Ryan Dohrn explains that prospects typically need five touchpoints before responding. He recommends alternating voicemail and email every three business days, keeping messages short and asking for a reply rather than a call back.
Questions this video answers
Most prospects will say no or not respond four times before the fifth attempt becomes crucial. Use a combined voicemail and email as one touchpoint, repeat this pair about every three business days, aiming for five such cycles. Keep messages short and ask for a reply rather than a call back.
Chapters
Hey friends, Ryan Dohrn here, your global sales coach, answering your listener questions sent in to ryan@ryandohrn.com. All right, next question from Wyatt in Chicago. You know, I'm a Chicago kind of guy. Look at this. This is Cubs blue right here. Wyatt from Chicago's question, uh, how much is too much when prospecting? I need a better pattern. So Wyatt, because we haven't had a chance to talk, I don't know what your pattern is, but the fact that you want a pattern, that's a really great step. In the right direction. So Wyatt, here's my thought. My pattern starts with the gentle recognition that most clients are going to say no or not respond probably 4 times before you get to that 5th attempt. Now, there's a group called Sales Donut. There's a lot of arg— not arguments, articles that are out there. And Sales Donut, one of the articles they wrote was just about that. People saying no 4 times, that 5th attempt is the important piece. So what I try to do is recognize I'm at least going to need to reach out with a voicemail and an email at least a total of 5 times. So if I'm doing voicemail, email, that's 1 touch. Voicemail, email, that's 1 in my opinion. Voicemail, email, now we're at 2. Voicemail, email, okay, now we're at 3 total touches. So I consider a voicemail, email combination to be 1 touchpoint. So technically voicemails, I'm gonna leave 5. Emails, I'm gonna send 5. For a total of 10 total touches if you're doing it by pure math. But I consider that to be one voicemail, email— that's one touch. Then what I do is I will wait every 3 business days to reach back out again. Every week, you're pretty forgettable. If you're doing every 3 business days, then what's happening is you're creating a pattern of persistence that should result in profit. Now let me grab my little whiteboard here so I can show you what I'm talking about. Okay, so you'll notice I gotta look at it here a little bit. There we go. Okay, Monday. I've got clients on Monday. I'm gonna reach out to them voicemail, email. I'm not gonna reach out Tuesday or Wednesday. The next time I'm gonna reach out is gonna be Thursday. Then I'm gonna reach out on Thursday. I'm not gonna reach out on Friday or Monday. The next reach out is gonna be Tuesday. So that every 3 business day pattern, because it's an odd pattern on 7 days, You find that you're not going to repeat yourself all that often. I'm sorry, it's going to be an odd pattern on 5 days, so 3 on 5 days. Saturday and Sunday really don't count. So for me, an every 3 business day pattern gets me some pretty good results. But just remember, short, short emails, Wyatt, simple, simple voicemails where you ask people to not necessarily call you back but reply to those emails. And then you got to work that pattern. I mean, you just really got to work it. I mean, if sales was easy, everybody would be doing it. Right? And they're not. So we found careers, friends. These will feed our families for a lifetime. But that pattern, why that's an important part of the overall puzzle. All right, friends, find out more about what I do to help you, to help your teams. Love to speak at your sales conferences. ryandohrn.com is the website, D-O-H-R-N. And we will see you next week.
