Why Timing and Frequency Matter with Sales Cadences

When it comes to outreach, strategy is everything. Defining the perfect sales cadence, or sequence, takes skill and an understanding of how to successfully engage your prospects. Sales cadences are often a mixture of human and automated efforts, created based on research and testing to create the most refined interactions for improved outcomes. 

What those outcomes are depends on where you place your focus. However, sales teams that improve their sales cadences will find more opportunities in their pipelines and increased efficiency throughout the entire process. 

What exactly is a sales cadence, though? Put simply, it’s a pre-scheduled or pre-planned set of engagements that take place between a sales rep and a lead. These engagements can be via:

• Email
• Text messaging
• Phone calls
• Social media 
• Face-to-face interactions

There are several elements of your cadence that you need to perfect, but timing and frequency are at the top of the list. And if you need assistance mastering that, or with any other aspect of your outreach campaigns, ask how Smith.ai can help. 

For now, here’s what you need to know. 

Sales outreach timing 

Every strategy includes a plan for effective timing. It should also include a plan for customizing the timing around each lead that comes along. After all, constantly attempting to reach someone when they’re unavailable is going to waste a lot of time and effort. Instead, you could research and find out when they’re most likely to be available or want to talk to you. 

You could also just ask them. Whether it’s as part of your lead capture or your initial follow-up, say something like:

• Perhaps there’s a time that works better for you – let me know and we’ll connect then. 
• I’m sure your schedule is busy. Can I check in with you later in the week?
• What times of day are best to reach you via email, phone, etc.?

If you reach prospects at the wrong time or reach out in the wrong way based on where they’re at in their journey, it could backfire in several different ways. If nothing else, it catches them off guard and that alone is enough to make some people feel leery about doing business with a company. 

It’s estimated that today’s leads require about eight touchpoints before a sale is made. That’s eight opportunities to make the perfect connection. It’s also eight potential poorly timed outreach efforts that could cost you valuable leads. Make sure that your sales cadence includes guidelines for timing so that your reps can stay on track. 

This also assures that your pipeline and sales process are streamlined and unified, so that every lead has the same experience with every sales rep. That way, every interaction is as close to identical as possible. This improves your success in the pipeline, as well as your reputation. 

Sales cadence frequency 

Frequency is the other big part of your sales cadence that deserves some extra attention. Are you reaching out too often? Not often enough? Are your reps following up at all? 

Frequency is just what it sounds like: how often you reach out to your prospects as part of your sales cadence. Are you connecting on a weekly basis? Perhaps you’re near the end of the funnel and following up daily. In any case, you need to make sure that you’ve got the right balance of frequency throughout your entire sequence to get the best results. 

You should also consider all the channels through which you’re communicating with a single prospect or customer. For example, if they’re already getting two emails a week, are they really going to also want a phone call, text messages, and a LinkedIn message? 

Don’t overwhelm people. At the same time, don’t leave them alone for too long—this can also work against you. When you’re not reaching out often enough, you are giving people time to find another solution. If your frequency isn’t right, people might feel like you don’t care as much as you should, or that you’ve forgotten about them. 

Figuring out frequency is a delicate art. It requires a focus on balance and making sure that people feel heard and engaged without overdoing it. You might even need an agile strategy in place so that you can adjust frequency needs for each prospect (and that’s a good option to consider here). 

The risks of ignoring timing and frequency 

Inevitably, there’s going to be someone out there who thinks they’re exempt from this topic, or that they can somehow “reinvent the process” in their own way. Whatever the case may be, this is not an area where you want to try to reinvent the wheel. There are processes and strategies in place for a reason. They’ve proven to be effective, and they are essential if you are going to get results. 

Reaching out to people at the right time is essential. The only way to master that with your sales cadences is to focus on timing and frequency. Otherwise, you risk things like:

• Getting ignored by valuable prospects because you keep interrupting them when they’re busy. 
• Overwhelming someone with too many messages and scaring them off. 
• Making someone feel ignored or undervalued by not reaching out often enough. 
• Losing leads to the competition because their sales cadences are more effective. 
• Looking desperate if you’re reaching out too much or via too many channels at once. 
• A total failure of your sales and outreach campaigns. 

Find the timing and frequency that work for your sales reps. And remember, it might be a bit different for everyone, so leave some flexibility in your strategy. 

Speaking of strategy, how will you deal with all those new leads?

When you partner with Smith.ai, you’ll be able to trust that your sales reps can focus on their most valuable prospects and never miss a thing. Our virtual receptionists can act as your 24/7 answering service, in addition to providing support for lead intake and appointment scheduling. Plus, all of this comes with a team for outreach campaigns, too, creating a total package for all your needs. 

To learn more, schedule a consultation or reach out to hello@smith.ai. 

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