In this account-based selling world we live in, there’s this massive demand for personalization because prospective buyers want to know that you understand their individual needs; not just their company’s needs. I’m not telling you anything new or earth shattering with that statement. However, the bar for personalization gets higher by the day as prospects’ inboxes get filled with poorly-personalized outbound communications from tools like SalesLoft or Outreach.

Tools like that are phenomenal (we use SalesLoft internally), but you now have to stand out amongst the other 5-7 emails the recipient received that morning, from other companies vying for their attention. To achieve this, reps need to take an account-based approach and, to take things a step further, they need to personalize their communications by role. It’s unlikely you’d send the same message to the CEO that you would send to a low-level practitioner.

Having said that, identifying roles isn’t as easy as it used to be, given the variety in titles out there in the marketplace. Here at Forecastable, our audience is comprised of dozens of different titles but when you look at this from a role perspective, we only sell to five roles (random sample of titles included for each):

Sales Leader

1. 1. Area Vice President
   2. Chief Sales Officer
   3. Director, Enterprise Accounts
   4. Director of Global Business Development
   5. Director of Strategic Sales
   6. Head of Strategic Accounts and Channels
   7. Regional Sales Senior Director
   8. Sr. Vice President, National Sales
   9. VP, Strategic Accounts – Southeast
   10. SVP, Americas
       
       

Individual Sales Rep

1. 1. Account Executive
   2. Account Manager
   3. Area Account Executive
   4. Area Director
   5. Channel Sales Director
   6. District Sales Manager
   7. National Sales DIrector
   8. Regional Business Manager
   9. Director, Key Account Sales
   10. Senior Sales Executive
       
       

Sales Development Rep (SDR)/Business Development Rep (BDR)

1. 1. Sales Development Rep
   2. Business Development Rep
   3. Inbound Sales Rep
   4. Lead Development Rep
   5. Account Development Rep
      
      

Sales Enablement

1. 1. Assistant Director of Sales Training
   2. Business Enablement Lead
   3. Director, Global Sales Enablement
   4. Enablement Manager
   5. Enterprise Trainer
   6. Inside Sales Trainer/Enablement
   7. Sales Enablement Manager
   8. Sales Enablement Technology Manager
   9. Sales Enablement – Coach & Trainer
   10. Sales Enablement Content Specialist
       
       

Sales Operations

1. 1. Sales Operations Manager
   2. Associate, Sales Operations
   3. Director, Global Financial Services Sales Operations
   4. Director, Sales Analytics
   5. Enterprise Sales Operations Leader
   6. Global VP, Revenue Operations
   7. Sales Operations & Planning
   8. Sales Operations Analyst
   9. Sales Operations Enablement Manager
   10. Sales Operations Manager & Deal Desk, EMEA

 

As you can see, there are many titles for each role we sell to. This is why it’s so confusing to me as to how people can automate this process in their outreach. Time and time again, I see companies relying on third party classifications of roles, which results in improperly-personalized communications (#fail).

Let’s say I were to do that for Forecastable and I was using some kind of enrichment tool, like ZoomInfo, to begin to pull my list or begin my research. If I were to try to pull a list of individual sales reps, how would I go about doing that? If you look at the titles above, some titles contain the words, “Executive”, “Director”, or “Manager”, all of whom may or may not show up in my results because it’s assumed they’re management. The same thing happens in reverse. What if I were looking for sales leaders and my results included individual sales reps because it assumed that “Director” meant the person was a leader? Either way, this is not good.

The only way to properly categorize each role is to do so manually and it should be done by the SDR or AE in the field, who’s responsible for that individual account. This starts by clearly defining the roles you sell to, then going to LinkedIn and doing research on each individual account in your list to get a feel for how you should classify each title, by role, specific to that company. You then log each stakeholder, properly categorize their roles, “enrich” (not source) the data with a tool like ZoomInfo, pass the contact to SalesLoft or Outreach, and you’re off to the races with personalized outbound cadences.

Even though we all know this is the right path to take, it’s a path that most sales reps ignore because it’s too time consuming. Spraying and praying is “good enough” for most. But, “good enough” won’t lead to a knock-it-out-of-the-park type of year.

”WHAT IF I TOLD YOU WE MADE IT SO EASY TO GATHER STAKEHOLDERS AND ASSIGN ROLES THAT YOU COULD START OUT EVERY SINGLE YEAR WITH ZERO CONTACTS IN CRM AND INSIDE OF YOUR FIRST TWO WEEKS YOU COULD HAVE ALL 100+ OF YOUR NAMED ACCOUNTS RESEARCHED, WITH 30-50 RELEVANT STAKEHOLDERS LOADED INTO CRM PER ACCOUNT, WITH THE APPROPRIATE ROLE ASSIGNED, ENRICHED BY ZOOMINFO, AND ALL OF THEM IN PERSONALIZED CADENCES?

What if I told you we made it so easy to gather stakeholders and assign roles that you could start out every single year with ZERO contacts in CRM and inside of your first two weeks you could have all 100+ of your named accounts researched, with 30-50 relevant stakeholders loaded into CRM per account, with the appropriate role assigned, enriched by ZoomInfo, and all of them in personalized cadences?”]

Did I mention that this was only week two? Yes, I did. And it’s true. What are you going to do with the rest of your year? You’re going to spend more time in the field, building relationships and running sales cycles, which is where you want to be. (FYI – we’ve got this process down to a science and can help educate your team on how to execute on these best practices without adding any additional work hours to your day)

In this account-based selling world we live in, our prospects’ standards for personalization just keep getting higher and higher. We need to keep up if we want to separate ourselves from the rest and that’s what Forecastable will help you do.