty much day one, right, and that was the truth, yeah, yeah. Then I also shot him an email with a very similar message, but in that email I actually said I've got a little bit of feedback on the sales process that I've experienced with Lucia, you know when you got your feet under the table. Would love to share this with you.

Dave Fastuca: 12:42

I love that. It's a bit of intrigue. Yeah, it's almost a little bit of a curiosity, yeah, that's right.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 12:46

It was, like you know, awesome to hear about this role. I think it's and I knew it was the first enablement person they brought on right Because I was watching that business. I wanted to share some insight. So that's what I said. I've got some feedback on the sales process. I think you'll find insight when you get your feet under the desk, because I was also using empathy. Yeah, First started probably got a ton of things. When you've got your feet under the desk, Let me know When's a good time to connect.

Dave Fastuca: 13:14

I'm happy to share this with you and that was quite short, yeah, like that was a nice short car email bit of a, not even value, just intrigue, correct? You know and value that he could derive from you from that conversation, right? So, yeah, why not? Pardon the interruption? But I have to let you know about this free resource. The grow forum newsletter has over 10,000 subscribers that are learning how to sell. Each and every week we send you tips, strategies and also some tools and tech on how to achieve the most out of your sales pipeline. If you're ready to level up, sign up for free at grow forumio forward slash newsletter and get the first issue this week.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 13:54

And you know I think I'm a, I'm an and, as you know, I'm a very big fan of insight led approach, right. So I've mystery shopped, I've bought products, I've gone to events. You know, in my prospecting process I want to earn the right to get a meeting, and if that means I have to go on a shopping cart and purchase an actual product from someone to get that experience, then I can use that experience in my outreach message, I'll do it Right. If I've I mean I've got to go, and I did this when I was prospecting into an automotive business, a very, very well known German brand, I went to six different locations. Now I'm not saying you do this for every single prospect, right, otherwise you just be in a zone of research. But depending on the potential size of the opportunity will dictate the type of research that you do. Yeah, so historically, when I've sold into large enterprise opportunities, I would spend a lot of time doing that research. Yeah, because I want to be able to then have, I have a better understanding and I can really create a very insightful lead message. If it's a small opportunity, you might go. Okay, I'm going to do just a little bit of pragmatic research, but you can actually do this and this is also something that you know. We obviously teach this in the sales OS program, right, but this is something part of my practice is as you're building your list, you can whether you're doing it on a spreadsheet or you're doing it in your CRM you can do an element of this pragmatic research. You should be always doing it. Doing a bit of Google, checking in the news, maybe going on their site, having a look, depending on what you sell as well. Yeah, so depending on what you sell will dictate what you're looking for. You want to be looking for something that indicates that there could be a potential problem that you could help them solve, and then you want to be able to come up with some form of like you know people call it a value hypothesis, right, but you want to come up with some form of message that you know if you have that conversation and you deliver that message, it's going to earn the right for them to say you know what? We'll earn the right for you to progress that conversation. This is the key. This is not a transactional pop 500 people in a sequencing tool and just push it out. This is the exact methodology that I use with Tim. So just to go back a step, I used the tools available to the sales navigator to tell me there was a change in one of my accounts that I would want to talk to. I then created a message, leveraged a multi-channel, so I'll leverage multiple channels to reach out to get his attention. I got his attention immediately. There was a soft CTA, right, with a bit of empathy, we just happened to jump on a call very, very quickly into the process and then from there it was. I did share that insight and so this is what I've observed, and then I just started nurturing, right, and it didn't take too long to get into a point of hey, this is an actual gap that I've been brought on to fill.

Dave Fastuca: 18:46

Yeah, you think that process there, you know that and that was a great breakdown right, it's from everything you did and you don't have to follow that same approach. A good friend of the show, Alan Dibb, the author of the one page marketing plan. One thing that he does quite well is that if someone signs up on his website, he would send them a book. But he won't just send them one book. He'll send them two books, one for them and one that they can either give to one of their staff or give to someone else. Then he follows up with a call and an email asking about what they thought of the book. So it gives him the right to follow up and ask a question. And look what you did there. You signed up. You were a longtime user of the platform. You might have just signed up for a free trial and have some feedback on the onboarding sequence. Like that literally takes five minutes to do, you know, but that would put that potential seller, you know, way above others who are just trying to reach out with a generic message.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 19:41

And you know, again, there's multiple ways to do this right and you can do this across, like I've heard. You know this isn't specific to my market, etc. And this is not about me putting tickets on myself, Dave, because you know I'm not one that likes self-promotion, right. But you know, when we booked a meeting with one of the most senior enablement people at HubSpot and we did that and we flew to Dublin to have the meeting right. So for those of our audience that knows to get to Dublin from Australia, it's a fair distance. It takes a long time to get there right. So it was a very similar approach, right? Obviously, I had insight coaching a few reps across HubSpot, I had really good observations about some of the gaps and I was able to leverage that into my message to get that meeting with the person I needed to in Dublin, yeah. So, again, it's a consistent method that when you execute and that insight-led approach. Now it doesn't matter what role you might be saying, but I'm an SDR, right, I've got all these. I've got all these, this pressure on activities, activities, activities. You can absolutely still facilitate this. You just might not do it to the depth that I do because I don't have, you know that pressure of booking, you know five meetings a day, but I can tell you that I'm getting between 15 to 25% of the prospects that I reach out to in a meeting right Because I'm spending a bit more time researching. And to validate this and great for an Alice from who was at Ducusin who became one of the number one BDRs in Australia was because he was only doing 12, he was reaching out to 12, on average 12 prospects a day, booking four to five meetings. Right, his target was 50 outreach contacts a day but he was not even doing half of that. Right Because he was spending a bit more time at the front end, because he was looking for the outcome. There was a certain outcome he was looking for. He wasn't too worried about the level of activity because he knew if he did a bit more research he'd get a better outcome. Right, so you can still do this, you can still facilitate this if you're an SDR, if you're a full cycle AE, and you have to do more prospecting, which we are seeing that move happen more and more now, which I'm so, so happy about that because I think AE's can self generate. It just, you know, can be such a better memory.

Dave Fastuca: 22:10

I think that was like a two, two, three month turnaround from Gulfwings crazy activity. I remember you on the coaching calls, the group on ZU. You know he brought it down, focused more and then his pipeline just blew up.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 22:25

And this is the thing you know. There's a lot of great content out there from our great friends at Levent, jen Allen, morgan and Grim. There's so many incredible people out there that will talk about okay, well, how do you create a great email and how? What should the email structure be? The 50 words, three. You know subject line three. Three keep it mobile friendly, get spam words, keep it really sharp and short, and that's all great. But the key, the key to a successful outreach process, is that initial research right, because if you can show them that you know them and Tim actually said that I showed him that I knew him right. I leveraged that trigger. I provided a bit of insight and a soft CTA. It made it. The decision architecture for him was really simple. It wasn't. Does Thursday 2pm work for you? Because then he's going to go and check his calendar? And again, the decision architecture it's hard, I'll ignore, it was soft. Actually, I didn't ask for anything. Actually I said I was going to say what was?

Dave Fastuca: 23:25

Was there any CTA whatsoever?

Luigi Prestinenzi: 23:27

Yeah, with Tim it was really simple. It was, you know, after you get your feet under the desk, let us know. You know when it works. I'm happy to share this insight because, again, I was looking at it from a different perspective and I've really haven't been in a position where I've had so much pipeline pressure on me where I have to convert deals now, and I've had that luxury, you know, for over a decade. Right, there was a moment in my career where I wasn't hitting my number and I felt that pressure and I was actually not living to the values of a sales professional. Right, because I was just trying to push and push people when they weren't ready. But when you have a healthy pipeline, when you are prospecting every day, when you've got lots of conversations happening, you've got your relationship funnels really flowing. You never have any pressure around having to get somebody into a meeting and this is the key thing I want to share as well. Right, I didn't have pressure. I could take the pressure off, I could reduce the attention for Tim and it gives me an element of confidence and control.

Dave Fastuca: 24:29

Yeah, enjoy the process.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 24:31

Absolutely, and it's like you see this in negotiations yeah, when you want a deal, you will. There's a little bit of anxiety that's starting to kick in and the other party can feel that and yeah, I've seen this and you know we've. I've seen this with my good friend and you know him, Mark morano. I've been there in Negotiations when you can just see that he's calm, there's no pressure, he's not concerned if it moves forward by a dozen, he's got a position and that's incredible. It's an incredible confidence to bring to the table right, because he's not Worried. It's not like a do or die, yeah, yeah, and we see this in prospecting. It becomes do or die when you're having to ask, ask, ask Because you haven't got anything behind you. So in this case, with Tim, I had so much behind me. It didn't matter if he booked today or next week or the week after. I still had in my mind my process was going to be. Even if he doesn't respond, I'm still gonna nurture, I'm gonna drip a bit more, right. I'm gonna give him some more insight. I'm gonna maybe share what his competitors are doing, right? Hey, have you seen this? Did you know this? What about this? Because that is triggering thought, yeah, and at some point right, I can go give, give, give, ask Right. Yeah, perfect, because I've given a bit. I've given, I've shown him that I'm not just here because I'm doing a generic outreach message, that I've done one to five hundred and you know I want an outcome of getting a meeting. I've actually taken the time to nurture and give right, yeah so, david, it pays dividends, not only the fact that, yes, lucian became a client, but Tim and I have formed a great relationship and I think the biggest takeaway for our audience from this episode from my perspective right, it's, I Want to build Equity in my relationship funnel. I want as many relationships as I possibly can that look like Tim, because, why? Because I've got not just value to give, but Tim's adding great value back. Yeah, we've actually got a relationship. I know that if I asked him for a referral, he'll refer me to three or four people just like him. Right, and I'm building, I've got a great network of people in that funnel right now and that is transferable no matter where over the next few years. It's going to continue. It's. It's like I've invested in really good shares and they're going to continue to pay dividends. Right, that's a difference between prospecting with the methodology that we've just shared today, which was to do some research, find a reason to reach out, give a little bit of value, you know, through an insight letter approach. Don't be so forceful in asking for a meeting. Right, it doesn't always have to be like that. It can be a. Nurture that approach and over time, it will deliver a return on investment, do you have a great product but are struggling to reach more customers.

Dave Fastuca: 27:38

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Luigi Prestinenzi: 28:57

Absolutely such a great way to wrap up. Yeah, and this is this is. This is a perfect way to wrap up because we've got, you know, three. We've got probably two or three more enablement professionals that are coming on in the next couple of weeks and that'll round out our how to sell to enablement and then the playbook will accompany that. That'll have the persona, it'll have some messaging frameworks that we've used right to sell to those people and but we've also used the insight that we've learned from them in the episodes. It'll have some cadences, it'll have some questions. It'll give our audience what they need to be able to sell to enablement. So we hope this episode has been valuable. As always, please subscribe To wherever you're listening, Dave, and anything else that we need to cover before we wrap up.

Dave Fastuca: 29:48

No, I think that's it. So look out for next week's episode and thanks for tuning in.

Luigi Prestinenzi: 29:55

Yeah, and and and folks, I know you've tuned in for me, but let's make Dave feel Somewhat appreciated. So thank you, Dave, for showing up.

Dave Fastuca: 30:04

Louis, I'm going to disconnect your audio right now. Goodbye.

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