Inside sales: How to call people who opened your email - YouTube

Hey guys.

This is Steli Efti with Close.io.

Today I want to teach you why you should cold call the people that open your emails and

how to do it right.

So a lot of times, outbound sales teams will send bulk emails to prospects, hoping to get

their interest, hoping to educate them and give them a teaser and then they use awesome

software like Close.io for instance to check on who opened the email and then call these

people first.

So the idea is you send a cold email to a prospect with some basic information about

your company, your offering, why you think this might be interesting to them, and then

you look out for who are the prospects that actually opened the email.

You take that as a signal to pick up the phone and cold call them and start selling them

on your value proposition, trying to figure out if they are a qualified fit and eventually

hopefully closing them as a new customer.

This is generally a really smart idea because what you do is you’re prioritizing.

You say, “Hey, if I send a hundred people an email, and these 20 open it, it’s kind

of a signal showing me that these might be people that are more interested.

These might be the right people because they open it, the right email addresses.

They self-select it in one way or another.

So I should probably focus more of my attention and my attention first at the people that

looked at my email versus the ones that potentially have never seen it.”

That makes total sense but what most salespeople get totally wrong is their perception of what

has happened when the software says that somebody opened an email.

They make cold calls after they see an open email and they sound something like this.

“Hey, Mr. So and So!

I just sent you some information.

I wanted to see if you had time to look at that information, if it was interesting, and

wanted just to see if you had any questions that I could answer, see if I can help you

move this process forward.”

The other side on the line more from the not says something to the effect of, “Who are

you again?”

and “Uh, yeah, no.

I don’t remember getting an email from you.

How did you get my phone number?

How did you get my email?

Yeah, I got your email but I don’t think we’re the right fit,” or, “Don’t remember

getting an email,” or, “I got it, but I deleted it.

It’s not for me.”

They say something negative.

Shockingly these people just because they open your email, they don’t – that doesn’t

mean that they care.

It doesn’t mean that they were really interested and it doesn’t mean that they read the email.

A lot of people opened the email and then delete it, right?

They click on the subject line and then they go delete.

There are a lot of scenarios.

Just because somebody read your email doesn’t mean that a day later they will remember it,

especially when it’s a super generic email, which way too many emails are.

So the expectation that people will be prepared, aware, interested, and excited that you’re

calling is a bad one.

For some reason, salespeople try to defy that reality by ignoring it and by facing the same

resistance time and time again when they call people that opened their email.

Here’s a way to do it in a better – in a more effective fashion.

You pick up the phone after somebody opened your email.

Somebody picks up the phone and you go – very similar in script.

“Hey, Mr. So and So, I sent you an email yesterday.

I wanted to follow up with a call, see if you had a chance to look at it and if there

are any questions you have and kind of help both parties figure out if this is the right

fit.”

The other side goes, “I don’t remember any email.

I don’t care.

I have too much going on.

I have no time,” whatever they say.

Let’s say they say, “I didn’t get any email from you.”

Here’s the correct response.

“Of course.

I’m sure you’re getting tons of emails.

So that’s why I thought I would go the extra mile and actually pick up the phone and call

you and not just send you another 30 emails that you won’t be able to get to and clutter

your inbox, but rather take three minutes with you to create clarity on both ends, figure

out if this is the right fit or not.”

Let’s just – I have three questions for you.

If we answer these questions, both of us will be able to make an educated decision if it

makes sense to invest more time.

Does it sound fair enough?

See what I do here?

I embrace the fact that the other person will tell me, “I don’t know about any email.”

Of course you don’t!

You get tons of emails.

I wanted to go the extra mile.

Instead of sending you another 30 emails that you will never get to and cluttering your

inbox, I thought, “Let’s pick up the phone and create clarity for both ends really quickly

in a three-minute conversation.”

Right?

That’s what it is that explains the, “Why did I pick up the call?” and it embraces

the fact that most people are busy.

So I’m not rattled by you telling me you haven’t looked at the email.

The person could say something totally different.

My response would be the same.

Let’s say the person says, “Yeah, I saw it.

But the email sucks.”

Of course it does.

It’s the first email.

It’s a super generic email and I thought instead of sending you 30 follow-up emails

that you will ignore and cluttering your inbox, let’s just pick up the phone, go the extra

mile and create clarity for both ends in three minutes.

I think that email sucks.

I apologize for even sending it.

Let me make it right.

Let me in one sentence tell you what we do and then take three minutes to really discover

if this makes sense or not.

I will tell you why I even gave you a call in the first place.

We have serviced 10 companies in your area and created incredible results.

That has prompted us to be more aggressive, more outgoing, more proactive in reaching

out to similar companies like those to see if we can create similar results and really

create value for you.

See how I’m not fazed by them telling me that they haven’t seen the email.

But I saw in the software that you opened it or like being surprised, being outraged,

being disappointed, being hurt.

All these emotions won’t do you any good.

What you have to do is you have to embrace reality.

The reality is that even when people open the email, don’t expect them to remember,

care or give a shit and it should – your script – when you cold call them afterwards

and when you call them afterwards, your script shouldn’t rely on them expecting your call

or knowing what you’ve sent them or remembering the information in your email or even caring.

You should embrace and expect them not to and make it part of your script.

You will see your results are going to dramatically improve.

All right.

I hope this was useful.

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Go to blog.close.io and subscribe to our blog.

We post three amazing sales hacks every single week and if you want to connect with me personally,

just send me an email at [email protected].

All right.

Go out there.

Hustle hard and get ‘em.