Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Where do these strange sayings even originate? Just using logic, the morale of this saying is that if you put all your eggs in one basket while you are collecting eggs (which all of us do from time to time right?), then you are likely to be disappointed if you were to fall on the way back to the house and break all your eggs.
In the MSP sales and marketing business, there are many “baskets,” tools you can use to get the job done. But using the age-old wisdom of egg collecting should reinforce the fact that you cannot just use one.
The Perfect Tool?
I have a great tool called Apollo.io. This tool is an amazing lead generation tool. It operates as a CRM, provides 240m contacts that are accurate, does email drip campaigns, uses AI to help determine the right prospects, and funnels all my daily prospecting work into an easy tabbed task list of priorities for each day. This thing is utterly amazing, and if I had had it ten years ago, would have been a game changer. So why do I spend some days prospecting on LinkedIn?
Because you cannot just use ONE tool. There are many reasons for this.
-One tool to rule them all! NOT. One tool cannot provide 100% visibility into the market you are selling. There will be gaps. Using multiple tools helps to fill in what might be missing from your chosen platform. Not every tool will provide the best list of prospects or the ability to target them effectively.
-Not enough touching. Okay, that sounds strange, but the prevalent wisdom used to be you need to “touch” your prospect in some way seven times before you really get their attention. The new wind blowing is that due to the overstimulation of social media and incessant cold callers (yes I do that…), it is now more like 12 touches. One tool is usually good at a couple ways of reaching out. Maybe email, a cold call. But if you really want to get in front of a prospect you have to do more, and in more ways.
-Automation. You may have a great tool that automates emails. But it probably lacks a dialer. Or maybe you are lucky enough to have one that does both. But it does not do deal tracking. You see where I am going? You need a toolbox. It would be nice if one tool did everything and Hubspot will tell you theirs does. Salesforce will say the same thing.
The Punchline
The reality is, well-rounded sales people use multiple tools to reach and stay in contact with their prospects. You should too. It is also important that you get some coaching to go along with the tools so you can use them to their best advantage. A coach will help you streamline how much time it takes you to be effective with a tool and help you integrate it with other tools.
If you are an MSP, selling into your market without the proper tools and would like some guidance, take a look at the Redvine Operations MGEN Program we developed specifically for this reason. Happy Prospecting!
