Analyzing Sales Cadences: Strengths and Weaknesses

Gabe Larsen

Don’t want to read this? Listen to it on the Sales Acceleration Podcast.

Most sales leaders know they need to give their sales development teams a proven prospecting cadence to follow. But many aren’t sure what’s the best approach or how to get started.

I’ve heard so many different ideas about cadences, I’ve begun to get confused myself. Sales leaders often email me cadences, asking for feedback. Let’s take a look at a few specific examples and break down the good, the bad and the ugly of each one.

Note: PC = Phone Call, VM = Voicemail, EM = Email and SM = Social Media.

1. Lead with email

Let’s look at the strengths and weaknesses of this cadence:

Strengths:

• Lead with email – I like the idea of leading with email. That’s a strong way to start this cadence based on the audience and the role.
• Voicemail – I still believe in VM and I’m glad this team has opted to use it.

Weaknesses:

• Same day – The obvious problem here is that reps are encouraged to set a task on the same day every week. If you reach out on the same day every time, you will miss out on chances to optimize your cadence and improve your contact rates.
• Spacing – The spacing of activities is too far apart. We call it the law of immediacy. If you’re trying to educate your buyer and you hit them only once a week, they will more easily forget about you.
• Length – This campaign stretches over too many days. Marketing needs to step in here and enroll this contact in a drip campaign rather than have the rep focus on this contact for 77 days.
• Missing social interactions – Social touches would enhance this cadence.
• Mix – I’m a fan of combining phone calls, voicemails and emails, but I wouldn’t do the same thing every time. Mix it up a little.

2. Include social interactions

Here is another example. Let’s look at some of the strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths:

• Start – I like the first three days. I think that is a strong start.
• Mix – It’s good to include a mix of phone calls with voicemails and phone calls without voicemails.

Weaknesses:

• Not enough touches – This is a little weak on the overall touches. Remember to be pleasantly persistent. I’d at least do 10.
• Social – I’m not sure why social was not included in this cadence. For this company, it seems to be an obvious thing to do.
• Too passive – Ending with two emails is weak.

3. It wouldn’t kill you to call

Strengths:

• Social – Good to see social included in this cadence.
• Email – Strong number of emails are being used.

Weaknesses:

• Touches – For a transactional business, this is a little light on the number of touches.
• Overreliance on email – Leading with email is fine, but I wouldn’t recommend waiting until Day 3 to make your first phone call.
• Mix – This cadence does not include enough phone calls. I’d use a minimum of three.
• Length – The length is too short. We should push this cadence over two weeks.
• Voicemail – I would include another voicemail as part of the last touches.

These are all decent cadences, but we’ve designed some that are a little more effective. I hosted a webinar on how to build a winning sales cadence and I got bombarded with requests from sales leaders who wanted our templates.

Your wish is our command. If you want templates, you’re going to get templates: seven of them. Each cadence is tailored for a specific type of team, so you can play to your team’s strengths.     

Download 7 Sales Cadence Templates to Double Your Contact Rates in 20 Days below.