<h2>Announcing Cuda</h2>
<p>Hey everyone</p>
<p>Salespeople worry that AI will take their job, but they shouldn’t.</p>
<p>People like to buy from people. That’s why personal letters like this one work.</p>
<p>It feels great to get on a call with someone who understands you. Someone that can help you identify the right software for your needs - but also talk about how Lebron James really is the goat.</p>
<p>But people say the times are a-changin.</p>
<p>They want you to talk to automated chat bots. To fill out endless forms. To schedule 30 minute windows 8 days in the future.</p>
<p><strong>Fuck.</strong></p>
<p><strong>That.</strong></p>
<p>There will always be a place for a human in the sales process. And you can get an edge now, more than ever, since your competitors are so afraid to hop on a call.</p>
<p>With Cuda, we’re helping companies discover that edge. It’s a redo, a rethink, a simplified,
potent reintroduction of the scheduling process that makes sales people available in one click.</p>
<p>It’s simple. No bullshit to get in the way.</p>
<p>If you’re a high-performance team looking to level up your sales software, <a href="https://cuda.io">sign up here</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/CudaSalesCo">follow us on Twitter</a>!</p>
<p>~ Barracuda Founders: <a href="https://twitter.com/aleckhoury">Alec</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/itstheonlychris">Chris</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/_samsklar">Sam</a>.</p>


Converting leads from interested to on video in 30 seconds.

Announcing Cuda

<h1>Cuda for Marketing: The Ultimate Lead Conversion Solution</h1>
<p>Keeping your sales team fed with high intent leads is hard. You're competing with hundreds of other companies to piece together the perfect combination of SEO, paid ads, and brand stunts to drive traffic.
And even once you have someone interested, there's no guarantee they fill out the form, book a demo and actually show up for the meeting.
That's where Cuda comes in. It's a stupid simple yet incredibly powerful tool that drives high intent leads into video calls with your sales team in one click.</p>
<h2>Embed into Your Website and Prompt Immediate Action</h2>
<p>Cuda seamlessly integrates into your website, allowing you to capture leads effortlessly. By using simple and compelling CTAs, your website visitors can start a call with your team instantly. No more waiting for prospects to book a demo or schedule an appointment. Take advantage of their peak interest and engage with them right away.</p>
<h2>Maximize Outbound Campaigns with Call Responses</h2>
<p>Tired of sending countless emails or direct messages without getting a response? Cuda has the solution. By incorporating Cuda into your outbound campaigns, prospects can easily respond to your communication with a call, rather than a calendar invite. This streamlined approach increases the chances of converting leads into valuable customers.</p>
<h2>Enhance Paid Ads Performance</h2>
<p>Paid ads are a valuable tool for generating leads, but they often fall short in prompt customer engagement. Cuda solves this problem by enabling the first available team member to respond and initiate the sales process immediately. By capturing leads' attention and acting swiftly, you can stay ahead of your competitors and increase your chances of closing deals.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Did you know? According to research, contacting prospects within the first minute of showing interest can lead to a staggering 391% increase in deal closures.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>How Can Cuda Benefit Your Marketing Team?</h2>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Optimize Landing Page Conversion
Traditional "booking a demo" processes can be cumbersome and deter potential customers. With Cuda, your prospects only need to make one click to connect with your team on a call. By reducing friction and simplifying the process, Cuda significantly improves call conversion rates, resulting in higher customer interest.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Create More Pipeline Opportunities
Cuda ensures that your sales team is never idle. Every minute spent at their desks becomes an opportunity to engage with leads in real-time. By leveraging Cuda's instant call functionality, your team can proactively reach out to potential customers, increasing your chances of conversions and revenue growth.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Control the Narrative and Improve Close Rates
Timing is crucial in sales. With Cuda, you can talk to your prospects at the exact moment they express the highest intent, before your competitors have a chance to intervene. By establishing a connection when prospects are most receptive, you can shape the narrative in your favor, leading to higher close rates and a competitive edge.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Seamlessly Sync Leads with Your CRM
Cuda integrates seamlessly with popular Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms like HubSpot and Salesforce. By syncing leads directly into your CRM, you can ensure that your marketing stack remains connected and your valuable data stays in sync. Simplify lead management and enhance collaboration</p>
</li>
</ol>


How marketing teams use Cuda to create more pipeline.

Cuda for Marketing: The Ultimate Lead Conversion Solution

<h1>CudaClose for Sales Teams</h1>
<h2>Boost Sales and Accelerate Your Sales Cycle with Instant Video Calls</h2>
<p>In today's market, it's crucial to stay ahead of your competitors and engage with prospects at the right moment. CudaClose is the ultimate solution that empowers your sales team to engage leads at their moment of highest intent. With instant video calls and a range of powerful features, CudaClose ensures that you're always in the driver's seat.</p>
<h2>How Can CudaClose Benefit Your Sales Team?</h2>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Improve Call Conversion Rates
Converting live demos into sales can be challenging. However, with CudaClose, prospects only need to make one click to connect with your team through a video call. By reducing friction and streamlining the process, CudaClose increases the number of calls, leading to higher conversion rates and more successful demos.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Increase Win Rates by Engaging at Peak Interest
Timing is everything in sales. CudaClose allows you to engage with prospects at their moment of highest intent, giving you an advantage over your competitors. By establishing a connection when prospects are most receptive, you can improve your win rates and secure more deals.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Shorten Sales Cycles and Reduce Deal Losses
Long sales cycles can often result in missed opportunities and lost deals. On average, demos are booked eight days in advance, and that's before considering rescheduling. By initiating the first call as soon as possible, CudaClose enables you to close deals eight days faster, minimizing the chances of losing prospects to a slow sales cycle.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Drive Expansion Revenue and Increase ACV
For Product-Led Growth (PLG) teams, CudaClose offers a valuable opportunity to increase Average Contract Value (ACV). By making sales representatives available for chat to discuss use cases, you can encourage prospects to upgrade to the next tier and maximize revenue potential.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h2>How Does CudaClose Work?</h2>
<p>Share your link or embed it on your website: Whether through the CudaClose widget, a popup, or a custom booking page, you can easily share your CudaClose link and make it accessible to prospects.</p>
<p>If you're online, prospects can initiate a call immediately. In cases where you're not available, visitors have the option to schedule a call for later, ensuring a seamless experience.</p>
<p>CudaClose sends notifications through Slack and routes calls to the next available team member, ensuring a smooth transition from lead to sales conversation.</p>


Boost sales and accelerate your sales cycle with instant vidoe calls.

How sales teams leverage instant calls to convert more leads.

<h1>Boost Sales Efficiency with CudaClose + Calendly Integration</h1>
<p>Are you looking for a seamless solution that combines the power of instant sales calls with the convenience of scheduling future meetings? Look no further! The CudaClose + Calendly integration allows you to leverage your existing Calendly link as a fallback option when your team is unavailable to meet prospects immediately.</p>
<h2>Simplify Sales Engagement with CudaClose + Calendly</h2>
<p>With CudaClose and Calendly working together, you can enhance your sales process and ensure that you never miss an opportunity. The integration requires no coding or complex setup. Simply copy and paste your Calendly link into the CudaClose dashboard, and you're ready to go!</p>
<h2>Benefits of CudaClose + Calendly Integration</h2>
<p>Be the First to Engage and Win Deals. Statistics show that 50% of sales go to the company that contacts the prospect first. Timing is crucial in sales, and being the first to connect with potential customers can give you a significant advantage. However, traditional scheduling methods often require leads to book meetings days or weeks in advance, allowing competitors to step in or prospects to lose interest. By utilizing CudaClose + Calendly, you can meet with prospects immediately, capitalizing on their highest level of interest. This approach shortens sales cycles and increases your chances of closing deals successfully.</p>
<h2>Seamless Scheduling for Optimal Convenience</h2>
<p>The CudaClose + Calendly integration provides a simple and effective way to manage your scheduling process. When you combine Calendly with CudaClose, you gain access to an availability link or widget that can be used across various platforms, including landing pages, outbound emails, and paid ads. When a prospect expresses interest in connecting with your team, they are prompted to provide their details, such as name and email. If they are ready for an immediate conversation and one of your team members is online, they can launch an instant video chat. However, if they are not available or your team is offline, they can easily schedule a meeting using the familiar Calendly interface. It's a seamless and efficient process for both you and your prospects.</p>
<h2>Unlock the Full Potential of Your Sales Process</h2>
<p>By integrating CudaClose with Calendly, you can streamline your sales engagement and maximize your productivity. Say goodbye to missed opportunities and hello to efficient scheduling that caters to your prospects' needs. Don't let valuable leads slip away due to unnecessary waiting periods. Take advantage of CudaClose + Calendly and connect with prospects when their interest is at its peak.</p>


How teams supercharge Calendly with CudaClose instant video calls.

Boost Sales Efficiency with CudaClose + Calendly Integration

<h2>Step 1 - Create your list</h2>
<p>To start, we'll need a list of employee names &#x26; company website domains. Here's the output we're looking for:</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/barracuda-app-images/blog/blog-find-emails-free-contact-list.webp" alt="Contact List"></p>
<p>You can generate this list however you like, but LinkedIn has one of the most up to date and robust employment information databases.</p>
<p>Here are searched for "sales development representative" and got 750k results.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/barracuda-app-images/blog/blog-find-emails-free-linkedin-search.webp" alt="LinkedIn Search"></p>
<p>I went profile by profile and grabbed their first &#x26; last name as well as the website domain of their current company.</p>
<h2>Step 2 - Generate email combinations</h2>
<p>Next, we're going to make some educated guesses of potential email addresses. Fortunately for us, most email addresses fit into a common set of templates:</p>
<ul>
<li>First.Last@domain.com</li>
<li>FLast@domain.com</li>
<li>First@domain.com</li>
<li>First_Last@domain.com</li>
<li>FirstLast@domain.com</li>
<li>FirstL@domain.com</li>
<li>F.Last@domain.com</li>
<li>First.L@domain.com</li>
<li>FL@domain.com</li>
</ul>
<p>If you're comfortable with google sheet formulas, you can generate these combinations yourself. If you're unsure, you can <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dqAmcjS7mfIxTqEFbqqIodIMz0aBSfizgUkYDHsEuWE/edit?usp=sharing">copy my template here</a>.</p>
<h2>Step 3 - Hover &#x26; verify</h2>
<p>Now we're on to the final step, leveraging google contact enrichment to find the right email.</p>
<p>If you hover over a cell that contains an email address, you'll get one of 3 results.</p>
<p>If it's blue, it's not a valid email and you'll need to keep looking.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/barracuda-app-images/blog/blog-find-emails-free-unverified.webp" alt="Unverified Email"></p>
<p>If it's any color other than the stock blue, it's a valid email.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/barracuda-app-images/blog/blog-find-emails-free-verified-color.webp" alt="Verified Email Color"></p>
<p>If your target has added a profile picture to their google account, you'll see it here. Of course these are also valid emails.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/barracuda-app-images/blog/blog-find-emails-free-verified-profile-picture.webp" alt="Verified Email Profile Picture"></p>
<p>As I go, I copy the valid emails and add them to a "validated email" column. Of course you won't find a valid email for every account. It's possible the LinkedIn data is outdated, the company has a unique setup for email domains not covered here, or they issued employee emails on a different domain than the primary website.</p>
<p>You may find that every once in a while you won't get a contact pop up when hovering over an email cell.
When this happens, just click into a different tab and come back and you'll start getting the pop up again.</p>
<p>That's all for this tutorial. Of course, you can do this much faster through buying a list of emails on <a href="https://www.zoominfo.com">ZoomInfo</a> or <a href="https://www.apollo.io/">Apollo</a>, but this is the best way to do it for free.</p>


How to find & verify business emails for free. All you need is Google Sheets & LinkedIn. 

Find & Verify Business emails for free

<h2>The Ultimate Guide to High Ticket Closing: How to Succeed in Remote Sales</h2>
<p>If you’re joining the world of high ticket sales, you’re in luck. Selling a high ticket item is a great privilege, because with a high price point you and your team can afford to offer an incredible product or service.</p>
<p>I think most salespeople would agree that they feel the most fulfilled when they are driving great outcomes for their customers. And that’s what you get with high ticket sales. If you’re trying to charge a high price point without a product or service that’s incredibly valuable, you may need to reconsider your price point.</p>
<p>In this article, we’ll look at<br>
(1) What are high ticket sales and how that definition can mean different things to different companies based on the context<br>
(2) The Skills You Need to Succeed in High Ticket Closing<br>
(3) Tips, Tools and Resources for Remote High Ticket Sellers</p>
<h3>Section 1: What are High Ticket Sales?</h3>
<p>The first time I saw an enterprise contract - I was in shock. My company had just received renewal terms from our primary data provider. They were seeking $80k for the next year’s service.</p>
<p>I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had never spent $80k on software in my life. In fact, I’m hesitant to this day to pay 99 cents for an iPhone app.</p>
<p>During the conversation with our vendor, I shared my trepidation. He guided me, through a thoughtful set of questions, how much we had saved in the past year using their software. Their data solution was instrumental to our business. And to build it in house, we’d need 3 full time engineers which would run us a minimum of $600k (not to mention the overhead of hiring and training new employees).</p>
<p>Next, he walked me through the time and resources his company had spent developing their product and the ongoing support staff they employ to provide us with near instant SLAs.</p>
<p>And finally, he lopped on a nice discount. Over the course of 30 minutes, I went from appalled by the asking price to feeling we were getting away with highway robbery on our deal.
Is $80k the threshold for a high ticket sale? In the moment, it certainly felt like it met the criteria.</p>
<p>As a result of the recent Elon Musk led Twitter layoffs, they announced they were able to <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/twitter-cuts-salesforce-bill-75-as-more-buyers-scrutinize-software-spending">reduce their Salesforce contract from $20 million to $5 million</a>.</p>
<p>In context, Twitter may look at our $80k contract as pocket change.</p>
<p>The point of my story is not to set a numerical benchmark for high ticket sales - it’s to show that the contract value is not the only indicator as it’s highly context dependent.</p>
<p>Another benchmark for high ticket sales may be that the sales process is human driven. High ticket sales, as opposed to low ticket sales, can include a human in the process because the revenue from a deal is high enough to cover a salesperson’s salary. Moreover, high ticket products tend to be more bespoke, rather than out of the box, and benefit from human led consultation.</p>
<p>Human driven sales is not a perfect proxy either however. Many luxury goods, like Louis Vuitton luggage, can sell for tens of thousands of dollars to buyers who purchase online without ever speaking to a representative. And while these goods are handmade and have great craftsmanship, they are not bespoke and do not require consultation.</p>
<p>In general, high ticket sales meet the following criteria:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are >$1k in cost</li>
<li>Have a human in the loop for both parties</li>
<li>Have negotiable / bespoke pricing</li>
<li>Involve an ongoing relationship between the company and the customer</li>
</ul>
<p>For the rest of this article, we’ll limit our focus to sales driven go-to-market functions for high ticket B2B products. If you instead want to learn how to sell high ticket luxury consumer goods, you should <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Luxury-Strategy-Break-Marketing-Brands/dp/0749464917/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=ed09c2c0-2c64-44da-ae1a-038b35c0443b">check out this book</a>.</p>
<h3>Section 2: The Skills You Need to Succeed in High Ticket Closing</h3>
<p>When most people think of sales, they picture a charismatic closer who creates urgency and overcomes every objection that hurdles their way. This caricature of a salesman is great at selling knives door to door. But he can’t sell an enterprise contract to save his life.</p>
<p>Why is high ticket closing different from low ticket sales?</p>
<p>Low ticket products are a one size fits all solution. You don’t often need to know your client well to make the sale. Everyone needs steak knives. If you focus your pitch on why your steak knives are best, and create social pressure to buy, you can get your sale and be on your way.</p>
<p>While everyone needs steak knives, not everyone needs an $80k fintech data provider. And even if you do, it may not be immediately apparent why it’s worth $80k.</p>
<p>The sales rep who sold me was great at asking questions, not pitching. Through his questions, he came to understand me, my company and our goals. He got me to talk about how his product would help us achieve those goals. By the end of his questioning, he didn’t even have to pitch.
His second most valuable skill was responsiveness. He answered my emails promptly. He returned my phone calls. And he left me with the impression that he was the type of person I like working with. I don’t care if I enjoy working with my steak knives salesmen because I’ll never see him again after the sale! My software sales rep, on the other hand, was my main point of content for another full year of service.</p>
<p>In summary, asking great questions and responsiveness will get you far. If you want to dive deeper on how to ask great questions, check out <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/spin-selling-the-ultimate-guide">Neil Rackham’s book SPIN Selling</a>.</p>
<p>Beware expensive courses - I won't link them here but it's easy to find a number of gurus offering to teach you the secrets of sales for $5k. Instead, opt for free high ticket closing courses you can find on Youtube or Spotify from folks like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@AlexHormozi">Alex Hormozi</a>.</p>
<h3>Section 3: Tips, Tools and Resources for Remote High Ticket Closers</h3>
<p>Whether you like it or not, Enterprise sales has moved from an in person, golf course driven industry to remote video conferencing. Once you’ve accepted this fact, you can embrace the benefits and fill the gaps where possible.</p>
<p>First and foremost, you need a decent home video setup. I emphasize decent here because I think a lot of people went overboard during the pandemic. The only requirements are that you (1) position a light behind your camera to shine on your face (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082QHRZFW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&#x26;psc=1">here’s the light I use</a>) (2) have a quiet, distraction free environment. If you want to level up further, check out this guide.</p>
<p>Next, consider how you can leverage the strength of remote sales. Since you no longer need to travel from meeting to meeting, you can spend the extra time taking more sales calls &#x26; following up with leads. Packing your calendar means more commission for you.</p>
<p>More importantly, since a face to face video chat is only one click away, you can reduce your time to responding to inbound leads to zero. You can drive high intent leads into instant video calls with you and your time using <a href="https://cuda.io/">Cuda</a>. Video calls, rather than phone calls, help drive personal connection.</p>
<p>When possible, leverage in person meetings as an added boost for rapport building. Keep track of where your key accounts are located and reach out to line up meetings when you’re in town.</p>
<h3>Conclusion:</h3>
<p>In conclusion, the best high ticket closers are great listeners and create rapport just as well via zoom as they can in person. High ticket sales are great for you (since you can earn huge commissions) and great for the client (because you can profitably offer a great product + service given the price point).</p>


High ticket closing is the process by which business sell high value products and services. Read our tips and tricks for high ticket closing in a remote sales world.

The Ultimate Guide to High Ticket Closing

<h2>Hubspot Lead Routing</h2>
<h3>Who Should Read This Article</h3>
<p>If you've decided to run your marketing &#x26; sales funnel through Hubspot (great choice btw!) and want to ensure you're set up correctly so that you can</p>
<ul>
<li>efficiently distribute qualified leads to your sales team</li>
<li>effectively &#x26; efficiently nurture leads from discovery to closed won</li>
<li>ensure no leads are slipping through the cracks</li>
</ul>
<p>you've come to the right place.</p>
<p>If you're trying to evaluate Hubspot vs other CRMs this article is not for you. Moreover, if you are unsure of what makes a lead "qualified" for your product or serve, you have <a href="https://knowledge.apollo.io/hc/en-us/articles/4416471135245-Identify-Your-Ideal-Customer-Profile-ICP-">some homework to do</a> before you dive in here.</p>
<p>Everything I'm sharing here I've learned through setting up the Hubspot implementation for Cuda and many of the clients I work with. I also reviewed all of the <a href="https://academy.hubspot.com/">Hubspot Academy videos</a> as of June 15th, 2023 to ensure I'm up to date on their latest recommendations.</p>
<h3>Views &#x26; Lists</h3>
<p>For companies just getting started, you can get far with views &#x26; lists. A “view” is a filtered segment of your CRM entries. You can create a <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/crm-setup/create-customize-and-manage-your-saved-views">filtered view of any object in Hubspot</a>, including Contacts, Companies, Deals and Tickets. Views are great for quick check-ins on the status of your pipeline or for identifying a subset of CRM entries that need action. Views are easy to create but can’t be used as a part of Hubspot automations. If you want to run automations on a list of Contacts or Companies, you need to create a <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/lists/create-active-or-static-lists">list</a>.</p>
<p>You can only create lists of Contacts &#x26; Companies (unlike with Saved Views where you can segment any object in Hubspot). Lists can be enrolled in a Hubspot automation workflow and are also commonly used for sending a one off email blast. You can create a list based on object properties as well as behaviors / past actions.</p>
<p>The simplest way to segment contacts and companies in Hubspot is to create &#x26; save a view on the contact / company records page. For this section, I’m going to refer to just Contacts for simplicity but the same can apply to Companies. Navigate to Companies -> Companies. From there, choose “Add View” and once you’ve created your view, you can add additional filters.</p>
<p>To create a list, go to Contacts -> Lists and choose “Create List”.</p>
<p>There are two types of lists. A static list will consist of contacts that fit your criteria at the time you create the list. This is good for a one off action, like sending an email blast. An active list updates over time. For example, you may have an active list of Sales Qualified Leads. As new leads fit your qualification criteria, they are added to the list (and can automatically be enrolled in a workflow, such as being assigned to a sales rep and triggering an SMS notification to let them know to reach out!).</p>
<h3>Lead Segmentation</h3>
<p>You can create views &#x26; lists to your heart's content, but without a clear plan of attack then you’ll have a jumbled mess of contacts &#x26; companies and deals will fall through the cracks.</p>
<p>Hubspot comes with a built-in <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/contacts/use-lifecycle-stages">Lifecycle stage</a> property designed to keep things on track. The life cycle stage exists to track contacts &#x26; companies as you nurture them from a cold lead to a customer.</p>
<p>The default setup will get you far, but you can customize it by going to Settings, Data Management, Objects, Contacts, Lifecycle Stage. Here you can update stages as well as see / update when Hubspot will automatically update stages. By default, Hubspot will keep the lifecycle stage of associated contacts &#x26; companies in sync.</p>
<p>Maintaining accurate lifecycle stages will make life easy for your marketing and sales team. For example, you may want to let all existing customers know of a new feature and blast an email to everyone in the customer or evangelist stage. If you want to announce a holiday first time discount, you’ll only want to contact companies that haven’t yet signed up.</p>
<h3>Lead Routing</h3>
<p>When a lead indicates they have intent to buy, it’s time to update their Lifecycle stage to “Sales Qualified Lead” and assign them to an account executive!</p>
<p>You can set up workflow automation to update the account owner of every contact that moves to the “Sales Qualified Lead” lifecycle stage. You may also choose to pair this with an SMS or email notification to let your sales rep know.</p>
<p>How do you know that a lead has intent to buy? One option is to put a Hubspot powered “contact sales” form on your website. Go to Marketing -> Lead Capture -> Forms to create a new form. You may choose to set every contact that fills out the form to be an SQL or use form entry to filter for the best quality leads.</p>
<p>Note - <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/forms/analyze-form-submissions-data#:~:text=It%20can%20take%20up%20to,or%20create%20a%20custom%20report.">form entries take several minutes</a> to propagate into Hubspot. <a href="https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/25649/file-13535879-pdf/docs/mit_study.pdf">Contacting leads within the first 5 minutes</a> can have a dramatic impact on conversion rates so this delay can be costly.</p>
<p>If your goal is to book as many meetings for your sales team as possible, you can ditch the form and send prospects straight to a scheduling page. Go to Sales -> Meetings -> Create Scheduling Page where you can set up individual meeting links or a round robin page to rotate through all your reps.</p>
<h3>Lead Scoring</h3>
<p>If you have more leads per month than you can handle, then go ahead and pat yourself on the back because that’s a great problem to have. For the vast majority of companies, you can stop reading now and implement the lead routing strategies I went over in the last section.</p>
<p>If you’re still here, I’ll assume your sales team is swamped with qualified leads. <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/crm-setup/set-up-score-properties-to-qualify-leads">Lead scoring</a> will enable you to prioritize your prospects with the most potential. Your contacts and companies come with a pre-built “Hubspot score” property. You can customize this property to continually update so that you can stack rank leads based on potential. You may choose to bump someone’s score if they download your company’s e-book, visit the pricing page, or fill out a contact sales form. You can also use a platform like <a href="https://clearbit.com/solutions/data-enrichment">Clearbit</a> to enrich contact data and bump leads at large companies or who’s job title fits your buyer persona.</p>
<p>Scoring your leads will allow you to set up more granular automations. You may choose to assign any lead with a 90+ score to your top Account Executive to receive white glove treatment and email leads with a score &#x3C;50 with a link to self-serve onboarding.</p>
<h3>Wrap Up</h3>
<p>If you're an early stage company just getting started, you can get far initially with just filtered views &#x26; static lists. As you start to achieve some scale, it will be worthwhile to update the Lifecycle Stage property so no leads fall through the cracks. If you're ever lucky enough to have too many inbound leads than you know what to do with, you'll want to set up Lead Scoring so you spend your time with the most important contacts.</p>
<p>If you run into blockers or are unsure how to make this work for your particular use case, you can check out <a href="https://academy.hubspot.com/">Hubspot Academy</a>, the <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/">Hubspot Knowledge Base</a> or email me at sam 'at' barracuda.io.</p>


Hubspot Lead Routing - Create a simple yet scalable workflow to distribute qualified leads to your team. No third party tools required.

Hubspot Lead Routing

<h2>Instant Scheduling</h2>
<h3>Finding the right instant scheduling tool in 2023</h3>
<p>The right tool should integrate with your CRM, support your lead routing criteria, and doesn't need to break the bank.</p>
<p>We recently did a breakdown of the top scheduling tools for B2B sales teams. We consolidate our findings into an easy to scan, feature comparison chart that you can find <a href="/blog/sales-scheduling-tools">here</a>.</p>
<h3>Be Flexible</h3>
<p>More often than not, when I share my schedule with a lead based on the other side of the world, they never end up booking a meeting with me. Initially, I tried to overcome this problem by saying "if none of the times are convenient for you, I'm happy to work off your schedule!". That strategy never worked for me.</p>
<p>Eventually I decided to open up a new meeting block from 8pm - 10pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Suddenly I had no trouble finding time with leads in India.</p>
<p>The point is that the more availability you can offer your prospective clients, the more likely they are to convert. You'd think that if you sent someone your calendar and there were no available times, but in practice they just bounce off your page and get distracted by something else.</p>
<h3>Provide Options</h3>
<p>This will sound counterintuitive to my previous point, that you should be flexible, but when booking a meeting you should always provide a suggested time.</p>
<p>By suggesting a time, you reduce the cognitive load for your prospect. All they need to do is check their calendar and see if they're free at the time you suggested! Of course, you'll want to include your full calendar in the event the suggested time doesn't work for your prospect.</p>
<p>One other added benefit is that this will enable you to encourage your prospect to talk sooner rather than later. Which leads me to my last point...</p>
<h3>Sooner is Better Than Later</h3>
<p>If I had a nickel for every time a prospect picked a time on my calendar >7 days in the future, I could retire from my job in sales! Inevitably, these prospects end up forgetting why they booked the meeting or no showing entirely. Anything can happen from the time they feel motivated to book a call to the scheduled demo.</p>
<p>By suggesting times, you can guide prospects to meet within the next few days. You're doing both of you a favor - they get faster resolution and you increase your close rate and shorten your sales cycle.</p>
<p>Even better than booking for later is meeting right away. Of course, that's where <a href="https://cuda.io">Cuda</a> comes in. With Cuda, you can route high intent leads to video calls instantly.</p>


Instant Scheduling - How to pick your instant scheduling provider & configure it to book more demos.

Instant Scheduling

<h2>What you’ll find here:</h2>
<ul>
<li>How to optimize form conversion</li>
<li>What to do after the form submission</li>
<li>Best lead capture tools for your use case</li>
</ul>
<h2>How to optimize form conversion</h2>
<h3>Ask for only what you need</h3>
<p>When setting up your form, you'll face a major tradeoff. You want to collect as much information as possible but you don't want to ask for too much and turn people away. Shorter forms <a href="https://www.jotform.com/blog/conversion-rate-influencers/">perform almost 2x better</a> than longer forms.
A simple rule of thumb is to only ask for what you need.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that there's a lot of information you can get about a company from their domain alone. Rather than asking someone about their company size, employee count, and region, get the data from an enrichment provider like <a href="https://clearbit.com">Clearbit</a>.</p>
<p>Naturally people are more hesitant to part with some information than others. It would be obvious to most that if you ask for a social security number your conversion rate would plummet. But even asking for a <a href="https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/psychology-of-choice-conversion-rates/">personal cellphone number can cause a 52% dropoff</a>.</p>
<p>When possible, make form fields optional and create clear visual indicators around what's required and what's not.</p>
<h3>Make the form prominent</h3>
<p>Obviously you'll get more form submissions if more people find it. The jury is still out on <a href="https://www.gravityforms.com/blog/web-form-placement-above-or-below-the-fold/#:~:text=There%20is%20no%20right%20or,leave%20form%20positioning%20to%20chance">whether your webform has to be above the fold</a> so you'll want to test different placements for your usecase.</p>
<p>If you're form is targeted towards enterprise customers, place it on the pricing page. If your form is targeted towards developers, include it in your API docs.</p>
<p>Website visitors are often too lazy to read everything on your website. Use contrasting colors to draw people's attention.</p>
<h3>Copy writing</h3>
<p>A potential buyer's decision about whether to fill out your form starts long before they start filling it out. If your website conveys a clear and compelling offer, then potential buyer's will feel incentivized to give up their information. Customer testimonials are a powerful tool for improving website conversion. Check out <a href="https://twitter.com/adrianalfieri/status/1651620202772320256">this case study</a> on Ramp to see how they leverage their customer's stories to drive new sales.</p>
<h3>Prompt people before they "abandon" the cart</h3>
<p>For ecommerce sellers, there's nothing quite as frustrating as abandoned shopping carts. Through a combination of exit intent popups &#x26; automated email follow up, <a href="https://www.optimonk.com/shopping-cart-abandonment-statistics/#:~:text=According%20to%20Moosend%2C%2045%25%20of,roughly%203%20of%2010%20customers">ecommerce sellers see a 27% increase in conversion rates</a>. There's no reason we can't apply the same for B2B sales!
With this in mind, make sure you ask for the most important information first. If they only fill out one form field, we want to make sure it's their email.</p>
<h3>Track &#x26; test</h3>
<p>What works for others isn't guaranteed to work for your specific use case and target customer. Track every step of the funnel from website visitors -> form starts -> form submissions. Consider all of the tips I shared above to be levers you can pull while you test what works best for you.</p>
<p>As a benchmark, consider that the <a href="https://wpforms.com/online-form-statistics-facts/#form-conversions">average form conversion rate is around 21%</a>.</p>
<h2>What happens after the form</h2>
<p>If you're going to do a lot of work to make more people fill out your form, you better make good use of the submissions you get. In your form submission acknowledgement message, be transparent about what they should expect next.</p>
<p>Speed to lead matters. There's a <a href="https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/25649/file-13535879-pdf/docs/mit_study.pdf">100x difference</a> between following up in 5 minutes vs 30 minutes.</p>
<p>If they're looking to talk to your sales team and you've determined they are a qualified lead, give them scheduling options directly (using a tool like <a href="https://calendly.com">Calendly</a>) or let them launch an instant video call with your team (using a tool like <a href="https://cuda.io">Cuda</a>).</p>
<p>If they're expecting an ebook, set up an email automation so they get what they're looking for right away.</p>
<h2>The Best Lead Capture Tools</h2>
<h3>Best for booking sales demos</h3>
<p><a href="https://calendly.com">Calendly</a> is a free appointment scheduling tool that syncs with your calendar and lets prospects grab time that's convenient for them and you. <a href="https://cuda.io">Cuda</a> is an instant video call platform that lets prospects launch a call with you instantly if you're online - and schedule for later when you're not.</p>
<h3>Best for Salesforce lead capture</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.salesforce.com/products/marketing-cloud/marketing-automation/?redirect=pardot.com">Pardot</a> (aka Marketing Cloud Engagement) became Salesforce's in house marketing automation and lead capture tool when it was acquired in 2013. If you're looking for a third party solution, <a href="https://business.adobe.com/products/marketo/adobe-marketo.html">Marketo</a> (which coincidentally was also part of an acquisition to Adobe in 2018), integrates with Salesforce as well.</p>
<h3>Best for Hubspot lead capture</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.hubspot.com">Hubspot</a> has it's own <a href="https://www.hubspot.com/products/marketing/forms">free form product</a>.</p>
<h3>Best free lead capture tools</h3>
<p>There are a number of free(mium) form products, from <a href="https://www.typeform.com/">Typeform</a> to <a href="https://www.jotform.com/">Jotform</a> to <a href="https://www.google.com/forms/about/">Google Forms</a>.</p>


How to optimize your lead capture forms to make your website a lead generation machine. 

Lead Capture Forms

<h2>Lead Routing Software - How to Route High Value Prospects</h2>
<p>If you're already familiar with the general concepts of lead routing - you can skip the introduction and jump straight to my recommendations.</p>
<p>Lead Routing is the process of collecting incoming sales leads and assigning them to members of your sales team. For larger companies, it's often automated to save time and ensure that potential customers receive quick service.</p>
<p>Before choosing and implementing a lead routing system, it's important to understand which factors are most important to you and your company. Some questions you should answer are:<br>
(1) Is my sales team specialized? Are there some incoming leads that need to be serviced by a specific (or subset of) my reps?<br>
(2) Do leads need to go through my SDR team before they talk to an account executive?<br>
(3) Do I need to assign leads based on geographical territories?<br>
(4) Do I need to route leads to different team members based on the lead source?<br>
(5) Do I need to check each lead in my CRM to see if it's already been assigned to a rep?<br>
(6) Do I want to filter out "low quality" leads?<br>
(7) Do I need to make sure that each of my reps are getting their "fair share" of incoming leads?<br>
(8) What apps in my tech stack need to integrate seamlessly with my lead routing software?</p>
<p>I recognize all of these questions might seem overwhelming. Fortunately, many of them may not apply to your use case. Early stage companies tend to have much simpler routing requirements and only as the sales team grows the lead routing rules balloon in complexity.</p>
<p>Once you've answered the above questions, the last thing to consider is how much you are willing to compromise on your lead routing requirements. The faster &#x26; more flexible you are in sharing your team's time with a prospect, the better their experience will be.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, complex routing requirements go directly at odds with providing prospects flexibility. For example, would you rather force an enterprise lead to wait for a week to talk to your team if your only enterprise rep is on vacation? Or are you willing to connect him with a mid-market rep that's available tomorrow? That's for you to experiment with and decide.</p>
<h2>Recommendations</h2>
<p>Now, on to my recommendations (sharing the table of contents below in case you want to jump ahead to a specific section).</p>
<ul>
<li>Best lead routing software for round robin</li>
<li>Best lead routing software for complex distribution rules</li>
<li>Best lead routing software on a budget</li>
<li>Best lead routing software for one person sales teams</li>
<li>Best lead routing software for companies with a big budget that want more</li>
<li>Best lead routing software for developer led orgs</li>
<li>Best lead routing software to optimize speed to lead</li>
</ul>
<h3>Best Lead Routing Software for Round Robin</h3>
<p>Both <a href="https://calendly.com/">Calendly</a> and <a href="https://www.hubspot.com/products/sales/schedule-meeting">Hubspot Meetings</a> offer great Round Robin scheduling tools.</p>
<p>To create a round robin link in Calendly, you'll need to add all of your sales team to a Calendly Team plan ($20/user/mo). You'll have the option to optimize for availability (allowing prospects to pick any slot from your team's pooled availability) or optimize for equal distribution (where Calendly will hide availability from a particular team member if they've received an unfair share of meetings).</p>
<p>To create a round robin link via Hubspot Meetings, you'll need to upgrade to Sales Hub starter ($10/mo/user, min two users). You'll have the option to optimize for availability or prioritize the contact owner (Hubspot will check if the contact exists in your CRM and is already owned by a rep, in which case they'll only be shown times to meet with their assigned rep).</p>
<p>Both Calendly &#x26; Hubspot offer a secure, trusted Round Robin Scheduling platform for an approachable price.</p>
<h3>Best Lead Routing Software for Complex Distribution Rules</h3>
<p>If you need to route leads based on region, company size, or product type, you should check out Chili Piper. Chili Piper was founded specifically to address the import, and thorny, problem of enabling complex lead routing while also integrating with the rest of the revenue tech stack.</p>
<p>Revenue Hero was founded to offer much of the same functionality as Chili Piper at a lower price point. It's particularly attractive for smaller teams with complex needs because unlike Chili Piper, there's no platform fee.</p>
<p>Calendly recently announced their own routing product. Initally calendly was the inch deep, mild wide scheduling app. As a result, it left space for Chili Piper and Revenue Hero to sprout up and win the enterprise sales market. Calendly is working to win the market back and continues to ship more complex routing functionality.</p>
<h3>Best Lead Routing Software on a Budget</h3>
<p>Both <a href="https://calendly.com/">Calendly</a> and <a href="https://www.hubspot.com/products/sales/schedule-meeting">Hubspot Meetings</a> are great for teams on a budget.</p>
<p>You can create an individual meeting link for free on the Calendly Basic plan. You can also create a free individual meeting link for each of your team members using Hubspot Meetings.</p>
<p>For more advanced integrations, routing, and round robin set ups, you'll need to upgrade. Fortunately the Calendly team plan is only $20/user/mo while Hubspot Sales Starter is $10/user/mo.</p>
<h3>Best Lead Routing Software for One Person Sales Teams</h3>
<p><a href="https://calendly.com/">Calendly</a> is great for one person sales teams. If you have a one person sales team, you likely don't have much routing to do other than potentially filtering out unqualified leads.</p>
<p>You can create a personal meeting link, for free, under Calendly's basic plan.</p>
<p>If you're already using Hubspot for your CRM, you should also consider creating a free personal meeting link with Hubspot Meetings.</p>
<p>Cal.com is also free for individuals and leaves you plenty of room to grow as you onboard more team members.</p>
<h3>Best Lead Routing Software for Companies with a big budget that want more</h3>
<p><a href="https://qualified.com/">Qualified.com</a> and <a href="https://drift.com">Drift</a> are more expensive and offer more full fledged marketing insights than the other products mentioned. Both products deanonymize website traffic, meaning they give you data on who's visiting your website, what actions they are taking and when. They also both offer live chat bot functionality which enables revenue teams to proactively message website visitors and encourage them to book meetings.</p>
<p>Both products are primarily for enterprise companies and have the price tag to prove it!</p>
<h3>Best Lead Routing Software for Developer Led Orgs</h3>
<p><a href="https://cal.com">Cal.com</a> is the best scheduling and lead routing tool for developer led orgs. It's completely open sourced with a great API and thorough documentation.</p>
<p>Their team plan ($15/user/mo) has plenty of built in functionality to support Round Robin, advanced routing, and team workflows. Where Cal.com really shines though is if you and your team have the desire and resources to build custom solutions on and around the open platform.</p>
<h3>Best Lead Routing Software to Optimize Speed to Lead</h3>
<p><a href="https://cuda.io">Cuda</a> is the best scheduling platform that want to optimize speed to lead. Companies that use Cuda see substantial improvements in conversion by pushing high intent leads to instead video calls, rather than having them schedule a time for a later date.</p>


Lead Routing Software - How to Route High Value Prospects. Optimizing your lead routing automation to ensure inbound leads receive high quality service quickly is essential for any high performing B2B sales team.

Lead Routing Software

<h2>Generating B2B Leads on LinkedIn</h2>
<p>There's a saying in B2B sales - only 5% of your qualified leads are ready to buy at any given time. Therefore, any good lead gen strategy will involve not only casting a wide net, but also showing up again and again for your qualified leads so you're top of mind when they're ready to buy.</p>
<p>In this article I'm going to cover how I use a combination of targeted connection requests, DMs, and consistent posting to generate 10s of thousands of impressions and dozens of leads per month.</p>
<p>And don't worry, you don't need to be a certified LinkedIn influencer for this to work. I'm not a LinkedIn influencer. I have only 2,337 followers, most of which are just standard LinkedIn connections. But my posts get an average of 20k impressions. That's a lot of free impressions!</p>
<h3>LinkedIn Growth Channels</h3>
<p>On LinkedIn, there are 4 channels for acquiring leads. You can
(1) Create content that shows up in the timeline
(2) DM target accounts in their regular LinkedIn inbox
(3) DM target accounts via LinkedIn Sales Navigator
(4) Run paid ads</p>
<p>If you have the bandwidth, it's worth investing in all 4 of these channels. Personally though I've seen the most success with (1) &#x26; (2), so will start the discussion there.</p>
<h3>Seeding your LinkedIn Follower Base</h3>
<p>The average LinkedIn post is complete garbage. You probably associate LinkedIn posting with cringe, humble brags, and contrived workplace stories - and you're right. Fortunately, this presents an opportunity for you. It's easier to stand out when a platform isn't saturated.</p>
<p>If you're starting with 0 followers (or close to 0 followers), fret not. You can build up your follower base by simply sending out a lot of LinkedIn connections. Using the LinkedIn search bar, generate a list of people within your target audience and start slinging 20 connection requests per day.</p>
<p>Of course, some people will be more likely to accept than others (Elon won't connect with you sadly) but in my most recent connection frenzy targeting Demand Gen Managers, I found that 27% of my 300 requests were accepted. Even if you're starting from 0 you'll get to 1k in ~6 months.</p>
<p>Pro tip: do not include a message in your connection request. Trust me on this one.</p>
<h3>Writing Quality Posts</h3>
<p>The biggest objection I get is that people are afraid to post on LinkedIn because it's cringey.
To that I say:
(1) You don't have to post cringey content to get results
(2) Toughen up and embrace cringe. If you're too afraid to put yourself out there then stick to paid ads.</p>
<p>If you're facing writer's block, don't resort to ChatGPT. Thousands of people are posting ChatGPT generated content and it's all the same.</p>
<p>Go through your feed, pick out a couple of posts you like, and try to emulate them.</p>
<p>My most popular post was inspoired by <a href="https://swiped.co/file/wallstreet-letter-conroy/">this famous Wall Street Journal advertisement</a>.</p>
<p>In my post, I repurposed the advertisement for my target audience:</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/barracuda-app-images/blog/blog-linkedin-post-example.webp" alt="Two Salesmen Post"></p>
<p>For more inspiration, check out</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackraines/">Jack Raines, the Shit Poster</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-mlz/">Kévin Moënne-Loccoz, the Cheat Sheet guy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/petehuang/">Pete Huang, the Breaking News guy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mac-reddin/">Mac Reddin, the Domain Expert</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Hitting the DMs</h3>
<p>On top of showing up in your prospects feed, you need to hit the DMs. There are two types of LinkedIn DMs:<br>
(1) The regular inbox that you use to message your existing connections<br>
(2) Sales Navigator InMail for reaching out to people you haven't connected with yet</p>
<p>The regular inbox is your preferred outreach method because (1) it's free and (2) you can send follow up messages. Cold messaging copy is out of the purview of this article but there are plenty of resources online for writing copy that converts. If you want to automate your outreach, consider using a platform like <a href="https://phantombuster.com">PhantomBuster</a>.</p>
<p>If you subscribe to Sales Navigator ($99/mo), you'll recieve 50 credits to message non-connections each month. Some people believe that InMail messages don't convert, but I can promise you they do. Here are the results of my most recent InMail messaging campaign:</p>
<p>Overall: 150 messages sent, 10 meetings booked</p>
<ul>
<li>VP of Sales: 71 messages sent, 2 meetings booked</li>
<li>Revenue Operations Leaders: 11 messages sent, 2 meetings booked</li>
<li>Account Executives at Design Agencies: 19 messages sent, 0 meetings booked</li>
<li>VP of Engineering: 25 messages sent, 0 meetings booked</li>
<li>CRM Implementation Specialists: 24 messages sent, 6 meetings booked</li>
</ul>
<p>Some audiences, like engineering leaders, spend less time on LinkedIn and are naturally more averse to taking meetings. Salespeople take meetings for a living and are perpetually on LinkedIn.</p>
<h3>Paid Ads</h3>
<p>LinkedIn ads are the most targeted, and potentially most expensive, ad network for B2B sales. As a benchmark, we spent $881.44 for 20,039 impressions and 656 clicks. That comes out to $43.99 per 1k impressions and $1.34 per click. I should note, our CPC was 5x higher before we enabled the LinkedIn Audience Network which allows your ads to be shown on 3rd party sites as well as the LinkedIn feed.</p>
<p>Unlike the strategies shared above, Paid Ads are not free so whether you pursue this strategy will depend on your budget and goals.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>Until you get to 1k LinkedIn followers, keep firing out connection requests.</p>
<p>Once you've seeded your initial follower base, take inspiration from one of the LinkdIn legends I shared and start posting.</p>
<p>As your connection acceptions start rolling in, DM qualified accounts to let them know about your product.</p>
<p>If you found the article helpful, shoot me a connection request <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/samsklar/">here</a> and I'll be sure to like &#x26; comment on your posts to give you the initial boost you need!</p>


How to use a combination of targeted connection requests, quality posts, and DMs to generate leads for your business.

A Simple LinkedIn Lead Gen Strategy

<h2>Applying MEDDIC to Cuda's Sales Process</h2>
<p>The MEDDIC sales methodology was developed by Jack Napoli &#x26; Dick Dunkel during their time leading the sales organization at PTC. At Cuda, we traditionally employ the <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/spin-selling-the-ultimate-guide">SPIN selling</a> framework so I'm new to MEDDIC. In this article, I'm going to walk through the MEDDIC process in the context of seeing how well we apply it at Cuda today.</p>
<p>If you want to follow along and apply MEDDIC to your sales process, you can reference this <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/a-step-by-step-guide-to-the-meddic-sales-qualification-process">Hubspot blog post</a>.</p>
<h3>Metrics</h3>
<p>What are the quantifiable metrics that matter to the buyer that our product can solve?</p>
<p>Our buyer's are primarily concerned with:<br>
(1) Reducing the # of booked demo no shows.<br>
(2) Shortening the time from engaging a lead to closed won.<br>
(3) Increasing the conversion % of lead to closed won.</p>
<p>Increasing close rates &#x26; shortening sales cycles is top of mind for everyone in the sales org. Increasing conversion rates is top of mind for everyone in marketing &#x26; sales alike.</p>
<p>For Metrics, I'm giving us an A.</p>
<h3>Economic Buyer</h3>
<p>Who makes the financial decisions at the potential customer's company?</p>
<p>Generally, our buyers are early to mid stage startups. Most of the companies we work with are too early to have a head of procurement or CFO. At the earliest stages, sales is founder led and is run by the CEO. For those deals we work with the CEO directly. As the company grows to 20+ people, we start to work with Sales &#x26; Marketing department heads. Presumably they have their own budgets - but I've never thought before to ask who controls the purse.</p>
<p>For Economic Buyer, I'm giving us a D.</p>
<h3>Decision Criteria</h3>
<p>How is our product being evaluated?</p>
<p>Our buyers are primarily concerned with:<br>
(1) Can we demonstrate a positive ROI during the trial period?<br>
(2) Is it easy to set up?<br>
(3) Does it integrate with the existing tool stack / will it break any of the existing automations?</p>
<p>We knew that (1) was important from the beginning and is really just the same KPIs we mentioned in Metrics. We quickly learned that (2) and (3) were important for marketing managers who are skeptical about adopting any software that is going to make their life more difficult. Fortunately we've been able to build out all of the necessary integrations and do the set up work on their behalf so that it doesn't block any deals.</p>
<p>For Decision Criteria, I'm giving us an A.</p>
<h3>Decision Process</h3>
<p>What are the usual steps in the decision process?</p>
<p>Truth be told I'm not sure what the decision process looks like for other tools our buyers purchase - but for their Cuda evaluation we've made it simple &#x26; frictionless.</p>
<p>We offer everyone a no committment free trial to evaluate the ROI. It only takes a few days for both marketing &#x26; sales to see the value.</p>
<p>We also save time on the negotation stage because we don't offer discounts! We just have two pricing plans (pay monthly or annually) and charge based on the number of seats someone signs up for.</p>
<p>For Decision Criteria, I'm giving us an A.</p>
<h3>Identify Pain</h3>
<p>What pain point does our product solve?</p>
<p>We know that our product solves several important pains - long sales cycles, poor conversion rates, demo no shows, and losing deals to competitors. What I'm learning as I look through other MEDDIC examples is that we fail to quantify just how severe the pain is.</p>
<p>For example, we may talk to a sales rep who is fed up with demo no shows. If we really embraced the MEDDIC philosophy, we look for more granular detail. For example, we may uncover that a sales person suffers 5 demo no shows per week. This costs them 2 hours in lost time and can be the difference between making quota. By positioning Cuda as a means to save 2 hours per week per rep, and increase sales by 40k per week per rep, we can create more urgency in the sales process.</p>
<p>For Identify Pain, I'm giving us a C.</p>
<h3>Champion</h3>
<p>Who is advocating internally on behalf of our product?</p>
<p>Is it fair to say that I know a champion when I see them? For every company we work with, I can name you the person who has been most influential in getting the deal over the line. That said, we don't have a process for systematically identifying &#x26; creating champions <em>before</em> they exist.</p>
<p>We also aren't effectively leveraging Champions to get referrals to new companies or to share testimonials that we can use with potential buyers.</p>
<p>For Champion, I'm giving us a B.</p>


Applying the MEDDIC framework to our sales process at Cuda to find areas for improvement.

Applying the MEDDIC Sales Process to Cuda

<h2>Best Scheduling Tools for Sales teams 2023</h2>
<p>We explored the top sales scheduling tools and created an organized feature comparison you can review below. Of course, some features like Calendar Integrations and whether it supports your lead routing requirements are must haves. We included information on some other factors like CRM integrations, Analytics, and Brand Customizations that may be requirements or may be nice to haves depending on your situation. Without further ado:</p>
<h3>Calendly</h3>
<ul>
<li>Calendar Integrations: <a href="https://calendly.com/integration">Google, Outlook, Apple</a></li>
<li>CRM Integrations: <a href="https://calendly.com/integration">Salesforce, Hubspot, Close, Zoho, Pipedrive, Microsoft Dynamics, Freshsales, Redtail CRM, NimbleCRM</a></li>
<li>Simple Scheduling: Yes</li>
<li>Round Robin: Yes</li>
<li>Collective Meetings: Yes</li>
<li>Inbound Lead Qualification: <a href="https://calendly.com/features/routing">Yes</a></li>
<li>Meeting Handoff: No</li>
<li>Analytics: <a href="https://help.calendly.com/hc/en-us/articles/6806177199511-Calendly-analytics">Yes, number of meetings by team member</a></li>
<li>Follow up reminders: Yes (Email &#x26; SMS)</li>
<li>Form Prefill: <a href="https://help.calendly.com/hc/en-us/articles/226766767-Pre-populate-invitee-information-on-the-scheduling-page">Yes</a></li>
<li>Customize Branding: Limited to team name and avatar</li>
<li>Cost ($-$$$): $$</li>
</ul>
<h3>Hubspot Meetings</h3>
<ul>
<li>Calendar Integrations: <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/integrations/use-hubspots-integration-with-google-calendar-or-outlook-calendar">Google &#x26; Outlook</a></li>
<li>CRM Integrations: Hubspot</li>
<li>Simple Scheduling: Yes</li>
<li>Round Robin: <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/meetings-tool/understand-group-and-round-robin-meeting-availability">Yes</a></li>
<li>Collective Meetings: <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/meetings-tool/understand-group-and-round-robin-meeting-availability">Yes</a></li>
<li>Inbound Lead Qualification: Yes, if you upgrade to Workflows (which can get pricey)</li>
<li>Meeting Handoff: No</li>
<li>Analytics: <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/meetings-tool/analyze-meetings">Yes, number of meetings and conversion rate</a></li>
<li>Follow up reminders: Yes (Email), one pre-meeting reminder</li>
<li>Form Prefill: <a href="https://knowledge.hubspot.com/forms/form-fields-pre-populated-with-your-own-or-someone-else-s-information">Yes</a></li>
<li>Customize Branding: Limited to avatar</li>
<li>Cost ($-$$$): $$</li>
</ul>
<h3>Cal.com</h3>
<ul>
<li>Calendar Integrations: <a href="https://app.cal.com/apps">Google, Apple, Outlook, Lark, Cron</a></li>
<li>CRM Integrations: <a href="https://app.cal.com/apps">Hubspot, Salesforce, Close.com</a></li>
<li>Simple Scheduling: Yes</li>
<li>Round Robin: <a href="https://cal.com/docs/enterprise-features/teams/round-robin-scheduling">Yes</a></li>
<li>Collective Meetings: <a href="https://cal.com/resources/feature/collective">Yes</a></li>
<li>Inbound Lead Qualification: <a href="https://cal.com/resources/feature/routing-forms">Yes</a></li>
<li>Meeting Handoff: No</li>
<li>Analytics: <a href="https://app.cal.com/apps/categories/analytics">Yes</a></li>
<li>Follow up reminders: <a href="https://cal.com/docs/enterprise-features/workflows">Yes (Email &#x26; SMS)</a></li>
<li>Form Prefill: <a href="https://cal.com/docs/core-features/bookings/prefill-fields#pre-filling-all-fields">Yes</a></li>
<li>Customize Branding: Yes</li>
<li>Cost ($-$$$): $$</li>
</ul>
<h3>Savvycal</h3>
<ul>
<li>Calendar Integrations: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Fastmail</li>
<li>CRM Integrations: <a href="https://docs.savvycal.com/article/78-integrating-with-close-crm">CloseCRM</a></li>
<li>Simple Scheduling: Yes</li>
<li>Round Robin: <a href="https://docs.savvycal.com/article/65-round-robin-scheduling-links">Yes</a></li>
<li>Collective Meetings: <a href="https://docs.savvycal.com/article/25-collective-scheduling-links">Yes</a></li>
<li>Inbound Lead Qualification: <a href="https://docs.savvycal.com/article/6-embedding-links-on-your-website">Website embed but no forms or lead qualifiaction</a></li>
<li>Meeting Handoff: <a href="https://docs.savvycal.com/article/34-delegated-account-access">No, but delegated account access</a></li>
<li>Analytics: <a href="https://usefathom.com/docs/integrations/savvycal">Yes, referrer traffic stats + # meetings by team member + fathom integration</a></li>
<li>Follow up reminders: <a href="https://docs.savvycal.com/article/83-introduction-to-workflows">Yes (email)</a></li>
<li>Form Prefill: <a href="https://docs.savvycal.com/article/14-personalizing-links">Yes</a></li>
<li>Customize Branding: <a href="https://docs.savvycal.com/article/6-embedding-links-on-your-website">CTA &#x26; Background Color</a></li>
<li>Cost ($-$$$): $</li>
</ul>
<h3>Salesloft</h3>
<ul>
<li>Calendar Integrations: Google, Outlook</li>
<li>CRM Integrations: <a href="https://marketplace.salesloft.com/t/category/crm?_=1688373462057">Salesforce, Hubspot, SugarCRM</a></li>
<li>Simple Scheduling: Yes</li>
<li>Round Robin: <a href="https://help.salesloft.com/s/article/Manage-Meeting-Types">Yes</a></li>
<li>Collective Meetings: Yes</li>
<li>Inbound Lead Qualification: No Lead Forms</li>
<li>Meeting Handoff: <a href="https://help.salesloft.com/s/article/Book-Meetings-Through-Salesloft#How_to_Book_Meetings_On_Demand">Yes</a></li>
<li>Analytics: <a href="https://help.salesloft.com/s/article/Meetings-Standard-Report">Yes, number of meetings booked and held by email cadence</a></li>
<li>Follow up reminders: <a href="https://help.salesloft.com/s/article/Meeting-Reminder-Play">Yes (Email &#x26; SMS)</a></li>
<li>Form Prefill: No Lead Forms</li>
<li>Customize Branding: <a href="https://help.salesloft.com/s/article/Manage-Meeting-Branding">Yes</a></li>
<li>Cost ($-$$$): $$$</li>
</ul>
<h3>Outreach</h3>
<ul>
<li>Calendar Integrations: <a href="https://support.outreach.io/hc/en-us/articles/115003366033-How-To-Connect-a-Calendar-to-Outreach">Google, Outlook, 0365</a></li>
<li>CRM Integrations: <a href="https://www.outreach.io/platform/integrations/type/native-integration">Hubspot, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Sugar CRM</a></li>
<li>Simple Scheduling: Yes</li>
<li>Round Robin: <a href="https://www.outreach.io/resources/blog/team-meetings">Yes</a></li>
<li>Collective Meetings: <a href="https://support.outreach.io/hc/en-us/articles/360007463613-How-to-Schedule-a-Meeting-in-Outreach">Yes</a></li>
<li>Inbound Lead Qualification: No Lead Forms</li>
<li>Meeting Handoff: <a href="https://www.outreach.io/resources/blog/team-meetings">Yes</a></li>
<li>Analytics: <a href="https://support.outreach.io/hc/en-us/articles/1260803823949-Outreach-Reporting-Overview">Yes, meetings booked by sequence</a></li>
<li>Follow up reminders: <a href="https://support.outreach.io/hc/en-us/articles/360001407934-How-To-Configure-a-Meeting-Booked-Trigger-in-Outreach-">Yes (Email &#x26; SMS)</a></li>
<li>Form Prefill: No Lead Forms</li>
<li>Customize Branding: No</li>
<li>Cost ($-$$$): $$$</li>
</ul>
<h3>Chili Piper</h3>
<ul>
<li>Calendar Integrations: <a href="https://www.chilipiper.com/integrations">Google, Office365, Outlook</a></li>
<li>CRM Integrations: <a href="https://www.chilipiper.com/integrations">Hubspot &#x26; Salesforce</a></li>
<li>Simple Scheduling: Yes</li>
<li>Round Robin: <a href="https://help.chilipiper.com/hc/en-us/articles/360053022834-Understanding-How-Round-Robin-Works">Yes</a></li>
<li>Collective Meetings: <a href="https://help.chilipiper.com/hc/en-us/articles/360053800253-Creating-Group-Meetings">Yes</a></li>
<li>Inbound Lead Qualification: <a href="https://www.chilipiper.com/products/form-concierge">Yes</a></li>
<li>Meeting Handoff: <a href="https://www.chilipiper.com/products/handoff">Yes</a></li>
<li>Analytics: <a href="https://help.chilipiper.com/hc/en-us/articles/360053800293-How-to-Read-Reports">Yes, form fill to meeting book conversion, distribution statistics, availability and more</a></li>
<li>Follow up reminders: <a href="https://help.chilipiper.com/hc/en-us/articles/360060807994-Setting-Up-Reminders-for-Your-Team">Yes (Email &#x26; SMS)</a></li>
<li>Form Prefill: <a href="https://help.chilipiper.com/hc/en-us/articles/360053021614-Pre-filling-Chili-Piper-Form-via-Booking-Link">Yes</a></li>
<li>Customize Branding: <a href="https://help.chilipiper.com/hc/en-us/articles/360053023194-Customize-the-Look-and-Feel-of-Chili-Piper-with-CSS">Background, Description &#x26; Hover colors</a></li>
<li>Cost ($-$$$): $$$</li>
</ul>
<h3>Google Scheduling</h3>
<ul>
<li>Calendar Integrations: Google Calendar</li>
<li>CRM Integrations: Most CRMs integrate with Google Cal by default but Google Scheduling is not doing anything unique on top of existing integrations</li>
<li>Simple Scheduling: Yes</li>
<li>Round Robin: <a href="https://support.google.com/calendar/thread/210533711/google-calendar-round-robin-scheduling?hl=en">No</a></li>
<li>Collective Meetings: Yes</li>
<li>Inbound Lead Qualification: No Lead Forms</li>
<li>Meeting Handoff: No</li>
<li>Analytics: No</li>
<li>Follow up reminders: Yes (Email)</li>
<li>Form Prefill: No Lead Forms</li>
<li>Customize Branding: No</li>
<li>Cost ($-$$$): $</li>
</ul>


Best Sales Scheduling Tools - We collected all the info you need to compare the top sales scheduling tools in 2023.

Best Sales Scheduling Tools 2023

<h2>What you’ll find here:</h2>
<ul>
<li>A script you can follow</li>
<li>Tips for High Velocity Sales Demos</li>
<li>Virtual Sales Demo Tools</li>
</ul>
<h2>The Script</h2>
<h3>The Sales Demo Introduction</h3>
<p>Don’t over think the intro - people tend to overestimate the importance of the introduction in a sales call. In <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-Rackham/dp/0070511136/ref=pd_lpo_sccl_1/139-0223151-5078322?pd_rd_w=yub76&#x26;content-id=amzn1.sym.116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&#x26;pf_rd_p=116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&#x26;pf_rd_r=32E3EV9F4J7W8YY2Y9HJ&#x26;pd_rd_wg=7HCat&#x26;pd_rd_r=26104f65-1b97-418a-aa18-5aa2d9462bcf&#x26;pd_rd_i=0070511136&#x26;psc=1">SPIN Selling</a>, Neil Rackham &#x26; team found no correlation between the quality of the opening and the likelihood of closing a deal.</p>
<p>That's not to say you should ignore social norms entirely. The one consideration you should make when it comes to your introduction are the cultural expectations of your client and industry. In my experience, most people working in tech are taking video calls all day and prefer to get straight to the point vs spending a lot of time on chit chat.</p>
<p>My friend who sells to European chemical industry executives finds that they don’t like to talk business until they’ve spent some time building rapport.</p>
<h3>Fact Finding</h3>
<p>Before you show a demo, you need to identify an important problem your prospect is facing that your software can directly solve. It pains me how often I sit through a demo as a potential buyer and am shown features that are completely irrelevant to my use case.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if it’s a function of people thinking that more features = better, or just a lack of understanding of what I’m trying to achieve. Either way, don’t be these people.</p>
<h3>The Demo</h3>
<p>If you’ve done an effective job fact finding and know your product well, the actual demo should be the easiest part of the process. My goal in a demo is to get to a “wow” as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>Say, for example, you’re selling a Sales CRM. If you found during fact finding that you’re talking to an account executive who’s having trouble staying on top of email follow ups, you should start your demo by showing off your email sequencing &#x26; automation. If you find that you’re talking to a sales manager that’s spending 20 hours a week building reports manually to share with the CEO, demo how you can spin up 5 custom reports in 5 minutes.</p>
<p>Often, the most “impressive” or complicated part of your software won’t be interesting to your prospect. At Cuda, we offer call lead routing software for B2B sales teams. The most complicated part of our software might be our CRM integration or all of the complex routing rules you can configure. The thing is that people have used software in the past that integrates with CRMs so while it’s important it won’t lead to them saying “wow”. The fact that we can take a qualified lead from their landing page into a zoom call in 5 seconds is one of the more technically “simple” parts of our product but since they’ve never seen it before I start my demos there.</p>
<p>Throughout your demo, tie the value of your features directly to the benefit they provide. If possible, reference customer case studies or testimonials.</p>
<p>If they don’t share without prompting, ask your prospect directly whether they believe what they’ve seen can directly solve the problem you identified earlier.</p>
<h3>Demonstrating Urgency</h3>
<p>Demonstrating urgency is the most important, and difficult, step of the process. Many people have seen a demo, agree that it solves their problem, and never signed up as a paying customer.</p>
<p>The reason is that they don’t see it as a priority. As a sales person, you are competing with hundreds of distractions. Of course, there are competitors. There’s also other fires that come up in day to day business, and more importantly, the distractions of day to day life. You’re competing with the release of a new show on Netflix, helping with a child’s homework, and countless news alerts blaring all day long.</p>
<p>When I’m demonstrating urgency, I’m working with a prospect to understand what life looks like if they adopt my solution to fix their problem, and what life looks like if they leave it unsolved.</p>
<h3>Leave with Clear Next Steps</h3>
<p>If you’ve done everything right up to this point, you’re in the final stretch. At the close, you want to make it as simple as possible for a prospect to sign up. Articulate exactly what you want them to do next. If you need a follow up meeting, schedule it now. If you want them to sign a contract &#x26; wire funds, then make sure you ask!</p>
<h2>Tips for High Velocity Sales Demos</h2>
<ul>
<li>Schedule the demo (and follow ups) as soon as possible: One guaranteed way to add days onto your sales cycle is to let (or force) your prospect to schedule a time far into the future. Whenever possible, encourage them to meet now rather than later (you can use Cuda to get your sales team on instant sales demos).</li>
<li>Demonstrate urgency: I already shared how demonstrating urgency is key to improving close rates, but it will also keep you top of mind and encourage prospects to act quickly!</li>
<li>Provide clear follow ups (in writing!): During your sales call, articulate clear next steps and also present them in writing. As soon as the call ends, share them via email.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Virtual Sales Demo Tools</h2>
<p><strong>Strong Remote Setup</strong>: This will be basic information for most remote workers but it’s worth repeating - you need to have a crisp video set up. This means no background noise, a tidy background, reliable internet and good lighting.</p>
<p><strong>Call Recording</strong>: The most crucial tool in my sales demo stack is <a href="https://www.fireflies.ai">Fireflies.ai</a>. By recording my demos, I don’t need to take thorough notes so I can focus on the prospect without missing anything. I always find that when I go back to listen to my recordings I find tidbits I didn’t catch the first time around. Moreover, I can see the exact language my prospect used when describing a problem and incorporate their language directly into my messaging.</p>
<p>For larger organizations, <a href="https://www.gong.io/">Gong</a> is the gold standard. It has a great read/write integration with Salesforce and I’ve heard some teams do more pipeline management in Gong than they do in SFDC.</p>
<p>Of course any call recording platform can also be used for reviewing sales strategies and training new &#x26; existing reps.</p>
<p><strong>Interactive Demo Software</strong>: I find that the best way to demo my software is to just show them the real thing! If it’s a high value lead and I have time to prep, I’ll create an account on their behalf before the call and use it during the demo. If they want to move forward, all I need to do is invite them to the account that I already set up for them.</p>
<p>If the product isn’t ready, or you need to pre sell features you don’t have yet, <a href="https://figma.com">Figma</a> usually does the trick.</p>
<p>You can also check out <a href="https://www.walnut.io">Walnut</a> and <a href="https://www.navattic.com">Navattic</a> if you need to create custom demos at scale.</p>


How to run a great software sales demo: scripts, tips, tools and actionable advice from somone who's learned on the job.

Running an effective software sales demo

<h2>Speed to Lead: How Quickly Should You Contact Inbound Leads?</h2>
<p>Spoiler alert - speed to lead is important. There are a number of articles on this topic that regurgitate the same thesis - faster is better.</p>
<p>Of course speed is important. But if you’re a business person worth your salt, you know that business is about tradeoffs. In this article, we'll answer<br>
(1) Which businesses should prioritize speed to lead?<br>
(2) How to achieve near instantaneous response times.</p>
<h2>What are Inbound Leads?</h2>
<p>Inbound leads are leads who have shown interest in your product or service and have reached out to you. We distinguish inbound leads from outbound leads that we had to reach out to cold. Inbound leads are highly valuable - who doesn’t love when people come banging down your door to buy your product?</p>
<p>Inbound leads come from a variety of sources: <a href="https://popupsmart.com/blog/inbound-marketing-channels">word of mouth, SEO, and paid ads</a> to name a few.</p>
<p>No matter where they come from, inbound leads land on our website ready to learn more. And most of them will encounter something like this:</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/barracuda-app-images/blog/blog-demo-form.webp" alt="Demo Form"></p>
<p>If you're like me, this book a demo form sends a shiver down your spine. There's nothing inherently wrong with a book a demo form, it's what happens next that's frustrating. In a study done on the top 100 SAAS companies, it takes an <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/natalie-marcotullio_clicking-a-book-a-demo-cta-doesnt-guarantee-activity-7067501777171951616-Ie4o">average of 2 days to hear back and 35% of companies will never reach out</a>.</p>
<p>While frustrating for buyers - other companies's complacency around inbound leads is a huge opportunity for us as sellers.</p>
<h2>What is Speed to Lead?</h2>
<p>Speed to lead is the time it takes for you to contact an inbound lead after they've expressed interest. The quicker you reach out to them, the more likely you are to convert them into a customer.</p>
<p>Research done by <a href="https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/25649/file-13535879-pdf/docs/mit_study.pdf">MIT Sloan and InsideSales.com shows there’s a 100x drop off</a> in responding to leads within 5 minutes vs 30 minutes of filling out your form. Simply put, speedy companies close more deals. And as we demonstrated earlier, most companies are really bad at this!</p>
<p>Intuitively, the importance of speed should come as a surprise to no one. When a lead contacts you, they’re at their moment of highest intent. They’ve just finished reading one of your articles or learning about your product from another customer. Your value proposition is clear in their mind and solves a need pressing enough that they took the time to come to your website.</p>
<p>As they wait to hear from you, their interest wanes. They may forget why they reached out in the first place. Or if their need is pressing, they may research and find an alternative before talking to you.</p>
<p>In general, businesses that nail speed to lead close more revenue and create strong, lasting impressions with customers that they care about their business.</p>
<h2>How to know if your business should focus on speed to lead</h2>
<p>If you're firm meets all or most of the following criteria, then you should prioritize speed to lead:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Competitive industry</strong>: If you're operating in a highly competitive industry, relatively commoditized industry, then providing high quality service is essential. When your prospects can be just as well serviced by a competitor (or at least led to believe they can be just as well serviced by a competitor) then it's essential to respond quickly.</li>
<li><strong>Deadline oriented product</strong>: If your prospects are reaching out for help with an imposing deadline (i.e. filing taxes, closing the books for the month, getting a security audit to close an enterprise deal) then they will shop other vendors if you're slow.</li>
<li><strong>Ready to pitch</strong>: Responding quickly is only useful if you're giving a prospect the information they need. If your staff can't provide quality answers without doing specific preparation before each call, then there's only so much you can do to minimize response time.</li>
</ul>
<p>Some industries that benefit from optimizing speed to lead are SMB/Mid Market SAAS firms, Accounting &#x26; Bookkeeping services, Security Auditing, Insurance, and HR &#x26; Payroll management companies.</p>
<h2>What does it mean to “contact” an inbound lead?</h2>
<p>Existing content tends to fall short on this point. Many people argue that contacting a lead quickly is important - but what does it mean to contact a lead?</p>
<p>The simplest, yet arguably pointless, way to contact an inbound lead is to send them an automated email as soon as they fill out your website form letting them know that you’ll reach out to them soon. These follow up emails accomplish almost nothing. We should all endeavor to do better than this.</p>
<p>Better yet, some companies let inbound leads schedule a demo with your revenue team right away - using a platform like ChiliPiper or Calendly. Having an inbound lead schedule their demo at their moment of highest intent significantly increases your booked demo rates. ChiliPiper shared that they were able to increase lead to demo conversion 400% over B2B standards with this method.</p>
<p>The problem is that getting a lead to book a demo is only part of the story. You still need to ensure that your lead shows up to the demo and that you close the deal. As the days roll on leading up to the demo, your lead may cool off or talk to a competitor first! And around <a href="https://tray.io/blog/minimize-no-shows-automation">20% of prospects no show booked demos</a> today.</p>
<p>The final, and most aggressive, lead contact strategy is to connect your inbound lead with a member of your revenue team instantly. We call this instant lead resolution.</p>
<h2>How to achieve instant lead resolution</h2>
<p>There are several ways to achieve instant lead routing, and not all are created equal.</p>
<p>First, you can put a phone number on your website that routes to your sales team. This used to be the norm and can still work wonders for some businesses. Whether you’ve got a team staffed in the office, or you’re out on the go, you can answer calls as they come in. The drawbacks are that (1) many younger buyers are less likely to make phone calls (2) it’s impossible to demo a visual interface over the phone (3) you can’t achieve the same personal connection on the phone that you can with video conferencing.</p>
<p>Another increasingly popular option is to put a chatbot pop up on your website. Hubspot, Drift, Intercom, all offer out of the box solutions that let website visitors chat with your team (or AI bots) directly. Chatbots can be used in conjunction with other solutions and can work for both sales and customer success use cases. Unfortunately some browsers, like Arc, block chatbot popups. Moreover, <a href="https://chainstoreage.com/do-customers-ai-based-chatbots#:~:text=According%20to%20data%20from%20a,human%20for%20customer%20service%20needs.">77% of people prefer talking to a human than a chat bot</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, you can leverage an instant inbound video platform like Cuda. Cuda lets leads launch an instant video call with your sales team when someone’s online. The team gets notified in slack and the first available rep can take the call and provide immediate resolution for the lead. Cuda can be embedded as a widget or included as a hyperlink making it easy to leverage throughout all of your content.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>In summary, responding to inbound leads quickly can dramatically improve close rates for the right businesses. By responding quickly, you can show that you value the lead's time and interest, stand out from the competition, and increase your chances of converting the lead into a customer. The benefits of instant response times tend to outweigh the operational overhead the most for companies in highly competitive industries with a sales force that knows the product inside and out.</p>


Speed to lead is the time it takes for you to contact an inbound lead after they express interest. Optimizing response time can lead to 100x improvements in conversion rates.

The Better Sales blog