You’ve got leads. They’re multiplyin’. And you’re losing control.
Yes, new leads are definitely a good thing, but only when you know how to handle them correctly.
As the number of new inbound or outbound leads in your pipeline increases, it becomes more urgent for you to set up a structured sales cadence that you (or your sales team) can use to contact leads regularly and close deals more effectively.
Sales cadences involve multiple touchpoints over a set period of time, and at first glance, it might seem complicated to build this from scratch.
That’s why we’ve put together this list of the top sales cadence examples for you to browse through and copy ideas from. In this article, you’ll see:
Using these examples as a guide, you can set up the perfect sales cadence for your team that will convince new leads to exclaim, “You’re the one that I want!”
A typical B2B sales cadence involves a combination of email and phone calls. The goal here is to try your best to make contact with the prospect and set up a specific time to talk and push the deal into the next stage.
Here’s an example of a sales cadence you can use:
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Early on, vary the time of day you send emails or make your phone calls. This gives you a better chance of connecting early on, since timing your emails and calls right is very subjective.
If you’ve had some contact with the person (and you didn’t get a definite “no”), you should keep following up with that lead until you get a clear response.
Outbound sales cadences can be a bit trickier. Since this person doesn’t know you, how much can you follow up with them in a way that makes them want to engage with you?
With completely cold outreach, it’s best to stick to around six touchpoints. If you haven’t gotten any response, it’s time for the breakup email and then a follow-up once every quarter.
If you send well-targeted cold emails, one of the biggest problems is actually getting the timing right: The person might be a good fit for your solution, but they might not yet have the need. That's why it's good to play the long-game.
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If you want to warm these leads up before sending out cold emails, you might try connecting with them on LinkedIn. But don’t use that connection to pitch over LinkedIn messaging—that’s a surefire way to get ignored. By incorporating smart strategies like these, along with utilizing outbound sales tools, you can significantly enhance your lead-warming efforts.
Instead, use that connection to build name recognition in your prospect. So, when your email lands in their inbox, they’ll know who you are before they even open it.
With inbound leads, you have permission to be much more persistent.
Here’s a sales cadence example for an inbound lead that fits your ideal customer profile:
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The more qualified the lead that’s coming in, the more effort you should put into making the connection and moving that lead to the next stage of your sales pipeline.
If an inbound lead doesn’t fit your ideal customer profile, you can probably cut some of the bigger efforts out of this sales cadence and stick to touchpoints you can automate, such as email and SMS.
Pro Tip: You can automate sales workflows in Close with hardly any effort. Create a clear schedule of pre-made email templates combined with calling steps, and start adding new leads into the workflow. The rest is taken care of for you.
For SaaS companies, a new trial signup has already taken the first step toward becoming a customer.
That’s why this SaaS sales cadence is very special—now that the lead is using your platform, you need to convince them they need it in the long term.
A SaaS trial cadence will be mainly email-based. The length will obviously depend on how long your free trial is, but here’s a sales cadence example for a SaaS platform with a 14-day free trial:
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SaaS trial emails have the advantage of using data to personalize the sequence. Early on, your emails will be based on what people have accomplished in your app.
For example, when someone signs up for a free trial of Close, they won’t receive a welcome email for 30 minutes. This gives the lead a chance to accomplish something inside the app. Then, based on their actions, they’ll receive one of four pre-made welcome emails.
Your early trial emails aim to activate these new users, encouraging them to perform important activities inside your app.
As the trial approaches its completion, your emails will remind them of the trial expiration date and encourage them to choose a paid plan.
Once the trial expires, you can continue to follow up via email and phone calls until you get a definite answer.
Some leads request to speak to your sales team or have a product demo but never schedule the meeting.
Especially if your team is dealing with a high volume of these inbound leads, you’ll want to ensure you qualify them correctly. This can be as simple as adding one qualifying question to your signup form.
When you’ve identified those ideal customers from the leads that requested but never booked a demo, make sure you push early on to get them to book:
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Once again, since these are inbound leads, you can keep following up with them until you get a response.
Selling services to clients is its own ballgame, and the sales cadence you follow will depend on the type of services you sell.
For example, if you’re selling insurance or financial services, you’ll probably want to adjust your cadence to match policy renewal dates or tax deadlines.
That said, here’s a basic sales cadence for service-based businesses reaching out to new leads:
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Enterprise sales can be intimidating, and the sales cadence you follow will change drastically depending on who in the company you’re attempting to reach.
Remember that to sell to enterprise companies successfully, you’ll need to get buy-in from multiple stakeholders. That requires actively selling up and down the hierarchy of the company.
In enterprise sales, account mapping can help you identify important stakeholders as well as the end-users who can work as your product champions.
When you’ve done this, you can set up a sales cadence with multiple touchpoints for different members of the team. Here’s an example of how this works, starting from the top down:
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Looking for more expert tips to nail enterprise sales? Download our free eBook.
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If you’re hungry for more ideas, check out these five bonus sales cadence examples:
Can you imagine handling all those new leads successfully without letting anyone slip through the cracks?
A well-structured cadence is key to building a better process for closing deals. But if you want to scale your results quickly, you must use sales cadence automation tools.
With Close CRM, you can easily set up email & calling Workflows and even add new leads into those Workflows automatically using Zapier. The email templates you create inside a Workflow are sent out automatically, and the assigned rep will see a notification bubble when it’s time to hit the phones.
Ready to try the tool to help you scale your outreach without scaling your effort? Try Close for 14 days without cost (we won't even ask for your credit card number).
