As a salesperson, you waste countless hours researching and crafting messages that go unnoticed. Enter ChatGPT—a game-changer for sales reps like you. I’ve used ChatGPT for prospecting, and I can confidently say it’s a powerful sales assistant when appropriately utilized.
ChatGPT is excellent at summarizing, following templates, and articulating with specific prompts. But, it can’t search the internet. So it won’t find leads for you.
With smart prompts and enough context, you can use ChatGPT to streamline your prospecting efforts, craft personalized messages, and close more deals. But crafting a good prompt is an art. You have to experiment a lot to find successful prompts that get you desired results.
Or, you can steal my tailor-made prompts for SaaS salespersons like you. In this article, I’ll share my findings, successful prompts, and insider secrets to enhance your prospecting with ChatGPT. Let’s jump right in.
How to Use ChatGPT for Prospecting?
In this article, I will assume the role of a salesperson selling social media management software. For demonstration purposes, I will use Abhishek’s profile as a prospect. Abhishek is the Co-founder of Xoxoday, an employee communication platform. As a Martech salesperson, I will employ different prompts to generate outreach messages and emails that have the potential to elicit a response from Abhishek. Without further ado, let’s dive in..
1. Prospect Research
The first step in prospecting is understanding your prospect’s pain points. I used ChatGPT to find the top challenges of my prospects.
I gave ChatGPT brief information about Abhishek and asked it to generate three challenges for him.
Here’s the prompt :
Act like (prospect’s name), the (job title) of (company’s name). (company) is (company description).
(Copy LinkedIn about section of the prospect)
List the top 3 challenges for (prospect) in 2023. No jargon, only clear, concise bullet points.
Here’s what I got:
ChatGPT gave me three essential pain points of my prospect. But I need to dive deep to understand where he’s struggling.
So, I asked ChatGPT to find the symptoms of these challenges. These symptoms will help me better understand my prospect’s challenges. For example, a lack of social media presence can be a symptom of low product awareness. With this information, I can easily explain to Abhishek how my software can help him solve this problem.
Prompt: “List three symptoms for each challenge.”
Now I have Abhishek’s top challenges, and I also know how these challenges manifest in real-life.
I can use these pain points to craft a personalized LinkedIn message to connect with him. For example, I can send this message to Abhishek:
Hey Abhishek, I understand your concerns,
- Scaling Xoxoday’s employee engagement platform to cater to a larger user base while maintaining high-quality service
- Expand Xoxoday’s reach by identifying and capitalizing on emerging market opportunities.
- Nurturing and retaining a talented team that can adapt to the fast-paced startup environment
Sounds familiar?
Since I’ve used his exact pain points, I have a higher chance of getting my message seen. Better yet – I may get a reply.
2. Personalize Outreach
Did you know 91.5% of all outreach messages are ignored? To become a part of the remaining 8.5%, you should speak your prospect’s language, and ChatGPT helps with that too.
Save your prospect’s resume through the ‘save pdf” feature on their LinkedIn profile.
Copy-paste this resume into ChatGPT and ask it to skim the resume for personalized elements.
I used this prompt and copy-pasted Abhishek’s profile into ChatGPT:
“Here’s the LinkedIn profile of a prospect. I’m trying to get this prospect to reply to my messages, and I need to mention an element of his profile that is relevant to the problem I am solving:
(Problem 1)
(Problem 2)
(Problem 3)
Now mention five elements from his resume that I could mention to capture his attention. Here’s my resume:
(paste the resume pdf).”
Here’s what I got:
You can pick one of these five personalized elements to create a personalized message. I liked the fourth point, “specialization in exploring new product ideas and leveraging technology to target specific markets,” as it aligns with our industry – SaaS.
Let’s try another prompt to deep-dive into a prospect’s profile from an SDRs perspective:
“Here is the LinkedIn profile of a prospect I will contact. I am contacting this prospect to find out if they have a challenge I can help with.
Prospects typically reply to these kinds of messages when they have one or more of the following problems:
– their SDRs have low reply rates to their cold outreach sequences
– their SDRs don’t contact the right type of prospect
– their SDRs don’t prospect regularly, leading to irregular results
{Copy/paste the resume}
Act like a top-performing sales analyst whose job is to find relevant data to catch the attention of prospects and find {x} personalization elements I could use to get this prospect to reply.”
This prompt gave me better results. ChatGPT also shared ideas on how to implement these personalization elements while pitching.
You can use this to craft a highly personalized message for Abhishek.
Here’s a message you can send:
Hey Abhishek, I see you like exploring new product ideas and leveraging technology to target specific markets. Have you explored different social media marketing tools to market your product?
3. Writing Cold Emails
If you want to take your conversation outside LinkedIn, you can also use ChatGPt to write personalized cold emails. As a SaaS salesperson, I need four cold emails to book a meeting, share a lead magnet, book a demo, and start a free trial.
There are two methods I use to achieve the perfect cold emails:
- The Q&A method: I inform ChatGPT about the specific goals and objectives I aim to achieve through cold email. I prompted it to ask me questions to understand my service better so it could create laser-focused emails for my prospects.
Prompt: “Craft a cold email for my target audience. Ask me the relevant information needed to draft the best possible email.”
Here’s ChatGPT’s response:
So, I answered each of its questions.
With these answers, ChatGPT could draft cold emails for my end goals. Here are some examples of cold emails for various purposes.
- To share a lead magnet
- To land a meeting
- To Book a demo
- To start a free trial
- The template feeding method: I found a cold email I liked and templatized it for ChatGPT.
Prompt:
“Build a three touchpoint outbound sequence to get the prospect to answer to my prospecting. I use the following framework for each message:
Question: A problem-oriented question to get the prospect’s attention
Teaser: An intriguing resource to help your prospect solve a part of the problem that you mentioned in the question
CTA: A simple CTA to get the prospect to reply
PS: A funny/personal mention (from the prospect’s LinkedIn profile) to show that you researched about them
Here’s an example of the first symptom you listed:
Question: Hey Abhishek, curious to know if you’re getting more leads for your business during a recession.
Teaser: If you’re interested, I can share a short playbook on lead gen through content marketing.
CTA: Sounds interesting?
PS: I loved your building a positive work culture at Xoxoday. How do you do it?
Here are the results:
1: Sharing a lead magnet.
2: Landing a meeting
3: Start a free trial
4. Booking a demo
The template feeding method is quicker than the Q/A method. With one prompt, I could generate four emails for four different purposes.
Here, I’ve generated one email for each end goal, but you can also create multiple touchpoints for each end goal. For example, you can write three cold emails – one to start a conversation and two more to follow up.
Let’s assume you want to book a demo. You can create three cold emails with this prompt:
“Build a three touchpoint outbound sequence to get the prospect to answer my prospecting and book a demo. I use the following framework for each message:
Question: A problem-oriented question to get the prospect’s attention
Teaser: An intriguing resource to help your prospect solve a part of the problem that you mentioned in the question
CTA: A simple CTA to get the prospect to reply
PS: A funny/personal mention (from the prospect’s LinkedIn profile) to show that you researched about them
Here’s an example of the first symptom you listed:
Question: Hey Abhishek, curious to know if you’re getting more leads for your business during a recession.
Teaser: If you’re interested, I can share a short playbook on lead gen through content marketing.
CTA: Sounds interesting?
PS: I loved your building a positive work culture at Xoxoday. How do you do it?
Based on this framework, build a cold outreach message according to the symptoms you generated before.”
Here are the results:
See, you can generate a whole email sequence for your end goal. If you don’t want to type out a long prompt, here’s a shorter version:
“Write a cold email to get the prospect to answer my prospecting and call me. I use the following framework for each message:
Hi {{first_name}},
In working with other [[industry or position]], one of the critical issues they’re struggling with is [[key issue]].
This past year we helped numerous companies to [[business driver]], resulting in [[money saved, revenue added, productivity increases]].
Let’s set up a quick call if you’re also challenged with this. I have some ideas that might help.
All the best,
[[your name]]
Now based on this framework, build a cold outreach message according to the symptoms that you generated before.”
Mistakes to Avoid While Using ChatGPT for Prospecting
ChatGPT is a powerful tool, but these mistakes can spoil your experience. Avoid these at all costs:
- Giving up too soon
It’s important to understand that ChatGPT learns from interaction and feedback. Initially, the responses may be flawed, but with continued engagement and refinement, the quality of responses can improve significantly. Play with prompts and use different phrases to get the best results.
For example: While using ChatGPT for cold emailing, you may get an email irrelevant to your campaign or not match your tonality. Don’t give up instantly. Feed more context to ChatGPT and change your prompts to get more refined emails.
- Not giving enough context.
ChatGPT performs best when given clear, specific prompts and relevant details about the target audience, industry, or requirements. By providing comprehensive context, you can generate more accurate and tailored responses.
For example: When seeking advice on your prospects’ pain points, provide specific details about the target audience, such as demographics and preferences. It enables ChatGPT to generate tailored suggestions that align with the intended audience’s needs.
- Using one chat window for different topics and tasks
ChatGPT works best when each conversation is focused on a specific topic or objective. Mixing different topics within the same chat window can lead to confusion. Start a new chat session for different topics to maintain clarity.
For example: If you start a conversation with ChatGPT regarding lead generation and then abruptly switch to discussing pricing strategies within the same chat session, it can confuse the tool. Start a new chat session for each topic to ensure clarity and prevent mixing unrelated information.
- Asking for sales tips
While ChatGPT can provide valuable suggestions, it’s still an AI model, not a substitute for human expertise and experience. You shouldn’t rely on tips from ChatGPT. Instead, use it to gather information, gain fresh perspectives, and enhance your sales strategies and techniques.
For example: If you’re selling software, avoid asking for sales strategies from ChatGPT, as it can only suggest generic tips and tricks. Instead, ask for market insights, customer preferences, and industry trends to create your sales strategy.
Parting Thoughts
This is how to use ChatGPT for prospecting. Feel free to steal my strategies and use ChatGPT to speed up your prospecting and get your dream clients. For more information, tips, and tricks about SaaS marketing, subscribe to the Concurate newsletter. You’ll get fresh insights directly into your inbox.
