“It takes a village to close a deal in this modern age,” says sales consultant Tony Hughes in his new book, “Combo Prospecting.” Hughes emphasizes the importance of “multi-threading” — establishing numerous contacts across multiple divisions at prospect companies. For all of the talk about getting in front of decisions-makers, sales managers should make sure their reps understand that developing relationships lower down the executive chain can be immensely beneficial.
“If one stakeholder says no, go attack the account from another angle. If I start to get crickets from C-levels, I’ll work down the organization like a pyramid, and move slower toward the top. Combo the C-suite on a biweekly basis, maybe even a bimonthly. Combo the VP layer weekly. Combo the operational layer or approvers every 72 hours until you get a genuine ‘no.’ Start high and seek to get yourself sponsored down, but quickly move to driving multi-threaded outreach concurrently.”
Done properly, multi-threading can open 20 opportunities in 100 named accounts in a six-month period, Hughes claims. He recommends selecting 50 dream accounts — “the logos you’d put in a trophy case” — and work the multi-thread strategy to the six to nine decision-makers in each account.
In addition to establishing multiple contacts within a prospect company, it’s important to reach out using multiple tools in rapid sequence. “Prospects are like Dory the Fish — they have short-term memory loss. You must bash in: phone rings, message alert sounds, email chimes, Twitter DM alerts. The combinations themselves become the signal in the noise. The act of fast sequencing of blended touches sticks out because it conveys a kind of pattern-interrupt that makes the prospect think, ‘Wow, Jane is persistent.’”
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