The most effective sales cadence examples for any lead source

Building a good sales cadence or sales sequence by following strong sales cadence examples can make your sales team more productive and enforce the use of best practices in your team’s selling efforts.

42% of sales reps find prospecting to be the most challenging part of the sales process, according to HubSpot. With a strong sales sequence tool, and an effective sales cadence mapped out, salespeople can shift their focus to more important areas, such as effective call execution. 

What is a sales cadence?

A sales cadence or sequence is a series of defined contact activities over time used by a sales team to engage leads in a predictable and productive manner. It can include automated outreach, including emails and SMS texts. Pre-defining prospecting activities all but eliminates the guesswork, and salespeople always know what to do next and focus on continually advancing each prospect without missing a beat.

This structured framework helps reps close more deals in a shorter period, and add more volume to the pipeline since leads advance through the stages of the sales process with routinely planned engagement. 

For outbound prospecting, this means more quality leads with higher conversion rates, and for inbound prospecting, it means faster lead response and less opportunities slipping through the cracks.

Molding your sequence based on inbound or outbound leads

Before reviewing our examples, remember there are many factors and sales cadence best practices that go into the creation of an ideal sales cadence for your specific business. It depends on your lead sources, sales cycle length, the persona(s) involved and their communication preferences, as well as whether it is for inbound or outbound prospects. 

Inbound leads typically advance faster through the sales process. You can also segment your inbound sources by hot or cold leads, allowing you to set up more vigorous connection strategies for hotter leads and more relaxed tactics for colder sources. On that note, outbound leads need to be warmed up and giving more time requiring engagements to be spaced further apart so you don’t scare them off.

Outbound examples of good sales cadences

Depending on the length of your sales cycle, either of these outbound examples may work for your strategy. We generally recommend at least 5 channels of interaction for a cadence, including calls, email, voicemail, sms text, and connecting on LinkedIn or sending an InMail. Note – if you want to text your prospects, we suggest reading our blog about best practices around that effort.

Our first sales cadence example includes 14 activities spaced over 18 days and leverages a combination of phone calls, emails, SMS text, and LinkedIn messaging or InMail. It is designed to make sure your prospect remembers you above all of the noise and other people reaching out to them at the same time. 

Example 1: rigorous reminders

A critical step of this sequence is to ensure that you leave the voicemail on the first day because that makes it less likely that you are just another unknown number to ignore on the second call. We talk more about the power of voicemail drop and why you should A/B test voicemails here.

Week 1:

Day 1: Phone call (leave voicemail) and email

Day 3: Phone call (no voicemail)

Day 5: LinkedIn InMail

Day 7: Phone call (leave voicemail) and email

Day 10: Email with SMS text (if you have permission)

Day 11: Phone call (no voicemail)

Day 14: Phone call (leave voicemail) and add on LinkedIn with message

Day 16: email

Day 18: Phone call (leave voicemail) and Breakup email

Example 2: simple persistence

In this lighter sales cadence example, we recommend 8 touches spaced over 10 business days. Each action is followed by another action later in the day, allowing your reason to follow up to be to gauge your prospect’s interaction to your message:

Day 1: Email

Day 3: Email in the morning, phone call in the afternoon (leave voicemail)

Day 5: LinkedIn InMail in the morning, phone call in the afternoon (no voicemail)

Day 7: Call in the morning (leave voicemail), email in the afternoon

Day 10: Break up email

Powerful inbound sales cadence examples

How quickly your reps respond to inbound leads greatly impacts conversion rates. Ideal lead response time is less than 5 minutes to ensure your company has the best chances of winning the prospect’s business.

Because inbound leads are “warmer” than cold leads contacted via outbound prospecting, you can comfortably take a more rigorous approach, reaching out more often per week than if you were engaging in outbound prospecting. This allows you to overcome the notorious short shelf life of inbound leads with direct, intentional effort.

Example 3: simple inbound lead response

Day 1: Phone call (leave voicemail) and email

Day 2: Phone call (leave voicemail) and email (reply to previous email)

Day 3: Phone call (no voicemail) and SMS text

Day 5: Phone call (no voicemail) and email (reply to previous email thread)

Day 7: Phone call (leave voicemail)

Day 8: Phone call (no voicemail) and LinkedIn Inmail

Day 10: Phone call (no voicemail) and email

Day 14: Email

Day 18: Phone call (no voicemail) and email

Day 21: Breakup email and phone call (leave voicemail)

Consider our favorite sales cadence examples when creating or adjusting these frameworks for your sales team. Then test and fine tune them to ensure you receive the best results possible and stay current with buyer preferences.