How to Earn the Attention of Today’s
Empowered Buyer
Instructor: Michael Pici
Inbound Sales Certification
Brought to you by HubSpot Academy

1
WHAT IS THE CONNECT
STAGE AND WHY IS
IT IMPORTANT?

Why is connecting in an
inbound way
actually important?

INBOUND
vs.
Focus their prospecting efforts on
cold, un-customized emails,
and voicemails
Effort is spent qualifying buyers
on the size of their budget and
their authority to spend it
LEGACY
CONNECT
Start conversations around
the buyer’s plans, goals
and challenges
Lead with a message
personalized to the
buyer’s context

42%of surveyed salespeople said that prospecting is the
most difficult part of the sales process.
SOURCE: STATE OF INBOUND, 2015

INBOUND
vs.
Focus their prospecting efforts on
cold, un-customized emails, and
voicemails
Effort is spent qualifying buyers
on the size of their budget and
their authority to spend it
LEGACY
CONNECT
Start conversations around
the buyer’s plans, goals
and challenges
Lead with a message
personalized to the
buyer’s context

Inbound Sales Methodology
IDENTIFY CONNECT EXPLORE ADVISE
>>>
AWARENESS > CONSIDERATION > DECISION
HubSp))t

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2
HOW DO INBOUND
SALESPEOPLE
EXECUTE THE
CONNECT STAGE?

1. Define your personas
2. Define the sequences for each persona
3. Define the outreach content for each sequence
STEPS TO SET UP A CONNECT
STRATEGY

1. Define your personas
2. Define the sequences for each persona
3. Define the outreach content for each sequence
STEPS TO SET UP A CONNECT
STRATEGY

Defining your personas is essential to personalizing the sales
process for today’s empowered buyer.
BUYER PERSONAS

Company: Recruiting firm
Focus: Hiring salespeople
Target: Small and medium-sized companies in both the technology and
healthcare industries in the U.S.
Questions to ask:
1. What are the different segments of companies you target?
Industry: Technology and healthcare
2. Who in the company is involved in buying your services?
Influencers: VP of Sales, Director of Recruiting, and CEO
EXAMPLE OF SEGMENTING A TARGET
MARKET

1. Persona A: VP of Sales at a technology company
2. Persona B: Director of Recruiting at a technology company
3. Persona C: CEO at a technology company
4. Persona D: VP of Sales at a healthcare company
5. Persona E: Director of Recruiting at a healthcare company
6. Persona F: CEO at a healthcare company
EXAMPLE PERSONAS

Start with one segmentation at the
company level (like industry) and one at
the individual level (like role).

Once the persona
structure is in place,
add details about
each persona.
Focus on the perspectives of each
persona at the awareness stage
of the buyer’s journey.

1. How do these personas describe the goals or challenges they
encounter that align with your company’s offering?
2. How do these personas educate themselves on their goal
or challenge?
3. What are the implications of inaction by each persona?
4. Are there common misconceptions these personas have about
addressing their goal or challenge?
AWARENESS STAGE PERSONA
QUESTIONS

Company: Recruiting firm
Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company
Questions to ask:
1. How do these personas describe the goals or challenges they
encounter that align with your company’s offering?
The most common challenges Persona A is experiencing that we can
help with are increasing the quality of newly hired salespeople,
increasing the pace at which the sales team is growing, and re-
focusing sales managers’ time from sourcing candidates toward
coaching their team.
EXAMPLE OF ADDING DETAIL TO PERSONAS

Company: Recruiting firm
Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company
Questions to ask:
2. How do these personas educate themselves on their goal
or challenge?
Persona A looks to their industry peers, other senior leaders at their
organization, and their board for advice on solving their recruiting
challenges. They also look at recommendations in online forums in
places like LinkedIn and Quora.
EXAMPLE OF ADDING DETAIL TO PERSONAS

Company: Recruiting firm
Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company
Questions to ask:
3. What are the implications of inaction by each persona?
If Persona A does not address their recruiting challenges, they risk
missing their quota, de-stabilizing their company’s financial situation,
and termination.
EXAMPLE OF ADDING DETAIL TO PERSONAS

Company: Recruiting firm
Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company
Questions to ask:
4. Are there common misconceptions these personas have about
addressing their goal or challenge?
Persona A believes using an outside recruiting firm is more expensive
than their current approach to sourcing candidates. They also believe
the quality of candidates will be lower than if they sourced the
candidates internally because outside firms don’t completely
understand their business.
EXAMPLE OF ADDING DETAIL TO PERSONAS

1. Define your personas
2. Define the sequences for each persona
3. Define the outreach content for each sequence
STEPS TO SET UP A CONNECT
STRATEGY

1. Which mediums will you use to reach out to each persona?
2. When will you reach out?
3. If you don’t connect on the first outreach, when will you try
again? How many times will you reach out before you give
up?
ASK YOURSELF

We refer to these outreach strategies as your sequences.

Company: Recruiting firm
Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company
Outreach frequency: 5 times over the course of 2 weeks
EXAMPLE OF A SEQUENCE

Company: Recruiting firm
Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company
Outreach frequency: 5 times over the course of 2 weeks
EXAMPLE OF A SEQUENCE

Company: Recruiting firm
Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company
Outreach frequency: 5 times over the course of 2 weeks
EXAMPLE OF A SEQUENCE

Company: Recruiting firm
Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company
Outreach frequency: 5 times over the course of 2 weeks
EXAMPLE OF A SEQUENCE

Company: Recruiting firm
Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company
Outreach frequency: 5 times over the course of 2 weeks
EXAMPLE OF A SEQUENCE

1. Define your personas
2. Define the sequences for each persona
3. Define the outreach content for each sequence
STEPS TO SET UP A CONNECT
STRATEGY

• The type of organization the buyer is from
• Who the buyer is within that organization
• The stage the buyer is at in their buying journey
PERSONALIZE THE ENTIRE SALES
EXPERIENCE
TO THE BUYER’S CONTEXT. THIS INCLUDES:

Take an inventory of your existing content
Reference the buyer at least 2x as much as you mention yourself
End all emails with a question
BEST PRACTICES FOR DEFINING
SEQUENCE CONTENT
Keep your outreaches short
Sound human and helpful
Personalize the subject line to the persona’s perspective
Adapt the content to your style and personalize it to the buyer’s context

How can you provide
useful content to the buyer
if your company does not have
much content?

Useful content
does not need to be
from your company.
Helping buyers find high quality
content to accelerate their
education process is very
valuable to them.

A free consultation
is a great way to
personalize an offer
directly to the buyer’s
area of interest.
You do not need a stream of content
to make a personalized offer.

• Inbound leads
• Inbound companies
• Trigger events
• Common connections
DEVELOPING OUTREACH CONTENT
FOR THESE LEAD SOURCES

OUTREACH CONTENT FOR
INBOUND LEADS

Accounting for the
buyers’ interests in the
connect outreach is the
most important and most
effective form of
personalization.
In order to add buyer interests to the
connect outreach, start by defining the
categories of interests buyers may have that
your company can actually help with.

Company: Recruiting firm
Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company
Categories of interest:
• Increase quality of new hires
• Increase the pace of hiring
• Decrease cost per hire
• Reallocate time spent by hiring managers on sourcing to
higher value activities
EXAMPLE OF CATEGORIES OF INTEREST

Text on the left,
image on the right.
Keep this to one sentence, and make
sure you say the sentence exactly, in
your script.
Interest-specific
content is so effective,
use it to make sure your
outreach sequence is that
much stronger.

OUTREACH CONTENT FOR
INBOUND COMPANIES

“Hi [Buyer Name],
Various people within your organization have been
reviewing our content on X topic. Based on this
area of interest, I thought you and the members of
your team may also enjoy [Blog Article A] and
[Blog Article B].
EMAIL OR CALL

OUTREACH CONTENT FOR
TRIGGER EVENT LEADS

OUTREACH CONTENT FOR
COMMON CONNECTIONS

• One of your customers may refer a potential buyer
• One of your fellow employees knows the potential buyer
• An acquaintance outside of your organization knows the
potential buyer
DIFFERENT COMMON
CONNECTIONS

ACCOUNTING FOR
NON-TRADITIONAL
MEDIUMS
TO CONNECT

The prospect’s
company has a blog.
• You can subscribe to the blog,
post new articles on your social
media account, and comment on
blog articles.
• You can mention articles written
on the blog as part of your
outreach to the potential buyer.

The prospect is active
in social media.
• You can send an invitation to
connect in LinkedIn, follow the
buyer on Twitter, re-tweet posts by
the buyer, etc.
• If the buyer follows you back, you
can choose to message the buyer
as part of an outreach sequence.

The prospect
conducted a
webinar.
You can attend the webinar and
send a follow-up email to the
buyer regarding the lessons
you learned on the webinar.

The prospect hosts
or speaks at an
event.
You can attend the event and
introduce yourself after the
speech with a contextual comment
around points you found interesting.

What do you do
when you
actually make
a connection?

A CONNECT CALL WITH AN
INBOUND LEAD

“Hello?”
PROSPECT
“Oh. How can I help you?”
“Oh, yes, I remember.”
“Well we are having trouble winning the
top sales talent in the area because we do
not sell expensive products and can’t
afford to pay at the top of the scale.”
“Hi Mary. This is Dan from
Tyre Recruiting.”
INBOUND SALESPERSON
“You downloaded one of our eBooks
earlier today on tips to recruit
engineering talent.”
“What were you looking for help with?”
“Ahh, yes. We just went through this
issue with a client of ours in the northeast.
They were a software company with
financial software for small businesses.
What have you tried so far?”

A CONNECT CALL WITH AN
INBOUND COMPANY

“Hello?”
PROSPECT
“Okay?”
“Really? From who?”
“Maybe Bob in Recruiting.”
“Hi Mary. This is Dan from
Tyre Recruiting.”
INBOUND SALESPERSON
“We have received a few inquiries from
people at your company for information on
increasing hiring quality.”
“That’s what I was hoping you could help
me with. They did not leave their name?
Is there someone in your organization that
might be focused on the issue?”
“Do you know why he may be looking for
information on sales hiring quality?”
“We’ve had some issues there.”
“Issues?”

A CONNECT CALL WITH A
TRIGGER EVENT

“Hello?”
PROSPECT
“Okay?”
“Yes, you need to submit your resume to
Bob in Recruiting. The email is on the
job ad.”
“Hi Mary. This is Dan from
Tyre Recruiting.”
INBOUND SALESPERSON
“I just read your new job posting on the
Account Executive position.”
“Actually I was not calling about applying
to the job. I was calling because we
published a popular ebook amongst your
peers on writing job ads that attract
sales rock stars. Based on those best
practices, I had a few suggestions
on the ad.”
“Oh. Okay! What do you think?”

A CONNECT CALL WITH A
COMMON CONNECTION

“Hello?”
PROSPECT
“What can I do for you?”
“He did. Why?”
“Hi Mary. This is Dan from
Tyre Recruiting.”
INBOUND SALESPERSON
“Kevin Harris over at XYZ Partners
suggested I reach out to you.”
“I was speaking to him about some of the
success we have seen companies
achieve with recruiting salespeople. He
mentioned you were struggling in the
area the last time you spoke and
suggested I reach out.”
“Ah right, I remember that conversation.”
“How is recruiting
salespeople progressing?”
“We’re still struggling.”
“On what aspect specifically?”

A CONNECT CALL WITH A
PASSIVE LEAD

“Hello?”
PROSPECT
“Okay?”
“I guess. Sure.”
“Hi Mary. This is Dan from
Tyre Recruiting.”
INBOUND SALESPERSON
“I know I am contacting you out of the
blue. May I please take 15 seconds of
your time to explain why I am calling and
you can determine if it is
worth continuing?”
“Probably more on quality.”
“Typically when I work with sales
executives, I find they have a difficult time
finding enough salespeople or keeping
the quality high. Is this the
case with you?”
“Ah. I just went through that issue with a
client in your industry last quarter. How
are you defining quality in this case?”

GETTING BUY-IN FOR A
LONGER
EXPLORATORY
CONVERSATION

“We’re struggling to attract enough quality
sales candidates to meet our growth
goals.”
PROSPECT
“Not sure I want to share our secrets, but
some of the things we’ve done is asking
for referrals from our current employees,
sending messages through Linkedin and
offering a bonus to our current employees
when they refer someone that we hire.
INBOUND SALESPERSON
“I’ve heard that a few times. What have
you tried so far?”
“But, that’s not getting you the quality and
quantity you need?”

PROSPECT
“It helped us increase the quantity, but
not enough. Plus, the quality wasn’t really
as high compared to when I do it myself.
I’m not sure what to do next. I really don’t
want to lower my quality bar, but I am
afraid that might be necessary given the
lack of talent out there.”
INBOUND SALESPERSON
“Sounds like you’re running out of ideas
and time to fix this. Is it a high priority at
this point?”
“Based on what you’re doing, I believe we
may be able to help you. Would it be
good use of your time to talk through
some additional ways you could catch up
and then hit that target without
sacrificing quality?”
“Yes. Very high. I need to make 10 hires
this quarter and I am way behind where I
should be.”

PROSPECT
“Yes. If you can do that, it would definitely
be worth my time.”
INBOUND SALESPERSON
“Okay. I have some availability tomorrow.
What time works for you?”
“11 won’t work for me. But, I can do 4PM
EST. Should I call you on this number?”
“How about 11 in the morning?”
“That’d be great.
Look forward to talking to you.”

• An email template tool to develop persona templates
• A CRM that:
- Illustrates buyer activity to the salesperson as the
salesperson prepares for the outreach
- Automatically logs salesperson outreach, especially
voicemails and emails
• An email tool that allows salespeople to setup a sequence and
automate some of its execution
TECHNOLOGY FOR CONNECTING

• Mail merge
• Auto-dialers
TECHNOLOGY TO AVOID

1. Determine which persona the buyer falls into
2. Identify any interest, common connection, or non-traditional
mediums for the buyer
3. Using the results of steps 1 and 2 above, assemble the sequence
plan for the buyer using the recommended template for the
respective persona
4. Using the results of steps 1 and 2 above, assemble the content for
each sequence attempt using the recommended content templates
5. Start executing the sequence
CONNECT STAGE STEPS

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