Pipeline Blog

This is where the art of human-led copywriting takes the stage. These 5 copywriting tips leverage principles from behavioural insights to create messages that connect by grasping people’s motivations and decision-making processes while evoking their emotions effectively. When used in emailing or direct messaging, these strategies can help elevate a message into an engaging icebreaker.1. The power of personalisationGoing the extra mile involves more than inserting the recipient’s name in the subject line of your email; it entails showcasing that you've thoroughly grasped their obstacles and aspirations. Alluding to a success or a trending topic within their industry that they're probably interested in following in your message shows that your email is not merely a generic template but a customised answer to their needs. Personalisation is a concept that plays into the human desire, for acknowledgement and significance; people tend to respond more favourably when they feel acknowledged and empathised with.2. Leveraging social proofWhen sending an email it can be beneficial to boost your credibility and persuasiveness by incorporating testimonials, customer stories and references, to shared connections. Understanding the principle of validation can help alleviate uncertainty and offer reassurance to individuals considering your proposal by showing them they are not alone, in their decision-making process.3. Creating a sense of urgencyA well-placed sense of urgency can be the nudge needed to prompt a decision. It involves emphasising the potential benefits that might be missed if the person doesn't take action, whether it’s securing a meeting slot or seizing an exclusive offer that won't last long. Creating a sense of urgency taps into the fear of missing out which can be a driving force that can prompt action when presented genuinely.4. Using the curiosity gapWhen you introduce a sense of intrigue without revealing all the specifics it motivates readers to delve to satisfy their curiosity themselves. For instance, a headline such, as "The method that skyrocketed our client's generation by 300%" provides just enough hint to make clicking on an email too tempting to resist.5. Applying the reciprocity principlePeople usually reciprocate favours given to them by others in return, for something they receive initially without any expectations in mind such as a resource or useful advice that triggers their sense of reciprocity naturally upon receiving a cold email that offers genuine value rather than just seeking a response, from the recipient.

Harnessing Human Connections

The primary objective of using these copywriting tips in emails and direct messaging goes beyond increasing open rates or arranging meetings; they aim to establish relationships and cultivate trust in a saturated online environment. By incorporating these insights into your cold email approach you shift from interrupting someone's day to initiating a dialogue they find valuable. It's not always about making a sale, it's about building business relationships.

1. Culture

The environment in which your sales team operates is crucial in determining the quality of results. At Pipeline our company culture is one which unashamedly values high performance. Everybody in your sales team should be striving, at all times, to be delivering results, while continuously learning and improving. Try to create a culture that lauds success; teammates should be cheering one another on, while simultaneously endeavouring to do something special themselves. Praise is also an important aspect of this; as a leader, you have a responsibility to recognise great work and make sure that the producer of that work is given praise for a job well done.Sales is all about numbers, and as such if you can centre your sales team’s culture around metrics, so everyone knows how they are doing against predefined objectives, this will ensure the team is working hard to deliver. Clear, up-to-date metrics will fuel your team’s desire and ensure that everyone is relentless in achieving the goal.Accountability is a word which gets thrown around a lot in the business world, but which rarely is properly applied. Everyone in sales should be accountable, from leadership all the way to the junior recruits. For accountability to become entrenched in company culture, those in leadership must be accountable for their work and actions. Junior team members are not going to adopt this ethos if they don’t see it from senior colleagues.At Pipeline, while we obsess about winning, we also make space for team members to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is the single biggest source of real bonding between team members. If someone feels safe enough to say “I’m really struggling with x or y, does anyone have any ideas?” then you have a great culture and therefore, a strong platform for success.It’s also important to cultivate an environment in which people can have fun. Sales is a tough job with significant pressure, and if people are not able to enjoy themselves, have a bit of a laugh and unplug from the grind, results will eventually suffer.

2. Standards

At Pipeline, we live and die by high standards. Every person we meet, every phone call we make, every email we send and every proposal we write to adhere to the highest possible standards in terms of professionalism, design and grammar/punctuation.Pride in your work is critical to succeeding in sales. If a prospect receives any form of engagement that is not up to scratch, your chances of a closed deal diminish extremely quickly.High standards also apply to efficiency. Team members need to be constantly looking for ways to do things better and quicker, maximising the time available to boost results. Make sure you apply rigorous standards to how efficiently people are working; there is no place for wasted time when looking to boost productivity.When looking to improve your sales outcomes, set very standards, reiterate them and ensure that any work which is below par is identified and improved immediately.

3. Resilience

Everybody who works in the sales profession will tell you that it's an unforgiving job; sales is not for the faint of heart. Therefore, you have to have a resilient team if you want to get the best results.Whether you’re in a feast or famine state, you have to make sure your sales execs are mentally tough and can crack on through whatever is thrown at them. Some people are naturally tougher than others and in your recruitment process, a key character trait you should be looking to identify is stoicism.Furthermore, you can build your team’s resilience through correct training exercises. For all recruits, but especially juniors, from the word go you need to be putting them through their paces, taking them outside of their comfort zones and deep into their growth zones. Only by enduring tougher situations can an individual and a team learn what they are capable of, and how much they can withstand.While management and the wider team should always be sympathetic and supportive, a base level of resilience must permeate the entire sales team to ensure that output is maximised, no matter the market conditions.

4. Work Ethic

Work ethic seems like an obvious area to touch upon, but nonetheless, it is something that we find is a major differentiator for us at Pipeline. We thrive on hard graft. We are not bothered by long hours or demanding projects, indeed we relish a good battle.If you are looking for consistent sales success, then you need team members who like to put in a shift. People who spend the final 30 minutes of the day shuffling papers and waiting to dash out of the door at the stroke of 5, or who look for any excuse to down tools, won’t realistically be an asset in a high-performance sales team.Work ethic is tied to culture and as a leader, you need to be vigorously emphasising the benefits of diligence and commitment. It is also important to help your sales team to think long term: yes the next month might be a slog, but think about how good it will feel at the end of it when the job is done.

5. Training & Development

As with work ethic, the importance of training and development seems fairly obvious, but we are shocked by how often this vital aspect is overlooked or sidelined by our clients.Assuming you don’t have the Sales Messiah working in your team, everybody can learn something no matter how senior. Investing heavily in the development and training of your team will deliver exponential returns by lifting results, boosting staff retention and acting as a strong talent attraction tool.At Pipeline we focus relentlessly on talent development, everybody in the company is on a demanding career development plan, we have a carefully crafted training programme and we encourage all of our existing team to assist in training new team members.The results are staggering in terms of team ethos, an ever-expanding skills portfolio within the team and most importantly, the quality of the sales results that we generate. You need to think long and hard about how you are coaching your sales team if you want them to perform at the highest level. It doesn’t need to cost the earth and you’d be amazed at the amount of resources you already have in-house once you start strategising.

6. Incentives

The very best salespeople will tell you it’s not about the money, it’s all about winning and money is just a means for keeping score, but despite this, sales professionals are undeniably money motivated. It is, therefore, very important to have a great incentive scheme in place. Your scheme should push your sales team to perform and offer substantial benefits for smashing targets. It should also be simple; having to complete the equivalent of a Sudoku to figure out how much commission is due, is not going to motivate a sales team.We have seen countless examples of sales teams with incentive schemes which are either not remotely motivating, don’t offer much earning potential or are so complicated that the sales execs just switch off.Get your scheme right and watch your sales team go bananas to get paid the big bucks.

7. Communication

The final pillar that we want to talk about is communication. It is hard to emphasise the importance of clear, consistent communication if you want to maximise results. Leaders can’t share every tiny detail with their sales teams, but team members do not like to be left in the dark or to feel like they are paddling around without any clue as to why.Make sure that objectives, expectations and anything else important are defined and communicated with the sales team. If a target has to be larger than expected, explain why. If an item is of high strategic importance, let the team know about this and give them the context. Involve your team in what is going on, so they can help drive the business in the right direction. You owe it to your team to be as transparent as you can be; your team will respect you more and you’ll be amazed how far people will go to get the job done if they are brought into the loop.

Consistently Delivering Sales Excellence

Delivering sales excellence requires a lot of the right ingredients and is something that the whole team has to continuously work on. From our experience, however, we would argue that the amount of effort is totally worth it. Not only will you improve your sales output, but you will create a fun and engaging environment, in which people form real bonds and great achievements are realised.By focusing on these 7 core pillars, you can unlock results that previously seemed impossible. While some quick wins will deliver swift benefits, you should be aware that everything we recommend in this article takes time to implement successfully and requires commitment to get right. By being intentional and purposeful in your pursuit of sales excellence, you will improve your chances of success.As with everything, some trial and error will be needed; every business is different and there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but think about the seven areas we have discussed and how you can design each one to work for your company, and you’ll be well on your way to consistent sales excellence.

1. Cost

As touched on above, hiring is an expensive business activity. When looking at hiring sales professionals an employer has to factor in recruitment fees, salaries, commission, Employers’ National Insurance, capital costs associated with equipment, sick pay, holiday pay, parental leave and the potential costs associated with lost revenue should the individual’s performance not be as hoped.With so many layers to the cost base for each hire, many of which are variable, cost is a major reason for considering an outsourced sales personnel solution. With a set monthly cost, agreed upon for a certain period, companies can budget with precision and confidence. Knowing exactly what your sales team will cost over a defined period is a huge benefit of outsourcing.Reducing costs without affecting output is what all business leaders are aiming to do, and outsourcing your sales function is an excellent way to achieve this.

2. Time

Next up is time. Our clients tell us that saving time by working with an outsourced sales team versus in-house hiring, is a major benefit. When looking for full-time sales staff, an employer has to consider the time needed for sifting through CVs, the time required for running first, second and maybe even third round interviews, the time needed for onboarding and training, the time required for ongoing management and lastly, the necessary time and energy should an HR-related issue were to arise.When broken down this way, one can see that the time investment is massive for each in-house hire. An outsourcing option removes the majority of these time requirements; a company such as Pipeline has already hired and trained full-time staff, manages them on an ongoing basis, deals with any HR issues, pays their salary and applicable taxes, manages their leave and so on. As an employer, your only time commitment will be a brief onboarding session with your exec or any required weekly meetings.Outsourcing is great in this sense, as it provides all of the output of great salespeople, with very little time needing to be input from you.

3. Risk

Our clients tell us that another major upside to outsourcing is risk reduction. Since the fees associated with taking an employer to tribunal were removed, there has been a vast increase in the number of employers being taken to tribunal. If it is not working out with an employee, for whatever reason, you need to let that person go. You run the risk of a costly and time-consuming ordeal at a tribunal, usually with a no-win-no-fee lawyer on the other side of the fence.Outsourcing removes this risk altogether; if you need to stop working with your outsourced sales company, you can do so without any HR recoil. The contract expires, a handover is conducted and both parties move on without repercussions. This is a significant point of value provided by outsourced sales companies.Another ongoing risk is that of resignation; you have spent a lot of money and time bringing someone into your team and then they get a better offer (which is likely in this fiercely competitive market) and off they go. With an outsourced option, this will never happen. Even if the sales rep working on your account were to become unavailable if you were working with Pipeline Professional Services, we will place a new rep on the project that same day, so you don’t lose any momentum. The same is true if your rep is unwell, we fill in the gap with another member of our team, to ensure zero downtime.

4. Flexibility

The final primary reason for considering an outsourced sales option is the matter of flexibility. With in-house staff, an employer has pretty much no flexibility. Whether you are launching a new product, the nature of your business is cyclical, or if there is a downturn, the inflexibility of permanent staff can be a substantial challenge for employers. Outsourcing offers a solution to this problem, allowing businesses to scale or reduce their sales workforce in line with the ebb and flow of their business operations.Having the space to plan precisely headcount and associated costs or move things around as the market evolves is a considerable benefit, especially when you consider the erratic nature of the global economy. Outsourcing your sales team provides valuable flexibility when navigating the choppy business environment.

Why Outsourcing Is The Way To Go

As with all business decisions, there are pros and cons when considering outsourcing some or all of your sales operations, but the general feedback we get from clients is that the benefits of outsourcing do outweigh the negatives, and as such, it is a solid investment.There is no such thing as a perfect solution and outsourcing does have some drawbacks, but if you can find an excellent outsourcing business, it is likely that you will enjoy highly positive outcomes.At Pipeline, we specialise in developing high-performance sales professionals that clients can access on-demand. This means all of the output with very little input. For companies struggling to find the right talent, or looking for a low-risk option with manageable and predictable costs, outsourcing their sales operations to Pipeline is an excellent option.

Remember that post-COVID boom we were all promised? The line went something like this “Once the virus has been defeated, the economy will reopen and businesses will come out blinking into the sunlight, to be met by a roaring hurricane of demand.”That may have been true for bars and restaurants, and there’s no doubt that the travel industry has recovered a decent chunk of its losses, but for the wider economy, since the beginning of 2022 we have been dealing with severe political turmoil, rampant inflation, spiralling interest rates, conflict in Ukraine and now the Middle East, energy prices surging, massive layoffs (especially in the tech sector), record company insolvencies, healthcare backlogs, an economy teetering on the edge of recession and unabating difficulties in filling job vacancies.The nirvana hasn’t quite materialised, but as we enter 2024 there does seem to be some economic hope with inflation finally calming and the Services sector in particular showing strength. As the economy looks to move onto a more positive footing, business leaders are thinking about growth and how to generate revenue in this unforgiving market.But there is yet another obstacle: for most businesses, generating revenue means having a great sales team, and hidden amongst the aforementioned difficulties in filling roles, is a pernicious Sales Talent Crisis.It has never been harder to attract, develop and retain great salespeople. A recent study found that 46-50% of new hires into the sales division fail within 18 months, and we have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that for many new sales recruits, 18 months would be considered somewhat of a win. Sales leaders and HR teams are spending far too much time trawling CVs and sourcing candidates, going through what is often a painful interview process and then ending up hiring people who are not ideal for a career in sales, which in turn leads to HR issues and Sales managers spending too much of their time dealing with ineffective reports.As a result, companies are consistently missing targets which is suboptimal, especially in the current climate. Business leaders, looking to justify underperformance are quick to blame the economic landscape, which undoubtedly is playing a part in all this. However, in reality, our research suggests that the wider economic environment is only partly to blame and a major factor contributing to commercial underperformance is a lack of sufficient sales talent.So what’s going on? Our work suggests that there are two primary drivers behind the sales talent crisis. The first is a general lethargy across the workforce following the pandemic and the second is a rapidly shifting approach to work from the younger generations, two issues which we will assess in turn.

The massive increase in working from home, either partially or completely, while popular with workers looking to avoid the commute, is undoubtedly having a negative impact on productivity. This is especially true in a sales environment, which ought to be a high-energy, fast-paced environment in which sales reps are working as hard as possible to find opportunity and convert it into business. We see no way in which an energetic sales floor can be matched by isolated reps working from their dining room tables. Furthermore, there is no means for leaders to properly motivate and energise their teams over Slack. A further challenge with remote work is training and development; for the most part sales coaching is most effective in-person, one-to-one sit downs with managers are most effective in-person and team meetings in which individuals can support one another and feel a sense of unity, is most effective in-person. It’s a catch-22 for employers because 45% of employees say they would stick with a company if they offered training and development, yet it’s a complicated task to deliver decent training remotely.

The effects of the issues listed above are compounded by the fact that a severe talent shortage means companies will perhaps take a more lenient approach to missed targets, which facilitates a lax mentality among sales teams who know that they are essentially unsackable and that leadership will just blame the economic landscape if commercial results are below expectations.Many sales professionals we speak to take umbrage with our assertions around remote work, claiming that they are just as, if not more productive working from home than in an office environment. No doubt some hyper-focused individuals can deliver the goods regardless of their daily location, but for the most part, if we are all truly honest, we know working from home is not delivering optimal results, even if it does mean we can fit in a gym session when we would have once been at our desks.The second primary driver in the Sales Talent Crisis is the shift in mindset towards work, from the younger generations entering the workforce. This cohort of youngsters is much maligned as a pack of lazy and entitled snowflakes. While there may be aspects of that, we believe that really this is a group that is misunderstood and who has been dealt a pretty awful hand. To put things into context, on average sales execs aged 20-34 stay with an employer for 2.8 years, while those aged 50-65 average 10.1 years with an employer.There are many reasons for this, but a desire for flexibility seems to be a major factor for younger people. This is a group with far more awareness around mental health and a larger focus on work-life balance than may have existed in the past. All of us who work in sales know that you have to be extremely resilient to make it and that at times, work-life balance has to take a backseat; these facts seem to create a clash for younger workers between their personal priorities and the demands of a career in professional sales, which is contributing to lower applications upfront and higher churn once people are in a sales role.At the end of 2024, we spoke to a recent grad, who was leaving her job in sales after just six months to take up a role in HR. In her words, the reason was, “I don’t think I can handle the emotional roller-coaster of sales.” This sums up the situation for many new recruits, and we feel the challenges of working in sales are not being properly addressed by hands-on management, again because of remote or hybrid working patterns.The clash between what younger people want personally and what a sales job requires is a clear contributory factor to the junior end of the Sales Talent Crisis. We have explored some of the key personality traits for a successful sales career, and unfortunately again and again, we find the required elements, are not compatible with the type of day-to-day existence desired by many young people:

• Resilience
• Discipline
• Grit
• A willingness to work, long and often irregular hours
• Resourcefulness

To do well in sales, there is a degree of sacrifice required; you have to compromise on certain other aspects of your life and this is why the earning potential is so fantastic. Unfortunately, the always-on, instant gratification culture that is fuelled by an entire generation’s addiction to social media is struggling to find a home in sales.Furthermore, there are other factors to consider such as the cost of living and particularly the extremely high costs of home ownership. For previous generations, it was easy for individuals to see that if they stuck it out with a job, they would do well and soon be able to get on the property ladder. These days, home ownership is nothing more than a distant dream for most young people, and therefore why would they work themselves to death in pursuit of it? Much better to earn enough money to go to Croatia to load up on selfies.This is why we see social media phenomenons such as Quiet Quitting and #LazyGirl - which essentially advocate doing the bare minimum to earn a salary which gives you a rough equivalent of a satisfactory lifestyle, and that’s that. With many young people subscribing to ideas like this, you can see why the last thing they would want to do is get into sales.While, of course, many of these assertions are general and do not apply to everyone in the groups they address, they characterise a climate in which sales teams are not delivering anything close to maximum output. The outcomes for businesses are missed revenue, HR risk and increased costs, coupled with wasted time. It is a problem, which unless fixed, will result in lower revenues at the company, sector and economy level. With less revenue being generated, there is less to be spent, making sales an increasingly harder endeavour. Which, in turn, contributes to the Talent Crisis and ultimately we end up in a downward spiral.So, what can companies do to solve the Sales Talent Crisis and negate the negative impacts that a lack of talent is having on their businesses? One solution is to work with companies such as Pipeline Professional Services, which offer remote sales teams. Our staff are all based in Cape Town and as such are hungry, hard-working professionals who have gone through extensive training. Our team works for us full-time and lives and breathes sales. Your sales exec would plug seamlessly into your systems and wider team as if they were a full-time employee for the duration of the engagement. However, as they work for us, you do not have any of the headaches that come with an in-house employee:

• No recruitment fees (which are charged even if the individual doesn’t work out)
• No Employer’s National Insurance
• No HR or Legal risk
• No IR35 risk
• No sick pay
• No holiday pay
• No parental leave
• No interview process
• No training
• No risk of resignation
• No equipment requirement
• No desk space requirement

In unison with these benefits, businesses can enjoy the output provided by diligent salespeople.We have created this solution to help with the challenges we experienced as Sales Leaders. It’s impossible for leadership to do a sufficient job without the right personnel. Finding the right personnel is complex, so we created Pipeline to make it easy.

Here’s how it works:

• You are a business leader and you need a salesforce which is reliable, consistent and effective.
• You are struggling to find great people to join your team and generate revenue in line with your objectives.
• You may have experienced a number of challenges when it comes to employing and managing full-time staff.
• We have interviewed, trained and hired a team of top class sales professionals in our office in Cape Town. Everyone who works at Pipeline Professional Services has been through our Sales Academy and shadowed an experienced team member for at least 3 months, to ensure a standardised high level of performance - this means that all of our team deliver excellent output.
• You can lease the services of one or more of our team members on a fixed term of project basis, for a set monthly fee. No interview process, no recruitment fees and no training required.
• You will benefit from trained hard-working staff, who seamlessly form part of your team for the duration of the project, without any of the risks and challenges associated with full-time hires; we simply plug into your systems and start selling.
• During the engagement, although we will be remote, we effectively form part of your full time team; we will join team/company meetings and report on progress.
• Your exec will report to you, however our management team will also be making sure that things are moving in the right direction in the backend.
• We guarantee 100% uptime during your engagement, so if the person working on your project gets sick, we will slot in another member of our team to cover until your usual exec recovers.
• At the end of the project, you can either choose to extend or expand the engagement or if your objectives have been hit, you can let the contract expire. When the project comes to an end we will do a thorough handover, log out of all systems etc, return any IP and disappear like ghosts.

Sales-as-a-Service is a unique offering which allows companies to access committed and skilful sales talent, without any of the pitfalls associated with the typical process of hiring individuals.

Our talent selection and training methods ensure that the base-level of performance for all of our staff is a high level. The benefit of this for clients is that they avoid the difficulty that some salespeople are less consistent than others. Many companies we work with have a few rockstars (20% of their headcount) who deliver around 80% of their revenue, with the remaining 20% of revenue coming from lower performance team members who are the majority of the team. When hiring for a sales role, it is very hard for employers to know if the individual is going to be a top performer or otherwise - we remove this risk because we only put team members who have completed our selective training process onto client engagements, thus guaranteeing quality.

Working with us allows companies to focus their commercial activities while managing their workforce. For example, if you have certain points in the year when you need to boost client acquisition, leveraging Sales-as-a-Service will mean you can get the business you need, without having to hire anyone or take a punt on freelancers.Equally, for businesses which work in clear cycles, such as event organisers, it is beneficial to bring in commercial firepower at certain points within the cycle. Sales-as-a-Service allows companies to do this, without the pressures and costs of full time hiring.You might be looking at an aggressive 6-month campaign focussed on new business and again, Sales-as-a-Service would be an excellent fit for this. We work with a range of scaling businesses, which need additional bandwidth in their sales department for a set period in order to expand, but they won’t necessarily need the headcount once a certain number of customers have been secured.Perhaps you need someone to fill in for a member of your commercial team who is on parental leave; Sales-as-a-Service would allow you to sustain your sales output without the risk of hiring someone for parental leave cover.As opposed to any specific needs as listed above, you may just be struggling to find any decent sales talent and this could be holding your business back. Once again, Sales-as-a-Service is the perfect solution, providing access to sales firepower, without any of the standard challenges, obstacles, costs and risks that come with hiring full time.