In reading an article about the latest hints and tips in using AI for prospecting, a sentence stood out to me. It talked about how “mundane” outbound is. The idea of reaching out, trying to engage prospects in talking about their challenges, problems, concerns, as well as their dreams and aspirations is boring and dull is striking. And, perhaps, it is this mindset that underlies the poor results we get from our prospecting.
Somehow, we seem to have lost the idea there is a human being sitting at the other side of our outbound efforts. Whether it is an email, a social outreach, a text, or phone call, we’ve lost sight of the person we are trying to reach. They are more than an email address or a phone number. They are more than a persona of some type or a certain title or role.
They are human beings.
We see this in our own personal experiences, every day. Whether it’s a customer service call, where the person is just going through the motions, not caring about what we are experiencing. Or the clerk checking us out at a store, totally bored with you as a customer. Or the person at an event or party that has absolutely no interest in who you are, what you care about, or your experience at the event.
We feel bad about those experiences. We don’t feel that people care, that we are heard, or they have any interest in us. And, when treated this way, we tend not to respond.
Why is it so surprising that when we treat our prospects the same way, we don’t get engagement or the reactions we want? Personas don’t buy, titles don’t engage in discussions. It’s people that do these things.
We have lost the humanity in what we do. We have lost the concept that it’s a human being that we are trying to engage. If we view outbound as mundane, dull, or boring, we will demonstrate those behaviors in our engagement strategies.
What if we changed? What if we started to recognize these are human beings? What if we tried connecting with them as human beings?
What if we changed our mindset about the purpose and execution of outbound? Perhaps it would be less mundane.
“Oh, the humanity!” Hard to get sellers (i.e., BDRs & SDRs) to be engaged and care about prospects, when they are treated as cogs in the selling machine.