How to Build a Sales Cadence to Rule Them All

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There’s an art and a science to building a sales cadence, and only a blending of both will allow you to get through to the best prospects. When executed correctly, a sales cadence can nearly double your contact rates. It is the path that sales professionals follow to success. XANT has created the ultimate guide to building a winning sales cadence– and we’re giving it away for free.

How to Start Your Sales Cadence Strategy

Wondering if you should call your prospects four or five times? Should you use email, voicemail or text, and what’s the best sequence of sales activities? How long should an email be, and what times are the best for calling prospects?

We’ve done our research and we have the answer to all your questions on sales cadence.

Building an ideal sales cadence will depend on a myriad of factors– like your product and services, your customer’s preference and the type of sales environment you’re in (transactional vs. relational).

The following are the five foundational elements of a cadence.

Attempts: The total number of touch points made

Sales reps self-report that they do around 15 touches for each lead. When we examined what reps actually did we found that, analyzing XANT’s big data, the typical inbound cadence has 4.05 attempts and the typical outbound cadence has 3 attempts. There is clearly a disconnect between what people say they do, versus what they actually do.

XANT new research shows exactly how many touches your cadence should have– based on the type of sales model you are using.

Media: The type of communication methods used

For inbound reps, the most popular communication media when reaching out to leads was a single email followed by a call with a voicemail. For outbound reps, the most common cadences was a single dial (26.5%). That doesn’t mean that is the optimal cadence.

Data shows that more communication media leads to higher response rates. How many channels should you use to reach leads? Watch our webinar to find out.

Duration: The time between the first and last attempt

1000+ companies reported the average duration for their sales cadence was 29.3 days. However, when we analyzed the XANT data set for inbound leads we found the actual duration was at 4.89 days. Only outbound cadences had a duration close to the perceived average (20.8 days).

Data shows the inbound and outbound cadences shouldn’t be so different. You can find the optimal duration in our guide to sales cadence.

Spacing: The time gap between contact attempts

Sales reps reported the average spacing for cadence activities was 1.9 days. Most sales reps believe cadence spacing should fall between one and four days but some feel it should extend to a week.

However, when looking at what professionals actually do, XANT found that for inbound leads, the typical spacing was 4.23 days.

Content: The messaging used

Content can be a vital factor to a cadence. Send one really good email and the rest of the cadence may not be necessary.

All the studies point to shorter messages being better than long ones, and our research showed the same. The typical prospecting email is 362 words and nearly half of voicemails were over 30 seconds. Our research also shows the best performing emails and voicemails had a set length and duration, so tune in to the webinar to find out what this is!