3 Things Every Sales Team

Needs to Be Thinking About

in 2017
Sales & marketing have been using the
same playbook since the 2000s.
1. Drive traffic to your website.
2. Force people to stop & fill out forms.
3. Follow up when you feel like it.
For years, that was the playbook.
But heres the thing
Its 2017.
Times have changed.
Technology has grown up.
The plays in that old sales playbook
dont work so well anymore.
So we asked our VP of Sales, Armen,
What do you recommend that sales
teams start doing differently?

Armen Zildjian
VP of Sales @ Drift
Here are his top 3 things sales teams
should be focusing on in 2017.
 1) Adding
Messaging to Your
Sales Process
So you've got the phone, and email,
and maybe youre even using social
as an outreach tool.
But these days, more and more of
your prospects are using messaging.
Just look at the numbers
 Share of Usage Time Spent in
Top 5 Email & Messaging Apps

8.00%

Email Messaging
6.00%

4.00%

2.00%

0.00%
13-24 25-44 45+
ages

Source: Andrew Wagner. #Converted16 Conference. Figures from 2015 and U.S. only.
The takeaway here isnt that you
need to replace those other channels
with messaging.
But with billions of people now using
messaging worldwide, it should at
least be a part of your sales motion.
Pro tip for getting started:

Add live chat to your sites pricing

page & other high-intent pages.
And if your sales reps are already
using Slack, they can respond to
chats right from there.
You can also integrate live chat with
your existing CRM, marketing
automation software, etc.
The bottom line: You dont have to
change your current setup in order to
start using messaging for sales.

You can simply plug it into what

youre already doing.
2) Fixing Your BDR
Process
Most companies are running a BDR
process that is stuck in the 2000s.
Remember the 2000s?
That process looks something like this:

Grab a list of the latest leads.

Spend the next 2 weeks calling them.

Repeat.
From a buyer's perspective, the
timing is usually terrible when a
BDR reaches out. Just think about it:
After being forced to fill
out forms, buyers dont
sit around waiting for
follow-up phone calls.
Thats why on average it takes BDRs
9 touches over 2 weeks before
they're able to qualify a given lead.
These days, buyers would rather
have those sales conversations when
its convenient for them
while theyre live on your website.
So heres a simple change: Start
having your BDRs run weekly chat
shifts.
We do this at Drift and call it chat
duty. Everyone has a certain day &
time when theyre responsible for
responding to chats.
And remember: You dont need your
BDRs online around the clock in
order to drive results.
You can have them do a few hours
per week on chat, and then let bots
do the rest.
For example, at Drift we have a bot
that qualifies leads for our sales
team on our pricing page.
That way our sales team is only
talking to people after theyve been
qualified.
3) Doing Account-
Based Marketing
the Right Way
(So You Can Stop Leaking Money)
Account-based marketing (ABM) is
amazing. But theres now a growing
disconnect between

A) the investment B) the investment

companies are theyre making in
making in & engaging those
attracting leads leads
Cost-per-lead (CPL) has gone up,
but sales reps arent always closing
those pricier leads at a higher rate.
So companies are spending all of this
time & money getting the attention
of these super-valuable targets
But then when they actually have
their attention, they serve them up
the same-old experience:
Even if youre driving leads to
targeted landing pages, think about
how that translates to an in-store
experience
If your best lead walked into your
store, would you give them a pen and
a clipboard with a form to fill out
before you started talking to them?
Or would you, ya know, treat them
like a human and say hello?
Instead of making
people fill out forms,
give them the chance
to chat in real-time.
With messaging, you can make the
sales experience simpler, more
enjoyable, and more human.
Using this new approach, you can
give your quality ABM leads the
quality experiences they deserve.
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Drift is how businesses communicate with their customers.