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The BirdDog's sales team platform is driven by Signals.
Sales signals are custom indicators that help you understand the account you’re selling into.
Signals can be used to:
- Prioritize accounts
- Book meetings
- Maintain through cycle leadership
- Revive closed lost deals
Together, all of these points help you:
- Increase SQLs
- Reduce sales cycle length
- Increase close rate
As you can see, there is a lot of value you can get out of Signals… but, what exactly are signals, and how are they so powerful?
And most importantly, how do we turn signals into sales?
What is a Sales Signal?
One way to think of a sales signal is a question you ask about the companies you’re trying to sell into. The answers to these questions are facts that help paint a real picture of the company & can help reveal what is most important to them at any given time.
Below are some examples of signals you might use if you’re selling a service to support enterprise digital & AI transformations. It’s important to note that these are just examples of some Signals for one specific–signals can be fully customized to meet your specific business needs.
- Is {account} undergoing a digital transformation?
- Did {account} recently invest in AI?
- Did a founder or executive at {account} discuss goals related to digital transformation?
- Is {account} hiring for any digital transformation leads?
- Does {account} have engineers use cobol?
- Did {account} recently acquire or merge with another company?
For each of these Signals, there is an answer, and that answer will tell you something about the account you’re trying to sell into.
Some of these Signals, like coding languages used, are things that, 5 years ago, you might’ve had to learn during discovery calls. Now, a powerful signal system can help reveal this information for some of your accounts before discovery!
Others, like executives discussing growth goals, can reveal internal initiatives and drivers that you can attach your value prop to. This is critical for deals that have C Level visibility.
And, some of these Signals, like M&A, can be a deal killer if you don’t know about them… or an opportunity, if you do!
The thing is, these Signals are not static - they are dynamic and will change over time.
As they change, the fit of any given company either increases or decreases. Likewise, changing Signals, like a new executive initiative or a large series of product releases, can impact your pitch. As we’ll see later, some new Signals can even derail the sale if you miss them!
So, it’s very important to stay vigilant about ever changing Signals at all times.
Sales Signal Benefits
Now that we know what a signal is, how do we turn signals into sales? By doing the following:
- Prioritize accounts
- Book High Quality Meetings
- Maintain through cycle leadership
- Revive closed lost deals
We’ll take each one step by step to find out more.
Prioritize Accounts
Because your Signals are related to the pain point you solve or opportunity you create, they give you a really good idea about which accounts your reps should be most focused on.
If a lot of your Signals line up, that account should have a higher probability of needing your product or service.
Who do you think is more likely to buy a Developer Tool:
Company A that just raised a Series D, brought on a new CTO, launched two products, and is hiring for engineers
OR
Company B that’s launched one new product in the last 6 months
Depending on your value prop, there’s a really good chance it’s going to be Company A.
But, how in the world would you know which companies on your list of hundreds or thousands are like Company A and which ones are like Company B?
Well, we can figure that out by designing some Signals:
- Did {account} recently raise a funding round?
- Did {account} recently hire or promote a new CTO?
- Did {account} launch any new products?
- Is {account} hiring for engineers?
If you had answers to all of these Signals across your account list, and then used that information to rank your accounts, you would be able to tell which company to focus on before your rep even had to look at the account.
And, if some of these signals are more important than others, you’d certainly want your scoring system to weigh some of those signals more highly than the rest!
Book High Quality Meetings
In sales, there are a million ways to book meetings. You can either outsource it to a lead generation agency or embedded sales team, or you can enable your Sales Development Reps or Full Cycle Account Executives with technology to help them book more meetings.
Whatever you decide to do, one of the most important things is that you make sure the meetings getting booked actually have a chance of qualifying and closing. Because remember, you & firm don’t actually care about how many meetings are booked. You and your firm care about revenue generated.
The beauty of signals is that if you’ve already prioritized your accounts with well designed signals, then you’ve already done research on which accounts are likely a good fit & most likely to close.
But this section is about booking meetings, not generating revenue. How are the two related?
The very same Signals that show an account is a good fit also are the best signals to reach out on.
Let’s go back to the example in which you’re selling Digital & AI Transformation. One of your signals is:
- Is {account} undergoing a digital transformation?
If you get a yes answer to this Signal for an account, you’ll also get plenty of context about the digital transformation–think about relevant facts, executive quotes, and even a historic overview of the digital transformation, all in one place.
This gives your sellers enough context to create outbound that includes quotes, named initiatives, and overall executive level insights. This is exactly the kind of messaging that will resonate with your buying committee & connect your value prop to their priorities.
And the best part is, with those Signals being rooted in truth, the firm is more likely to close, as well.
So, in this way, Signals not only make it easier to book meetings, but also make it easier to ultimately book topline revenue.
Maintain through Cycle Leadership
When you’re doing a complex sale with a cycle that’s 3 months or longer & that requires C Level visibility, it becomes increasingly important to stay up to date on signals throughout the entire sales cycle.
After all, things change, and you don’t want to lose a big deal at the last minute because of a major event you heard about too late.
On the other hand, proactively knowing about these events can turn that risk into opportunity as you perpetually position yourself as a trusted business advisor who really understands what’s going on.
It’s one thing to know about M&A that’s already happened at the start of the deal cycle; it’s another thing when a major merger happens 9 months into a 12 month deal—no amount of upfront research can warn you about that!
If the prospect has to tell you about an M&A transaction, you’re a seller. You also have to come up with an ad hoc justification about why your deal is still a priority.
If you proactively approach your buying committee about an M&A transaction & have already done your homework, you’re a trust advisor. And, you’re more likely to navigate the challenge.
With Signals, your reps will be in the latter camp–trusted advisors, not sellers.
Likewise, it’s critical for your sellers to stay up to date on any other Signals that can reveal shifting priorities, internal or external headwinds, and possibly even tailwinds.
Being the first to know and act on this data separates transactional sellers from trusted advisors, every time.
Reviving Closed Lost
Even when we leverage signals to improve the entire cycle, things can still go wrong & the deal can fall though.
That’s okay, though, because by continuously monitoring closed lost accounts for new signals, you can re-open the opportunity at the right time.
Of course, if you build a strong enough relationship during the cycle, buyers might tell you that you’ll be the first they think of when the timing is right. But buyers forget, and their own companies can change faster than they realize.
Signals make sure that you really know when it’s a good time to resume talks.
As an example, If you sell robots to new manufacturing facilities, and you got told no because they put a pause on opening new facilities, you’ll want to be the first to know when the COO announces that they’re opening up new factories again.
Other examples include the buyer telling you to wait until a big transaction to clear, a funding round to come through, or a legal battle resolves.
Whatever it is, if you know about these signals as they happen, you can proactively approach your contacts to check if it’s a good time to pick the conversation back up. Nine times out of ten, they’ll be impressed by the super human level of attention you can show their business.
Again, Signals truly sets trusted advisors apart from transactional sellers.
Turn Signals into Sales
As this post should make clear, if you integrate signals into your sales process, you will be able to:
- Prioritize accounts
- Book High Quality Meetings
- Maintain through cycle leadership
- Revive closed lost deals
With these benefits, you will turn signals into sales by:
- Increase SQLs
- Reduce sales cycle length
- Increase close rate
It’s no doubt that Signals are a major differentiator that helps your reps act more as trusted advisors and less like transactional sellers.
So, if you want to learn more about how BirdDog can help you enrich your entire sales process with Signals, click here to book a meeting with a member of our team.
Or, if you want to learn more about how BirdDog compares to some other tools sellers use on the market, you can check out some comparisons below:
- Signals vs Intent
- Signals vs Clay
- Signals vs GPT/Perplexity/Claude/etc
Either way, thanks for reading & happy selling.
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