How Much Outreach to Do to Hit Your Sales Goals?
What yearly income do you want in your freelance business? $100,000? More? Less? No matter how much sales you want, it all starts with getting in front of people. The question is how many? Enter a sales goal and 5 other key facts! My spreadsheet will calculate the daily actions you need to take in your outreach campaign!
The Direct Outreach Calculator is perfect for any freelancer, coach or consultant who reaches out directly to prospects (e.g. via email prospecting) and then uses a fully or semi-automated sales funnel to sift, sort and screen out the qualified leads.
The calculator is inspired by a podcast episode by Tim Conley & Samuel J. Woods. Both Tim & Sam are freelance marketing consultants. They are also the founders of Consulting Fuse, a community for freelancers, coaches and consultants. My calculator is the perfect companion for their podcast episode Reversed Engineered Client Acquisition. I strongly recommend you to listen to it!
The Six Key Questions
Answer the key questions in the below grey area! The blue and aquamarine areas show the results!
1. Yearly sales goal?
Start with the end result! How much money do you want to make the next year?
2. The average value of a deal?
The average price of your high-end product or service.
3. What % of your sales conversations do you close?
Provided that you mostly meet with ideal clients, 25% is a conservative closing rate. It means that 1 out of 4 sales conversations results in a sale of your high-end product or service.
The key to a high % is to have a sales funnel that screens out anyone who isn't ready or close to ready to buy. Don't waste any time on meetings that won't go anywhere. To schedule a meeting, the potential client must be ready to take action.
Depending on your way of doing sales, sales conversations can take place on the phone, as video calls or as actual meetings.
4. What % of people requesting a meeting meets your requirements for an ideal client?
Provided that your sales funnel truly educates people on what you are about, 25% is a realistic ratio. It means that out of 4 meeting requests 1 potential client meets all the criteria set by you to schedule a proper sales conversation.
The key to a high % is to have a sales funnel that only moves people forward who are a good fit for you. Once the good fits are ready to buy, they will themselves request a meeting with you.
5. Any given month, what % of the people in your sales funnel requests a meeting?
Provided that you target your outreach to ideal clients, 30% is a conservative rate.
The key to a high % is to create content that quickly can develop trust in your ability to solve your ideal client's problem.
Your content's job is also to discourage less than ideal client's to request meetings. For example, be clear about your starting price. It will discourage inquiries from people who can't afford you anyway.
6. Any given month, what % of people who you reach enters your sales funnel?
Provided that you craft your messages well and follow up, 30% is an attainable ratio. Without a proper follow-up significantly fewer people will respond, maybe 5-10 percent as best.
The key to a high % is a targeted list and the offer you are making to that list. It has to be a match. You must reach out to your ideal clients, and your offer must speak to their pain points.
Depending on your way of doing sales, you can reach out by cold calls, email prospecting, by driving web traffic to an opt-in page etc.
More About Direct Outreach
For more on why direct outreach is a good idea or how to do it… Check out these podcast episodes from Tim & Samuel!
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