From Cold To Closed – Reliably Converting Cold Prospects Into Closed Deals

From Cold To Closed – Reliably Converting Cold Prospects Into Closed Deals

Gary interviews Scott Moss of M Sales Growth on reliably converting cold prospects into closed deals. Moss emphasizes starting with a tightly defined ideal client profile to build targeted lead lists, then using persistent, multi-channel outreach (LinkedIn, email, phone) with short, non-salesy messages that educate and build credibility over multiple touches. He explains warming prospects without overwhelming them by staggering outreach, focusing on the buyer, and avoiding early asks; he recommends a “sniper approach” to virtual coffee meetings, prioritizing rapport and curiosity over pitching. They discuss CRM setup around lifecycle stages (MQL/SQL), disciplined activity logging, task-based follow-up cadences, and using tools like Otter for transcription and summaries. Moss outlines a proposal/closing framework tied to business impact, options-based next steps, and structured follow-up for “think it over,” ghosting, and intent signals.

Discover:  

00:00 Welcome and Setup
02:05 Meet Scott Moss
04:31 Targeting the Right Prospects
07:56 Multi Touch Outreach Process
11:58 Warming Prospects Without Spam
15:48 Virtual Coffee That Converts
20:22 CRM Stages and Follow Up
24:52 AI Note Taking and Recording
27:18 Sniper Outreach and Research
29:46 Recording Consent and Laws
31:41 LinkedIn Lead Targeting
32:09 Sales Navigator Filters
33:42 Refining Prospect Lists
35:21 Closing With Discovery
37:48 Four Proposal Outcomes
40:47 Follow Up Cadence
44:58 Nurturing Before Need
50:13 Avoiding Salesy Outreach
51:44 Reviving Ghosted Deals
54:18 Newsletters That Work
57:03 Reading Buyer Intent
58:29 Wrap Up And Contact

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Gary Ruplinger: All right. Welcome everybody. I am Gary Ruplinger. This is Scott Moss, and this is the from cold to closed, reliably converting cold prospects into closed deals session. Hey, Scott, good to have you. How you doing today, 

[00:00:18] Scott Moss: Gary? Hey, how are you? It’s good to be here, especially on this week. Thanksgiving coming up.

[00:00:25] Gary Ruplinger: I know. It’s, it’s actually, we have got the, the sun came back today, up here in Detroit finally. I feel like it’s been two weeks since it’s, since it’s shown up. Yeah. You’re in, you’re in, you’re in Cleveland, right? 

[00:00:39] Scott Moss: Yeah, it’s, it’s same thing in Cleveland. sun just came out and that’s really funny.

past week though. Yeah. Been like that typical November weather. but what’s great is that prior to them, it’d been beautiful. We’ve had this like wonderful fall where temperatures have even like. Hit in the seventies a couple of times. So it’s been nice. 

[00:01:02] Gary Ruplinger: Yeah, it’s, it’s been pretty, pretty mild here in the Midwest, I’ll say.

It’s, been, been, been hard to complain. 

[00:01:08] Scott Moss: Yeah. Seriously. Not a lot to complain about. 

[00:01:12] Gary Ruplinger: Cool. We’ll give everybody here just a minute or so to get coming on here. I’ll just make sure that the live stream is working and then, then we’ll get started. Once, you know, people are on and working, if, if you are out there and you can hear us okay, can you just, shout us out in the chat and, you know, let us know where you’re calling in from.

just, just so I know that everything is actually working today. I know the one day I don’t check will be the day when, you know something didn’t connect in 

[00:01:42] Scott Moss: always. It’s always how it works.

[00:01:51] Gary Ruplinger: Alright. It does look like, there we go. We do have some. Okay. Looks like things are, in fact mostly working here. 

[00:02:01] Scott Moss: Okay, cool. 

[00:02:01] Gary Ruplinger: Alright, so I guess with that, then we will get started. So, like I said, welcome everybody. This is the, cold to closed, reliably converting cold prospects into closed deals. today with me as a Scott Moss from M Sales Growth, for anybody who’s not familiar with, you Scott and your company, can you kind of give us a little bit of background about, you and, and what you do?

[00:02:25] Scott Moss: Yeah, Gary. Thanks. So, wow. My, my background has been in sales leadership and sales operations for the majority of my, you know, 25 to 30 year career. I started my business and sales right when COVID hit, and the, the concept was to help small and medium sized businesses. Put together a cohesive sales operations process strategy playbook, CRM configurations so that they have the same advantages that more enterprise size organizations have when it comes to scaling their business.

so I do that for companies in a number of different, industry niches ranging from, technology to marketing professional services and all the stuff in between. But, that’s, that’s pretty much, that’s pretty much what I do help CEOs do that.

[00:03:26] Gary Ruplinger: Nice. So I’ve got, I’ve got a bunch of questions for you here. and I just wanna mention that for anybody who’s kind of watching the live stream right now, if you’ve got questions, you know, at some point in your process and you got like a little spot that’s just not quite working well and you’ve got questions too, post ’em in the chat and, I’ll run ’em by Scott and we’ll kind of go over ’em.

Or if, if I have something to chime in, I’ll do, I’ll do the same here on my end. But, please feel free. I wanna make this, this session here pretty interactive today. So if you do have questions, please do post them in the chat. there’s about a, like a 20 to 32nd time delay from when I say something to when I see it.

so, but other than that, it looks like everything is working pretty smoothly, but, just wanted to kind of get that out of the way here. Just, just encourage, you know, people to, to chime in, especially if you have questions, because I know sometimes we’ll be talking and we’ll be like, we think this is great.

And then people listening say. Gosh, I don’t know how that would apply. I really wish they’d, you know, answer, you know, how, how do I do, you know, a, a, a virtual cup of coffee or something like that type of meeting, so. Mm-hmm. but I guess maybe, probably best kind of place to start is, you know, really with kind of, of targeting, is, is how do you go about approach, figuring out who are the right types of prospects to even, you know, eng engage and try to engage with for your company, 

[00:04:50] Scott Moss: try to engage cold.

So first of all, cold is hard reg regardless, right? So that makes it super important that you have a really targeted list and a targeted list, as I’m sure most folks know, is gonna be derived from the definition of your ICP, your ideal client profile. So once you figure that out, once you figure out where your clients are geographically, your, your targeted clients, what industry they’re in.

and, and, you know, what their sizes are. You know, you don’t, you wanna look for companies that really match the clients that you do the best work for, that you love working with, that are most profitable for you. So, you know, maybe you put some parameters in place, like 5 million to 10 million and annual revenue.

they’re, 30% white collar, 70% blue collar, and maybe they’re in, aeronautical manufacturing in the state, or the Pacific Northwest. So now you’ve got your parameters. Just plug that into any lead, database and, and start there because at least the cold call becomes maybe a little bit less cold because you can talk knowledgeably.

About the typical challenges that they might face because you already have clients that you’ve worked with, work with that have faced those challenges. So that’s one way to at least make that cold call a little bit less icy or that cold outreach because in that cold outreach you want to include something that you know, some sort of knowledge that you can share, some sort of subject matter expertise that will cut through the noise instead of just saying, Hey, we’re another aeronautical manufacturing company in the Pacific Northwest, and our products come out the best with the, the highest quality, and you need to talk to us.

Well, that’s what everyone’s saying, so say something different. 

[00:06:49] Gary Ruplinger: I’ll just, I’ll just chime in there that I, it’s, it’s, it’s okay that it’s, it’s hard and don’t be afraid if you get it kind of wrong at first. I, have a colleague who is formerly active into it. So, you know, the company that owns QuickBooks and TurboTax and mail and bunch of other stuff, that’s all kind of business to business focused.

And even with all of their resources and everything, they’re, they still struggle to get good lead lists and the right people and good relevant names in there. So it’s, it’s definitely hard. And, it’s kind of, you know, I, even, even internally, it’s something we’re always kind of working on trying to refine and get more, more people in there.

But the more you know, and the more information you can, you know, give to, to somebody who’s pulling those lists or to the databases you’re trying to directly query. The better off you’re, you’re gonna be. But it’s, it’s okay if it’s not relevant at first, or even your first few tries. ’cause even, even big companies struggle with it.

But, you know, the, the more and closer you can get to the right people to begin with, the better everything else is gonna kind of run from there. 

[00:07:54] Scott Moss: Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:56] Gary Ruplinger: So, you know, kind of, once you’ve done that kind of, you know, you’re, you’re starting with, you know, outreach process. How do you kind of go about actually turning, you know, prospects into meetings on a calendar?

[00:08:08] Scott Moss: Yeah. So that’s, that’s, that’s the big, that’s the a hundred million dollars question. And, and I see my friend, Rob Felber from Felber, from Felber Marketing is here. And, and he can probably attest to this, you know, once you have that. ICP defined, and you have your list built and you have all the right titles of the people.

It’s, you know, what are you going to do to convert them? And it’s, it’s a process. And that’s where a lot of companies don’t have a good grasp on things, especially smaller ones. I found that companies that are founder led when it comes to sales struggle with this the most, and, and defining the process of, well, I’ve reached out to this person.

Now what? most, most companies will send an email or make a phone call and leave a message and think that, well, I left a great message, I sent a great email. They’re gonna call me back, or they’re going to email me back and they’re gonna click on my meeting link. Well, this, it doesn’t work that way. So it’s, it’s about persistence and, and it really is about building a sales process.

So what happens after the initial outreach? When are you going to try to touch that individual again and with what kind of information? So content, super important. The context of that content also super important. And, and not selling, which is hard for a salesperson, but not selling during that process, will actually differentiate you.

And, and it’s a matter of just educating, and it’s a matter of warming up that lead so that sure it’s cold at the beginning, but maybe one email later they’ve clicked on the interesting article that you’ve sent them or they’ve clicked on the infographic or they’ve visited your website. You know, you’re slowly warming them up, but you can’t just expect after one outreach for everybody to come knocking on your door.

It takes multiple touches through multiple channels, so you can’t just rely on cold calling. Or the telephone. You can’t just rely on email. You can’t just rely on texting or on LinkedIn or on any other, sales channel. It, it has to be across that spectrum, and it has to be consistent, and it has to be really thoughtful.

so that is what will drive conversions, but there also has to be a point where you ask them to take action, right? And, and Gary, you and I have talked about this, the virtual cup of coffee. I, I’ve had to explain what that means to some people. Like, like, well, what’s a virtual cup of coffee? And I said, well, it’s, it’s when you don’t actually meet somebody for a coffee, but you schedule a Zoom or a teams and you share your, your coffee.

There you go, Gary, virtual Diet Coke. and, and it just makes it maybe more, less formal. And brings the idea of, more personal relationship to the table. So asking for that virtual coffee, asking to learn more about their business, asking them to share some of the challenges that they’ve had, as long as you’ve already given them a reason to share those challenges.

And that reason comes from establishing your credibility as, as a subject matter expert. And again, that takes time, multiple touches, multiple channels. I’m not sure if I answered your question. I know I just kept talking and talking, but I, I hope maybe there was a nugget in there that that resonates with the audience.

[00:11:51] Gary Ruplinger: That’s good. I want to come back to that virtual cup of coffee thing ’cause I know I’ve seen a lot of people actually struggle with, with converting that. But before we get to that part here, I know we had a question. This one came in actually before we started from Nathan. This is kind of a good place for it, is how do you warm up a prospect?

Without, as he called it, overcooking them or going kind of over the top with too much overloading the person. I mean, I’ve seen it to the point where it, it’s so much that the person says, you know what, forget it. Nevermind. I didn’t really. Right. You’re clearly in a different place. you know, I, I don’t need that much.

I don’t need you flood my inbox all day, all, all day long with, with information. 

[00:12:32] Scott Moss: yeah, 

[00:12:33] Gary Ruplinger: cancel the meeting. So, 

[00:12:34] Scott Moss: yeah. 

[00:12:35] Gary Ruplinger: How do you kind of balance that fine line of, you know, what do you send them to warm them up to, to get, you know, try and start, you know, wetting their appetite for what you have to offer without going too far?

[00:12:47] Scott Moss: Yeah, so I, I like to start with asking somebody to connect on LinkedIn and when I ask someone to connect, I’ll either put a personal note, but just one line. There’s no pitch to it. It’s, you know, we share some connections, so let’s connect also, or you know, we’re both in the consulting space and you know, I just wanted to see if we can connect.

Then after that it’s just saying them a thank you note. ’cause you’re not asking for anything. Hey, thanks for connecting. I’m looking forward to seeing your posts. And then, you know, you eventually get an email out to them, right? And it’s that concept of moving our conversation from LinkedIn to email. And that first email can’t be more than three lines of, of content.

And it shouldn’t be salesy. It should really be, I’m moving this conversation from LinkedIn to email and wanted to just further introduce myself. this is who I am and this is what I do. Have a great day. There is no ask in the first several emails, there can’t be. but there, there can be sharing of valuable information.

and the shorter, the better. I, I’ve started with clients. I remember a CEO of a professional services firm was writing these. Five and six paragraph emails, and it was all about them and what they do and how they were so great. And I, I told the CEOI was like, how many people you think read the full email?

Like get past the first paragraph? He’s like, well, there’s such great content here, I’m sure everyone gets past it. And I said, no. Attention spans are very limited. They’re not getting, once they see how much is there, they’re, they’re X-ing out, they’re done, they’re deleting and they’re moving on. So I, I think that it’s gonna be important to have a subject line that is non-sales oriented.

And I think it’s really important that those first few emails are short, sweet, and providing simple knowledge and education. Maybe it’s an interesting article that you think is gonna be relevant to them. maybe it’s, a comment about a post you saw them put on LinkedIn, things like that go far to show the, the buyer persona that you’re going after.

It’s, it’s not all about you, it’s about them. And that you’re legitimately interested in creating a relationship. And, that will remove that whole concept of, overkill. And so you certainly don’t do it every three days or every two days. You know, you, you, you, you stagger it. So you might send one email three days after the next, then the next one is seven days, and you go back to two days and, and you stagger it like that.

So it doesn’t seem automated, even though it might be, it doesn’t seem automated and it’s not overwhelming, and you’re not always asking them for something that’s super important. 

[00:15:46] Gary Ruplinger: Gotcha. So I did then wanna, now, now I do wanna kind of circle back to this virtual cup of coffee. ’cause I know 

[00:15:52] Scott Moss: All right. 

[00:15:53] Gary Ruplinger: You probably more so than, most of my other clients I’d say, that I worked with, have, have managed to be really successful by, by doing this with, they’re not, they’re, they’re not salesy oriented in, in the messaging.

But yet I feel like every time I talk to you, you’re like, you know, I’ve got an another qualified lead that, you know, had a good conversation, you know. Yeah. Got, I’ve got another deal. you know, starting from the virtual cup of coffee type of meeting. Yeah. So I would, I would love to kind of hear your insight into that.

’cause like I said, I, I’ve, I’ve had clients who’ve struggle with it. We, we’ve had to move away from that style mm-hmm. Because they couldn’t actually turn those conversations or get the right information to get, you know, to move in advance that relationship. I’m curious how you, you think about it, how you structure them to 

[00:16:47] Scott Moss: Yeah.

[00:16:47] Gary Ruplinger: You know, be positioned to move forward if, if there are opportunities there. 

[00:16:51] Scott Moss: Sure. So, of course the ones that accept that virtual cup of coffee, you know, I’ll do some prep work. I’ll look at, you know, their company. I’ll look at their, their profile on LinkedIn or, or do a Google search and I’ll, I’ll, you know, recognize some things that are really topical about them.

And, show during the actual virtual cup of coffee that I’m interested in learning about them, that I’m interested in learning about their business, that I’m not there to sell them. And the best way to do that is when you’re having that coffee to say, Hey man, I really appreciate you jumping on this, the zoom with me and just wanna learn more about you.

you know, I’m sure you’ve got a great story to tell. I saw some really cool stuff about the, the trip you just took to, To Milan, because you were doing a yoga retreat with a bunch of your girlfriends. I think that’s really cool. So this is, that’s a true story. It wasn’t Milan, it was somewhere else Morocco.

So, she went to Morocco and we had the virtual cup of coffee coming up and I noticed it, and all I said was, you just went to Morocco on a yoga retreat. That must have been amazing. How was it? The first 10 minutes of the call was all about Morocco. And then I got to chime in and say, I knew somebody that had a similar girls trip, but they went to, I don’t know, maybe it was Barcelona, Spain.

And there was a connection. And that’s so important. It’s about establishing relationship. You have to build rapport. We didn’t talk about business until the last five minutes and I got the follow-up call and yeah, it turned into a deal. Does that happen all the time? No, I still gotta close the deal. it doesn’t happen all the time, but when you get that, yes.

To the virtual coffee. Treat it that way. Don’t try to sell anything. Just try to learn. Just learn, be inquisitive, ask questions about them and sit back. You know, if you’re in their face on a virtual cup of coffee like this, and you get closer and closer, it makes them nervous. So treat it like you’re really at a coffee shop.

That’s what I got. 

[00:19:00] Gary Ruplinger: Gotcha. And then you, you said there’s kind of, there is, you know, if, if relevant, you do ask at the end for the the next call. Yeah. 

[00:19:09] Scott Moss: What, what what ends up happening is I ask them about their, their business and, you know, ’cause I’m curious and I saw this and I saw that, and you’re hiring for these people.

How is that going? And, you know, if, if the rapport is established, then they’re gonna ask me about my business and then I get to tell them, yeah, this is, this is what I do. I started right when COVID hit and. I’ve been helping companies with sales ops pretty much my entire career. I just didn’t realize it until I wanted to figure out what my next move was after COVID.

And she’s like, wow, that’s a really interesting story. How does it work? And then I, I went into how it works and, and what it means to them. Like the problems that I help solve, that’s really important, the problems that you help solve, right? And make it about business impact. but she opened the door and I walked through, but again, it wasn’t very sales oriented.

It was very conversational. And that’s super important. That’s super important. and, and that’s really just how, how it transitioned.

[00:20:22] Gary Ruplinger: So as you’re, I guess this is probably kind of a good point to, to talk about your CRM, yeah. And kind of how you’re setting that up for success to Yeah. Keep everything organized where you’ve got multiple different people that you’re talking to and when you follow up and how soon you should follow up and where they’re at.

Yeah. In the cycle, how, and I realize this is one of those, you know, we could talk about for three days, yeah. There’s some basics. How do you kind of set it up for SES and kind of what are those basics that you, you kind of look at to, you know, be in a good, good position? 

[00:20:58] Scott Moss: Yeah. I, I think the key is really understanding the client lifecycle, right?

What are the various stages that you have to move, the buyer through to get to, yes. So, you know, you think about that virtual coffee, well that’s very much introductory, you know, maybe they’re qualified that they wanna learn a little bit more about you. So maybe that’s a marketing qualified lead. And you, you tag that person as a marketing qualified lead.

And if that meeting goes well and they want to talk to you again, they’re moving through the process. And so maybe you have some criteria that you define to move them to a sales qualified lead. And in your CRM you tag it that way so you can watch the actual progress. And then you just configure some simple reporting so you can see the health of that lead funnel.

but in terms of follow up, you have to make sure to set up tasks, you have to make sure if there’s automation in your CRM to use it effectively. and you have to be really diligent about documenting activities and, and the results of those activities and the context of those activities. That way at any given point in time, you can log into your CRM and you can see that you had a virtual coffee with Gary, and it was two weeks ago, and you sent an email a week ago as a follow up.

He happened to open it, but hasn’t responded. And you have a task that says, if I haven’t heard from Gary in a week, reach out to schedule that next meeting. And if you’re doing that effectively, then you’re not gonna lose any of those prospects along the way. You’re gonna keep touching them and you’re gonna have those reminders come up in your CRM.

that’s, that, that takes discipline. Absolutely. You have to be committed to, you know, gar the whole, the theory of garbage in, garbage out, that’s still applies. but it’s, it’s super important that you leverage the CRM for what it’s built for and it’s built exactly for that. Whether it’s HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, you know, they all, to a certain extent can, can facilitate that kind of visibility and that kind of progression of leads.

Through the funnel.

[00:23:17] Gary Ruplinger: I know CRMs are, are one of those things that it, the big trick is just using it. The big trick 

[00:23:23] Scott Moss: is using it. That’s right. That’s typically the hardest part. Gary, I’m not kidding. I, I can’t tell you how many clients, like, well, I’ve got this spreadsheet, or I use the, the task pad in my calendar. And, and I’m like, well then how do you know if you’ve got like, legitimate leads and legitimate opportunities and, and, and how do you forecast based off of that?

I don’t know. And even the people that are using the CRM oftentimes don’t have it configured appropriately so that they can see that kind of, that kind of insight. So it, it’s really important to get that CRM set up correctly from the get go. and it’s, it’s doubly important to have a discipline to use it ongoing.

[00:24:08] Gary Ruplinger: I know one of the things I’m a, I’m like a sit with a legal pad type of thing at my desk when I’m talking to somebody and kind of doodle down notes and, you know, challenge is always, okay, well I don’t really wanna type them all in. I’m lazy like everybody else, I guess. But like my, the solution I ended up coming up with is, oh, you know, I’ve got a phone.

I’ll just take a camera. Oops. Take a picture of it. Mm-hmm. And now I just attach that into their file when I put it in there so I’ve got all my notes, but now I’ve least got it in the system so that, yeah. You know, I can, I can have that follow up and you all that stuff that I want that to remind me. But yet I’ve got, you know, I can write, write my notes the way I like to.

[00:24:46] Scott Moss: Yeah, well, you’re, you’re more advanced than, than others, but you, you’ve got a way to go. look, the problem of every salesperson is, you know, I have, I’ve had a half hour meeting or a 45 minute meeting and I’ve jotted down all these notes and I’ve got a hundred other things to do. So I don’t want to put these notes into, into the CRM.

So I have two things to say to that. One, just force yourself to do it, right. It’ll honestly take, if, if you’re half decent at typing, it’ll honestly take you another three minutes to get them in there, set the follow-up task and move on to what else you have to do. The alternative is to use ai, which is what I’ve started doing.

So I use, Otter and it hits all my meetings through Zoom and it transcribes everything, and then it gives me an AI generated summary of. Key points, needs, challenges, takeaways, follow ups. It, it even does a, really cool thing, like the overall theme of the meeting. And it connects to my CRM so I can see exactly what the high points are of every coffee meeting, virtual coffee meeting that I’ve had.

And it’s a really easy tool. Now, I still take a few notes, but I don’t have to take a ton of notes because Otter, which is the one I use, catches everything. And then not just the transcription, but that AI generated summary is magic. and it’s, it’s created a super high level of efficiency for me. I’ll, I’ll tell you that right now.

And I recommend that for my clients. A a lot of ’em, they’re not using water. They’re using something, right? It, it could be gong. I think Loom has something. There’s, there’s plenty of other, technologies that’ll do it for you. 

[00:26:40] Gary Ruplinger: I didn’t realize that, Otter was, was, something you could sync to your CRMI.

I’m on computer today. There you go. Have you, have you played around with, the built the new, the one that Zoom has built in the AI companion at all? 

[00:26:55] Scott Moss: I haven’t used Zoom because I use Otter, but I can, I’m sure it’s the same exact thing. I’m sure on Zoom if I’m recording, it’s transcribing everything and giving me that AI summary.

But I, I haven’t had a chance, myself to look at it probably ’cause I’ve just been using Otter. I’ve been happy with it, but maybe I should look at it. 

[00:27:16] Gary Ruplinger: Fair enough. so we do have a question here that came in this one kind of, As we were kind of talking about the virtual, coffee requests. so Todd says, you know, so these virtual coffee requests sound very targeted and well researched.

Can you speak to that? 

[00:27:33] Scott Moss: yeah, they’re absolutely targeted. I don’t ask everybody for a virtual coffee. I only ask people that have accepted my LinkedIn connection request for a virtual coffee, and I only ask ’em for that virtual coffee. probably a couple weeks, two or three weeks down the road after I’ve had the opportunity to kind of warm them up.

and, it, it makes it maybe less of an ask because they’ve gotten to know me a little bit. So I think that’s really important. So yeah, it’s, it is targeted. Send out an email blast that say, Hey, let’s have a virtual cup of coffee. Absolutely not. I’m very much, I very much take a sniper approach and I coach my clients on a sniper approach.

And the process we put in place is all about following through on that concept. And as far as researching. Yeah, when, when you’re prepping for that, for the actual virtual coffee, do your research, but research prior to that helps as well. Right. And that goes to the content you’re sharing with your targets.

So they’ve accepted your connection request and you know what industry they’re in and you know what their title is and you’ve seen maybe what they’re posting about. It’s very easy just from that to find out something that they’d be interested in. Then you just do a Google search or a search, an AI that says, find me an article about blah, blah, blah.

And before you know it, there’s the article. Copy the link, drop it in an email. Gary saw this. I know you’re in this industry. Just wanted to share it with you. Take care. And then maybe in a week it’s, hope you found the article helpful, Gary. just wanted to, to reconnect and, and say, thanks again for, for connecting with me on LinkedIn.

Or you can even throw the virtual coffee out there. But it’s, it is targeted and you do have to do some research and you don’t send it out en mass. Absolutely not. 

[00:29:37] Gary Ruplinger: Gotcha. 

[00:29:37] Scott Moss: I hope that answered your question. Yeah. 

[00:29:41] Gary Ruplinger: Yes. If we need, if you need more, info, Todd, let us, let us know. Mm-hmm. we have one here from Theresa.

Then as you were talking about the note takers, have you gotten any pushback on it? Do you find that most people are okay with like the note taker or even just recording the sessions? Yeah. 

[00:29:57] Scott Moss: yeah. I have had zero pushback. Zero. And the reason is, I say, look, I, you can see that my otters here. I hope you’re okay with that.

It’ll allow me to really focus in on our conversation and not have to take notes. I might jot a couple things down, but it’s just easier and I’ll be happy to share the transcription with you. I’m like, that’s great. So I think half of the people take me up on the transcription sharing, and I, and I’m more than happy to get that out to them ’cause it helps them.

but the pushback has really been zeroed. Now, you know, when you’re, when you’re just like cold calling somebody and you have a recorder on, there are laws about, you know, based on, I think it’s zip code or state or city that you have to announce prior to them accepting the call that the calls are being recorded now, you know, I don’t do that because I’m not, I’m not really much of a cold caller anymore.

My teams though, my, the, the teams that I work with have run into that as a challenge. And, and all we do is say, look, just ask ’em if, if it’s a scheduled call, and it’s not, it’s not like a Zoom, it’s just ask ’em, Hey, do you mind if I record this for what I just said? if, if it is cold calling, then you know, most CRMs will have the ability to play that message when someone picks up the phone if, if they pick up.

And then the first message is, this call is being recorded. If you would like to continue, you know, press one. If no, hang up. So there’s, there’s some intricacies there, but not the end of the world.

[00:31:41] Gary Ruplinger: And then, this is a good one here from, from Todd. How do you guys recommend scouting for the leads to Target on LinkedIn? 

[00:31:49] Scott Moss: Oh, Gary, I have to turn this to you, man. This is, this is right up your alley. Okay. 

[00:31:56] Gary Ruplinger: And I will be happy to kind of jump in on this one. So kind of here’s how I approach LinkedIn and Todd is really, like I said, targeting is, is the whole, is is everything.

I really am, am looking at there. So we’ll use Sales Navigator ’cause it’s the best tool built into LinkedIn for the job. because I get all of the filters on, you know, not only what their job title is, if I needed to, I can look at what past job titles are. I can see, you know, how big the companies are.

I can perhaps more important, most importantly on LinkedIn as I can see if they’re active on the platform or not. 

[00:32:32] Scott Moss: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:33] Gary Ruplinger: you get a lot of people on LinkedIn who, right, they signed up for it because, you know, somebody told them they should five years ago and they last logged in five years ago.

[00:32:46] Scott Moss: You’re right. That happens. 

[00:32:48] Gary Ruplinger: So one, one of the things is you can flip one of the filters there that says, you know, have they been active on the platform in the past, 30 days or have they changed jobs in the last 90 days? there’s a, a couple others that I’m forgetting that I don’t really use very often, but it basically things that indicate that they at least are kind of logging in and being active, on the platform in some way.

And that will help you connect to people and ultimately prospect people who are well, you know, gonna be logging in and actually seeing your messages. ’cause just like with any type of thing, if you’re cold calling and they don’t pick up the phone or you’re cold emailing and they don’t open the email, right, the message just is not going anywhere ’cause then they’ll never see it.

Same type of thing happens on LinkedIn. If they don’t connect with you, they’re not gonna get your messages. So that’s one of the big ones that we use is finding people who are actually active on LinkedIn currently. So, but, but really it’s, you know, looking for the right job titles. we filter pretty heavily there and I will block out a lot of filters.

So that’s probably one of the, one of the big things I probably spend a lot of time doing when I’m working with a client is, alright, I’m gonna pull up a list here of people. Let’s, let’s just look through ’em. I’m like, we’ll just take five minutes i’s like, here’s a page. Do you see anybody who’s not relevant?

These look like the right people. Pull up another page. And what I, what I’m trying to do there and what I would, if you’re looking through these yourself, what I would encourage you to do is look at the actual names, click on some profiles, see if that’s search is getting you the right people that you’d say, yeah, these are the people I wanna meet with.

and if they’re not, you can add more filters, you can, and work on filtering people out. So start blocking certain titles. You say, no, I’m getting people who are like owners of. Of, you know, roofing companies, I don’t work with that. You know, start, start blocking out certain industries, start blocking out certain, you know, job titles until you get to the, where you look at that list and say, yeah, out of 25 people on a page 24, irrelevant to me.

Then you’re good. If you’re looking at saying, yeah, maybe like five or 10 of these are relevant, keep, keep working at it. But that’s, that’s how I approach LinkedIn is it’s all through sales navigator. ’cause I just can’t find a way to do it well on, without it. and it’s, you know, using those filters that I mentioned there.

So good. Good question though, Todd. and then we’ve got here, one here from David. David asks, can you speak a little bit about the closing process, what to do and what not to do? 

[00:35:30] Scott Moss: Yeah, so, so what to do is make sure that your solution is targeted specifically to a problem that you’ve identified with that prospect.

Not just, I’ve got these four solutions. Pick one, right? You have to say this based on your challenge and the solution that I’m offering you here, here is the cost and it’s specific to accomplish these three things and it’ll accomplish those things because you told me that was what was important to you.

When we did our initial discovery, you identified not just the top layer pain of a problem, but the actual business impact. So my solution is tied specifically to solving for that and having a positive business impact. ’cause that’s what you said you wanted, and I can do it for X amount of dollars. What are your, what are your thoughts about that?

Okay. And it’s just asking that question, but prior to then it’s really important that you’ve done some qualification and understand, so you don’t, you know, get into the sticker shop thing. You understand some sort of budget expectation, right? you know, and, and those are questions that you ask on the discovery call.

You know, what’s the problem? What’s the business impact? What have you tried to do about it? What’s it costing your organization? have you come up with a budget to spend to make that problem go away? Or do you need to build a business case? To get this, problem solved. If it’s building a business case, you need to work with them on the ROI, look, you told me that this is the problem and it’s costing you X percent in productivity.

My solution, because of the way it will be configured based on your need, will, get you above and beyond that production percentage that you needed to accomplish. So the pricing becomes less of an issue. So again, it’s what do you think? Does the solution meet your needs, your expectations? Does the pricing seem fair based on the solution and what it’s going do for you?

And, you know, there’s a few directions we can go from here and, and this is what I always do and what I coach the teams to do that we have a few steps that we can go from here. You can love the solution right now. You can be ready to go. And if you want, I will send you an agreement with the full scope of work and I’ll s signature line and a date.

That’s coming to you whenever you tell me. That’s option number one. Option number two is you need to think about it. You need to build consensus. you want to take the weekend, you want to talk to some key advisors. That’s great, and I think you should do that, Mr. Prospect. how can I help you with those discussions?

would you like me to kind of represent this proposal for them? I’d be more than happy to do it. You know, what can I do to make that discussion, productive for you and, happy to help out in any way that I can. That’s the second option. Option number three is I don’t know what to do. The, the prospect is like, I am, I’m like a deer in headlights.

And what that tells me is that I didn’t do a good job presenting value. Okay? So we have to take a step back and say, okay, great. Tell me where you’re hung up. Tell me what’s throwing you. Let’s, let’s go through this and talk it out. The reality is those three things are actually positive responses. ’cause they haven’t said no, right?

The fourth option is they’re not interested. And I actually put those on the final slide of every proposal deck that I walk my clients through. And when I build, proposal deck templates for my clients to present to their customers, the last slide always has those four options. Option one, you’re ready.

I’ll get you an agreement. Option two, you need to take some time, talk it over with other people and you have to make sure you’re offering to help them with those discussions. Maybe represent option three is deer in headlights. I’m overwhelmed. Okay, let’s talk about it. And option four is they’re not interested and I actually walk them through each option.

And most people laugh at the fourth one. And most people say, I’m not quite ready for the second one, but let’s look at number two and three. that’s, that’s how I do it. And it’s, and it’s been effective. It, it might be a little bit different than, than most people tell you how to close where they’re asking for commitment.

But if you’re trying to sell a high ticket, long sales cycle item that may be complex, people aren’t gonna make a decision right there, and they don’t wanna be sold. And the less you come across as selling them, the more likely they are to see you as someone that they want to collaborate with in a partnership to help solve a problem.

Hopefully that, that answers your question. 

[00:40:46] Gary Ruplinger: I like it. I’ve, I’ve got a follow up I’d like to kind of ask on that. So let’s say they’re in, number two where, you know, they need to think about it. and you kind of go through the, you know, I can offer to represent or you can build the consensus. Mm-hmm.

How, how do you, how does follow up based off of that look? 

[00:41:07] Scott Moss: Yeah. 

[00:41:08] Gary Ruplinger: I, ’cause I feel like, I feel like that would, in my head I’m thinking this is probably where most people land is on that one. 

[00:41:15] Scott Moss: Yeah. Most people land that one and, and what’s important is when they say they need to think about it and they need to talk to the other folks, you need to ask some point of questions.

Okay. That’s great. what are some of the areas that you think are gonna be most important? When you’re reviewing this with other people, right? You don’t ask, oh, do you have to get someone’s permission? Right? That’s so old school. That’s so Glenn, Gary Glen Ross. That’s not what we do. You have to ask mommy’s permission.

No, even if they’re the CEO of the business, they might have a board that they report to. They might have some senior advisors that they like to get feedback from. You have to say, yeah, I get it. I, I like to, you know, build some consensus and get input from other people before I make such an important decision.

I don’t, I don’t blame you for doing that. How can I help you with that? You know, what, what are some of the key points that you need to feel comfortable about? And I’ll make sure that I provide you with that information. Okay? So that’s first, then it’s the follow up. Okay? So after every proposal there has to be a, proposal submitted and you only submit a proposal after you’ve walked them through it.

No throwing proposals over the fence to see if anyone catches it. so you walk ’em through the proposal and you send them a thank you note with the proposal attached. Obviously an email and then you have a, a sequence or a cadence or a set of tasks, however you want to do it. Some CRMs can automate it.

It’s three days after that. It’s, do you have any questions? Just reaching out, hope you had a good couple of days. wanted to give you some time to digest the information that I sent out. Do you have any questions? If that’s what it is, or, is my timing such that you’ve already talked to your people?

So you need to ask also, you know, when do you think you’re gonna talk to your people? When you hear that response, is it gonna be a week? When’s your board meeting? When’s your next advisory meeting? So you time your follow up to that. Okay. So it’s, it’s how did the meeting go? What questions came up? What’s a good next step for us?

You just pose that question. What’s a good next step for us? Not, I’m checking in, I’m following up. It’s ask a direct question. Tell me what’s a good next step. If they don’t respond four days later, you pick up the phone and call ’em. You leave them a message and if they don’t respond for another four days, you send them another email that is a little bit more pointed.

It’s, Hey, I hope all is well. Haven’t heard from you in a bit. Just wanna make sure that we get some time on the calendar to reconnect about the proposal. I know you said you were going to be meeting with some other folks, and I want to make sure that I’m here to answer any questions that you might have.

Okay? If you get to like four weeks and there’s been no response, you have to send that so-called breakup email. It’s like, you know, let me know one way or another. Let me know, are you still interested or not? What’s a good next step in between that? It’s okay to drop an article in an email that says, Hey, this has something to do with the proposed solution, or this has something to do with the pain that you mentioned to me.

I thought you might want to take a look at it. So it’s all about creating a really well, devised sequence of tasks and touches that happen after the proposal presentation. And you have that built into your CRM, so you don’t have to rely on memory to, to carry out each of those tasks. 

[00:44:44] Gary Ruplinger: That’s awesome.

[00:44:46] Scott Moss: Okay. 

[00:44:48] Gary Ruplinger: At least I thought it was awesome. I, I’ve got some takeaways. Thanks, 

[00:44:51] Scott Moss: Gary. Thanks, man. At least I have one fan in the room. 

[00:44:58] Gary Ruplinger: so, another question here, and I know we were gonna talk about the role content plays, so this may lead into that anyway, but, this kind of question comes from Cindy. So Cindy asks, how do you build relationships with your target company when leaders don’t want to meet unless there’s a current need?

[00:45:18] Scott Moss: Yeah. That, that’s like most of the time, right Cindy? So how often do you send, a touch to somebody and it’s the perfect timing. I was just thinking that I needed to hire, a new company to manage all of, my payroll processing. And you happen to send me an email that you do payroll processing and you’re the best thing since sliced bread.

That rarely happens. So Cindy, it’s a great question. it’s, it’s the answer, the, the, it’s no from them, but it’s, no, not now. So establishing the relationship over time is really about touching them periodically every three weeks, every month with a piece of information that educates and informs and positions you as someone that has answers to questions that they might.

Ask themselves. And that can be in the form. Again, I always go back to the interesting article or, a case study or a white paper or even, a secondary content that you have found on someone else’s blog that speaks to some of the things that you think that person might have an interest in. Right? So because you’re going, you’re targeting your outreach, you know a lot about that person, that industry, the typical challenges.

So once a month, you touch ’em with something that is gonna be relevant to them, that will resonate to them. But when you’re touching them, you’re not asking for, a specific action, right? Everyone talks about everything has to have a call to action. No, everything doesn’t have to have a call to action.

Important things have to have a call to action, right? If you’ve seen that they’ve opened or clicked or downloaded, and you’re on your fourth or fifth touch. Then make the ask, and it’s okay to say, Hey, I, I noticed you’ve been on my website. You’re not stalking them. I noticed that you opened and clicked on several of my emails and you downloaded this report.

You’re not stalking them. Everybody knows that we can see that information and just bring it to the forefront and asked them What interested you about that article? What interested you about that white paper? Maybe we should have a discussion about it. Let me know what you think. Let me know what you think.

Don’t tell them. I think we should, or I’d love to. I, I see this all the time. I’d love to get together and share with you, or I’d love to do this and I’d love to do that. That needs to be removed from vocabulary, from email content. Remove that. Just switch the words. Why don’t we, let’s have a, maybe a good next step is that I’d love to, has gotta stop.

and, and if you’re presenting it such that it’s about us having a conversation about something that interests them and not you, then they’re gonna be 10 times more likely to take the virtual cup of coffee, or at least to stay engaged for when that need becomes so, relevant or painful that they’re ready to take action.

[00:48:35] Gary Ruplinger: I like it. Cool. One, one thing I, I feel like I’m on a 

[00:48:38] Scott Moss: soapbox. 

[00:48:40] Gary Ruplinger: I’ll, I’ll throw in one little tidbit here that’s really LinkedIn specific, is webinars like these that focus not on need, but on problems that, you know, we’re gonna solve a small problem today. Like, I did one with another client recently where it was all about, Chaos in their warehouses. and it’s one of those that’s a very, very specific problem. ’cause I don’t have a warehouse. I don’t think you have a warehouse either, but, but if your, your W warehouse looked like the ones in the pictures, boy you, you, you’re like, oh God, that’s a problem. and kind of having a webinar to go through and tell that story of how you fixed it.

Okay. That’s, that’s gonna bring, you know, the right people who they’re there are watching like, oh yeah, I, I need to talk to these guys. ’cause 

[00:49:24] Scott Moss: mm-hmm. 

[00:49:25] Gary Ruplinger: I, I, I have, I’ve seen that. And, boy that’s costing us money. So 

[00:49:30] Scott Moss: yeah. 

[00:49:30] Gary Ruplinger: I will kind of throw that into that. Just kind of, kind of constantly putting out information that solves those problems that, you know, may lead to them being them having a need when the time is right.

We’ll keep that, we’ll keep you in front of them and relevant to them until, until that need actually is there. 

[00:49:46] Scott Moss: Right. But there is a discipline to that. You have to stay on top of it. You have to follow the process that you’ve created. You have to say discipline to it. You have to believe in. And, you know, CRM can help tremendously with that.

Whatever CRM you use, set it up so that it can do that stuff for you.

[00:50:07] Gary Ruplinger: Yes. Use, use your tools. 

[00:50:09] Scott Moss: Use your tools. Right, man. 

[00:50:12] Gary Ruplinger: Alright. And, and, David did find one of those unicorns that, he just happened to be finding that person who was in the market, but he did have a follow up question here, and David does ask. Okay. what, what about the idea? You say, we like to speak in advance of need so we can get to know one another.

so having those conversations before there’s, you know, may maybe mm-hmm. I kind of following. Yeah. 

[00:50:40] Scott Moss: I mean that’s kind of putting it right out there. it, it comes across as a little bit salesy and a little bit, you know, self, self directed. Right, because it’s about you. We like to speak before there’s a need, right?

Well, as A-C-E-O-I could care less if you’d like to speak before there’s a need. I don’t like to speak until there is a need. That could be my persona. Right? Some CEOs are like that. Some CEOs are more strategic. They think ahead, they build roadmaps. That’s great, but you can’t assume that. So instead of we like to speak with someone before there’s a need.

It’s, yeah, I, I get it. You probably, you might not need what we do right now, but there’s a really interesting piece of information and I wanted to share it with you. If you have any questions or if something resonates, let me know. You know, we’d like to speak before there’s need again, it’s really, who cares what you want?

I, I could care less. Right? That, that’s how they think.

[00:51:44] Gary Ruplinger: And question here from Todd. so including 

[00:51:48] Scott Moss: my glasses 

[00:51:49] Gary Ruplinger: and a pretty long one. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll read it fast. But I worked with the prospect after many meetings. He asked for a proposal, then he merged his company with another, sent me an email saying, let me get through the merger and come back to you about a potential engagement.

I sent an email saying, okay, when is good for you to follow up? Now it’s dark. What’s the best way to reignite the relationship? 

[00:52:15] Scott Moss: Yeah. So first of all, it might be dead already because he wants to get through the merger, and it was just kind of like a nice way for him to blow you off and blame it on the merger that, you know, the proposal can’t go through right now.

and depending upon how long he’s been dark, if it’s been 30 days or 45 days and you’ve been pinging him every week during that, you know, ghosting period, and he still hasn’t responded, and you see he hasn’t opened or clicked on anything, then move on. seriously, it’s not, it’s not worth your time anymore, but.

If, if you feel really strongly like you had this great relationship, you’re like, what happened? How do I reignite this? Gary and I did a webinar about a year ago on reviving ghosted leads or, and stuff like that. and it’s, and it’s just asking them a simple question. It’s is, is this something that we should be talking about or not?

and let me know, you know, I’m okay with no, and I don’t want to clutter your inbox and I don’t wanna spend time reaching out to you. If you’re not interested, let me know if you’re not interested. If you are, great, let me know the best time to reconnect so that it, it’s, you know, more appropriate. and if they don’t respond from that, then you just gotta move on.

You know, it’s, it’s like when you lose a deal and the deal lost reason is ghosted. Some people are just like that. Some people are like that, and you can’t always revive them, but if they’ve been opening and clicking, you’ve got hope and you have to take advantage of that. Hey, I saw you clicked on the article, I saw you open the proposal again.

I saw you downloaded it again. You know what’s happening. You know, how’s the merger going? Maybe the timing is right for us to talk. but again, that goes back to the technology you’re using and, and it’s, it’s capabilities to show you that kind of activity, that kind of engagement.

[00:54:17] Gary Ruplinger: Gotcha. We’ve got a question here from Jackie. this is probably a little easier one. Do you have any recommendations for publishers to use for a newsletter? do you think newsletters are a good idea? I’m industry agnostic, but my content applies to all. 

[00:54:34] Scott Moss: Okay. So, I don’t know a specific newsletter publisher, unless you’re talking about like a tool, like a MailChimp or, or HubSpot marketing or, or whatever.

there’s, there’s plenty of them out there. it’s, it’s really about how big your list is and, and, and the cost to, to get those newsletters out. I do believe in newsletters. I think they’re very helpful. as long as we’re not selling in the newsletter, you know, we’re sharing, you know, a little bit of information about the company, like a new hire or maybe an award or maybe a new client that got onboarded or a relevant case study, or, you know, somebody just got married.

You know, that kind of stuff is, should be a section. There should be a section about the latest industry trends and what we think. There should be a section, maybe that goes to a blog and maybe a, a section that goes to something else. As far as the content and being industry agnostic, I, I would, I would, you know, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna upset anybody, but people that think their industry agnostic really aren’t industry agnostic.

They just haven’t taken the time to identify the industry that is most suited for the products and services they offer. And if it’s not by industry, then it can be by company size, right? So there’s always a way to be more targeted. You just have to figure out what’s gonna work for your product or service.

So once you figure that out, you can develop content to that, for example. So your industry agnostic across five industries, let’s say. Okay, so first of all, that’s not industry agnostic. That’s five industries. So you’re targeted across five industries, but your clients are similar in that they all fall between 1 million and we’ll say 3 million in annual sales.

And, they all happen to be in, southeast United States. So there’s a commonality there. You can then develop content about that commonality, small business content, contents about small business grants, content about, the economy in the southeastern United States. So you can still develop stuff specific to that audience.

As much as you think your industry agnostic. There are still some ways that you can narrow in and push something out there that’s gonna be relevant to, to the readers.

[00:57:02] Gary Ruplinger: Very good. And then we’ve got a question here from, hushing. How do you explore the buyer’s intent during cold outreaches? 

[00:57:15] Scott Moss: Yeah, so there’s some tools out there that can show buyer’s intent. LinkedIn has some stuff, Apollo has some stuff, ZoomInfo has some stuff. but if, if you’re actively engaged in, in sending emails or, or doing LinkedIn messaging to that person, you can gauge intent just by their activity, right?

If, if you’ve sent them, an industry specific article, if you sent them a white paper and they’ve downloaded it or they’ve clicked on it three times and you’re able to, gauge the length that they were looking at that, and some CRMs can do that, then, you know, they’re interested in whatever the topic was of that white paper.

And all you do is reach out and say. What was so interesting about that white paper, I’d love to talk to you about it. I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’m interested in your feedback, what resonated with you. so it’s really about that kind of tracking and some CRMs even allow you to score that kind of tracking so you can assign points to those activities and as the points creep up, you can get a sense of their level of intent and their level of interest.

[00:58:28] Gary Ruplinger: Excellent. And I think we’re kind of, we’re hitting up against time here, so I think unless there’s, anything else you want to, to really cover here in the last two minutes, I’ll probably kind of wrap things up with you. And I know it might be a couple questions we missed here, but, either, Scott or I will go through the, the questions later and then post, responses to anything we missed.

But, 

[00:58:51] Scott Moss: of course, 

[00:58:52] Gary Ruplinger: Scott, was there anything else you wanted to, to talk about today? anybody, anybody needs help with, with some of this stuff? Oh yeah, sure. Get in touch with you. 

[00:59:01] Scott Moss: Yeah. Feel, feel free to, to hit my website, guys. It’s m sales growth.com, so M-S-A-L-E-S-G-R-O-W-T h.com. but no sales pitch.

If, if you have an interest in, in learning more, I would love to learn more about you as well. And if I can help you, great. If I can point you in the right direction, that’s great too. as an entrepreneur, I’m a big believer in paying it forward. I got a lot of help along the way. and whether you’re working for somebody else or working for yourself, you should feel free to reach out.

happy, happy to spend some time with you. 

[00:59:41] Gary Ruplinger: Sounds good. Well, Scott, thanks so much for, for coming on and, and, let’s, let’s do this again sometime. As always, always good chatting with you. 

[00:59:48] Scott Moss: Sounds great. Sounds great, Gary. I enjoyed it as always. Have a good Thanksgiving. I know you said you’re heading down to Toledo, so safe travels.

enjoy all the Turkey. 

[00:59:59] Gary Ruplinger: Will do. 

[01:00:02] Scott Moss: Thanks everybody.