Draft on Behalf

Charly Johnson
November 06, 2023

Hello you amazing humans! So stoked as this is newsletter post number 1!

(thanks for also bearing with me on this as I’ve been pretty unwell the past week, hence the delay in sending this)

But enough of the chit chat, let's get straight into how I'm getting 100% response rate from a certain approach

(I know that’s why most of you folk are here 😉)

And it's a really easy tactic that pretty much anyone can implement immediately.

Utilising common connections

Let me explain...

Your CRO is connected to a target prospect. Instead of just mentioning this in your outreach, get your CRO to send the email, LinkedIn message, heck even call them.

Now this might not sound really obvious but I don't know many sellers that are doing this.

And this realllyyy simple tactic has helped me get in contact with 10 of my target accounts recently.

But it doesn't need to be limited to people in your company connected to your prospects.

I've asked old colleagues, mutual connections and even prospects/customers to message on behalf of me.

I call this approach Draft on Behalf or DOB

Prepping your DOB

Let's break down how to approach this, as I'm not going to ask a customer to message someone if they’ve never spoken to them…

Step 1

Find out how well they know them.

Sounds obvious but I've had a scenario where a colleague lives right next door to my prospect so this would be a slightly different approach to if they'd met them once at an event.

Step 2

Pick your weapon (channel) of choice.

If they're close/friends then opt for Whatsapp or a call and if they're not as close then opt for LinkedIn (if connected) or email.

I usually go for email as the last choice.

Step 3

Set the scene & send your "draft on behalf".

Make it super easy for the person messaging. So share background around why you're reaching out to them, why you think your solution will help & what the desired outcome is.

Why them: Read an article about the company which mentioned they're expanding into the UK market.
Why {your company}: Typically the challenge we hear with expansion into a new market is X & Y, so wondering if they've got a strategy in place to tackle this.
Desired outcome: A reply saying they're happy for an introduction to me.

Writing your DOB

Now we've set the scene we can send them what to message. So let’s go through different scenarios - I’ll split them into “hot” and “cold”.

Hot

Hot = Knows the prospect well (ex-colleague, neighbour lol, met multiple times, etc)

Example 1

"Hows it going Billybob? Speaking to one of my reps Charly and she mentioned reaching out to you after seeing the expansion into the UK market. You used {your company} at {past company}, reckon it's worth a chat with her? Either way let's catch up soon, when are you next in London?"

Example 2

"Hey Billybob, how the devil are you?! Was speaking to Charly Johnson at {your company} who’s been reaching out to you. She said {prospect company} are expanding into the UK market. {your company} helped us a lot when we were expanding into US market, happy for me to intr”

You can see this approach is pretty informal & chilled. It adds in personalisation but quite high level.

Cold

Cold = Familiar with them (met at an event, worked at same company but never met, etc)

Example 1

“Hey {name} - we crossed paths briefly when at Klaviyo - hope everything is well! Your name was brought up by one of our reps Charly - she mentioned seeing the growth in the SDR team when researching you. We’re speaking to a lot of {roles} who are looking at ways to decrease the time it takes to get to a meeting - is this something remotely on your mind? Either way great to see the growth in the team, sounds like an exciting time at Klaviyo!

Example 2

“Hey {name} - we met at SaaStock last year if you remember? You might have seen Charly Johnson in your inbox recently, she mentioned your investor report talking about a reduction in net new logos. We’ve been speaking with a lot of {titles} struggling to get insight into what activities are leading to successes, making it difficult to pivot pipeline gen strategies in order to increase net new logos. Is this something the team is thinking of?”

You can see this approach also adds in that personalisation but has more emphasis on the challenges & what similar companies are focused on.

E A S Y. P E A S Y. R I G H T?

And as mentioned I’ve built a lot of pipeline & got into some of my target accounts from this really simple tactic.

So when you’re struggling to get into an account with the traditional channels, try thinking outside the box with tactics like the above.

Thanks for tuning in & hope this helps!

P.S. found this useful? not so useful? Please feel free to give me feedback I’m always looking for ways to make content more actionable & useful!