#92: 40% reply rates with this specific tactic

+actual email we use

Hi Friends,

Hope all of you are having a wonderful start to the year. Things are back in full swing today for many.

Let’s have a great week ahead.

I’ve spoken previously about some of the success we are having with groundswell prospecting. Groundswell prospecting is when you focus some of your outbound effort on getting information from the frontline users at an organization and use that information to go above the line (to the executives).

We have 3 different types of sequences to do this.

One sequence, which one of my SDRs, Clayton, came up with is one that’s based on reaching out to former employees of a company for info.

Going to be diving a bit deeper into why this works so well today and how to execute it.

But first…

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I'm an inbox zero guy.

I've talked a lot about inbox triage and how this affects the chance sellers get an email response.

Most execs have to "triage" their inbox because they get hundreds of emails a day.

This is only getting worse with the rise in AI.

There is no time to go through every single one.

As a manager, across my work email, business and personal email addresses, I get about ~200 emails per day.

I spend about 1-2 hrs a day going through them all.

Luckily, I found Fyxer AI which is now my AI email EA.

I really only have to take action on maybe 5-10% of emails I get.

It saves me about an hour every day.

These now get automatically categorized and helps me auto-draft responses.

30 second set up.

Also why it's more important than ever to really make sure your emails aren't screaming "sales email" ;)

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Here’s how to execute this former employee play and get 40% reply rates.

First of all, in order for this play to work well, you have to reach out to somebody that has departed the company somewhat recently in order to provide you relevant information (things can change pretty quickly at an org).

Let’s say I want to prospect into SAP and Gong accounts.

The best way to find these former employees is with the following filters on LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

1. Make sure their past company is either “SAP” or “Gong”. Also make sure that their current company is no longer “SAP” or “Gong” (Red X below).

2. Filter for Recent Updates - Changed jobs

I suspect the reason that former employees are more willing to provide solid information on an account is that they are no longer tied to the company.

From here, it’s important to be pretty direct with your ask.

Here’s an email that we might send a former employee:

We aren’t always necessarily going for a call. However, if we do, we usually have a list of questions and information that is helpful to us:

Worth giving this strategy a shot :)