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Prospecting on Purpose is Forbes meets Saturday Night Live - it’s *the* show for everything prospecting, sales, business, and mindset.
As business grows more complex, the biggest opportunities emerge when we learn beyond our own industries. From hospitality and design to technology and travel, this is where professionals come together to exchange ideas, uncover new perspectives, and prospect for business with creativity, authenticity, and intention.
Hosted by Sara Murray, a heart-centric sales champion, each episode helps you raise both your vibes and your game. Sara's playbook is simple - ABAV: Always Be Adding Value. Embrace your authentic self, lean into your unique strengths, and sell the outcome instead of the product or service.
Join Sara each week as she sits down with world-class thought leaders to unpack today's business strategies, mindset shifts, and relationship-driven approaches to growth, giving you practical ideas you can put into action right away.
Connect with Sara: www.saramurray.com IG: @saramurraysales LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/saramurraysales/
Sara Murray - Prospecting on Purpose:
You're listening to Prospecting on
Purpose, where we discuss all things
prospecting, sales, business, and mindset.
I'm your host, Sarah Murray, a sales
champion who's here to show you that you
can be a shark in business and still lead
with intentionality and authenticity.
Tune in each week as we dive into methods
to connect with clients, communicate
with confidence, and close the deal.
Welcome to Prospecting on Purpose.
Today, we're gonna be discussing how to
flex to our client's communication style
so that your message doesn't get stuck in
a inbox or an unlistened to voice message.
And the reason that this is really
important is that the best message in
the world that doesn't get delivered
is the same as no message at all.
And so I wanna start with a quick story
that kind of inspired this episode.
I travel a lot for my business, and
usually when I'm traveling, I'll look at
LinkedIn and kinda see who's in that city
and try to set up some networking events
or, or networking about activities,
business development, and so on.
And I see that, you know, we've
been kind of like two ships in
the night with this one contact.
We've never met in person.
We've known each other for years.
I am a fan of their work.
I admire their work.
We're kind of in the same orbit.
We have the same values around
relationship building and communication.
And I sent this person a LinkedIn
message saying, "Hey, I'm gonna
be in your city these dates.
Let's finally get
together and grab coffee."
And that person sent me back a voice note
And I have no idea if they were available
because I did not listen to the voice
note because I hate receiving voice notes.
I'm trying to get better at it, but as
a general rule, I just don't like them.
I think they're super convenient
to the sender and super
inconvenient to the receiver.
You know, oftentimes we're multitasking.
We're in the middle of a meeting.
We're in the middle of a task.
I can't stop and press play to
listen to your voice note, or I'm
in a public space and I have to
fish out my AirPods to put them in.
It's just inconvenient,
and I don't listen to them.
And in this instance, I just
needed a response, yes or no.
Are you in town, and do
you wanna get together?
And I've kinda seen this advice
pretty frequently around sending
voice notes on LinkedIn if
you're a first-degree connection.
same with video notes.
Again, it's okay.
I'm not against it, but if you're
trying to communicate with someone
and they communicate in a way that
doesn't work for them, then you
are not effectively communicating.
And so obviously the story
would've been different if it
was a prospect or a client.
We must flex to them.
Of course, I would've listened
to the voice note, but it wasn't.
It was someone in, in my league,
someone who, , I'm going out
of my way to be in their city.
it, it's a two-way street, and
so it's j- it was just a nice
reminder of that communication
failed between the two of us.
And so failure on both of our parts.
They communicated in a way that
worked for them, but it didn't
work for me, and we did not get
together for a coffee in that city.
And so that is the whole point of today.
How can we be really
thoughtful about flexing to our
client's communication style?
Because sometimes it's about not really
what the message is, but how much work you
made the other person do to receive it.
So the first thing we have to do to
effectively communicate is remove
any obstacle between them and
the action you want them to take.
The voice note had a job to do.
It did not get done.
So let's start there 'cause I
think this is the fastest fix.
Every single message you send has a
job, and most of us hit send without
even thinking about what that job is.
So when we send something, I want us
to think about, what do I want this
person to actually do, and what might
be standing between them and doing it?
Do you want a quick reply?
Do you need them to read the whole thing?
Do you wanna stop the scroll on LinkedIn?
Do you wanna get a
meeting on the calendar?
Get clear on the objective, and
then go eliminate every obstacle
in front of it to get it done.
I'm gonna share a couple of examples here.
This one, don't roll your eyes
at me, it's about the em dash.
I know we all have em dash
fatigue, but I'm using it because
it's a good example, right?
The AI models fell in love with
the em dash, and so now when people
see an em dash in a paragraph or
a block of text, we automatically
assume that it was written by AI.
And, I don't know about you,
but I just skim right over it.
Iâ¦
my brain skips over it.
So even if you've used em dashes
before AI, even if you know it's
punctually correct and the proper
usage, think about the goal.
If your goal is you want the other
person to read what you wrote, and an
em dash might be an obstacle in that,
then leave it out and skip it Couple
of other things, , e- especially in,
email communication, put your ask
as early as possible in the email.
I can't tell you how many times
I've received emails, I'm sure it's
happened to every single one of us,
where we get this long email thread
and somebody just says, "See below."
And you're reading through it,
it's like, what, , what is required
of me in this email thread?
What action am I supposed to be taking?
So if we are going to be effective
sellers, effective business professionals,
effective influencers, don't bury
your request in the email body.
Make it really, really clear.
Put it up top, "I'm
writing for this reason."
Sometimes if I'm waiting on things
to get back to me before I can move
the process forward, I will try to
write as concisely and direct as
possible in bold what I need from you.
And then I usually like to do
numbered lists because then if people
have specific, specific questions
on specific numbers, bulleted and
numbered lists work really great.
Sometimes it'll be Sara action
items versus so and so action
items, or here's what I owe you,
here's what I need back from you.
Just be as literal as possible because
we need to eliminate the thinking so
that we can inspire the other people
to do what we want, and a big part
of that is flexing to their style and
how they like to be communicated with.
Another really easy example is to
not have to do math that we could
have done ourselves, specifically
when it comes to time zones.
So time zones are a big one.
This one drives me a little nuts when
people send a message and they don't
say what time zone it, they're in.
It's a little presumptuous, and if we are,
trying to have ni- nice manners, and the
goal, our objective is to get the meeting
or to get the next step, then we need to
make sure we're bulleting out our list
and saying, "Hey, here's the different
times I can meet Eastern time," right?
Whatever their time zone is.
We wanna make it easy, easy, easy.
, and, and a lot of this is kind
of easy when you start to realize
and you try to figure out how
people wanna be communicated with.
Do they want a phone call?
Do they want face-to-face and have
it scheduled on their calendar?
Sometimes people would prefer you just
pick up the phone and call 'em and,,
try to do that within,, a ten to five
minutes before the top of the hour, before
they might have a new meeting starting.
Sometimes you can double up on things.
So if you call someone, you leave
a message, you can follow up
with a text and say, "Hey Mark,
I just left you a voice message.
Sending a text too since
that's usually quicker.
Are we still on for Thursday?"
Try it different ways.
And then the other thing that you can
do, and it sounds really straightforward,
is you can just ask people, "Hey, I
wanna make sure that I am communicating
in a way that works for you.
How do you like to receive information?
How do you wanna hear from me?"
And people will tell you.
Anyone who would ask, I would say,
"Please don't send me a voice note.
I will never listen to it."
So we just need to make sure that
we're thinking about their convenience,
we're thinking about what steps we
want them to take, and we're thinking
about what different things can we
eliminate to make sure that it happens.
The other thing that's kind of interesting
is that people show you with their actions
how they wanna be communicated with too.
So if somebody responds really fast and
right away, that person values quick
response time, so if you can try to flex
to them there, that's gonna help you.
some people say that they like
emails, but then it's a lot faster
and efficient to just get 'em on the
phone, and you find that they end up
calling you, so it's like, "Okay, I
guess we're okay with phone calls."
But it kinda depends on
what the message is, right?
So we need to also think through
what is the job of that message.
If it's something that maybe
it's, , nuanced or it's complicated
or it's something that might be
delicate, that's gonna be better
over the phone or face to face.
When you need to put something in writing,
if you need to make sure that you're kinda
protecting yourself and the client, if you
wanna make sure that there's a, a paper
trail, if you're sending a quote or facts
or figures, anything with numbers, that
you really wanna put in writing so that
you can make sure there's a record of it,
that, that we have a file of it somewhere.
But then often, "Hey, let's hop on
a call to review this together."
So watch what they do, not what they say.
The real, the real answer reveals
itself in its beha- in their behavior.
And one other thing to note is the
temperature in how the other person,
communicates with you, or, the tonality.
So if somebody emails like, "Hi Sara,"
exclamation mark, "How was Sedona?"
You don't wanna come back with a cold,
direct-to-the-point answer, right?
You wanna add that little fluff
and, s- meet them where they're at.
I got a really nice email today that said,
you know, "Hi Sara, thanks so much for all
you're doing," da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
"Could you send me this recording,
and could you send me the PDF?
I was late to that meeting."
And my response, I literally
wrote, "Here's the meeting PDF.
Here's the recording."
And then I went back and I added
a paragraph, and I said, "Hey,
thanks for sending that note.
It actually really meant a lot to me.
I'm so grateful that you're
able to join these calls live."
it's important.
So I, even I have to slow
myself down all the time.
It's something that just takes
practice, and it's a good reminder
that we wanna make sure we're
matching the energy, matching the
warmth of the person, but also what
is the goal of that correspondence.
And all of these different things,
it just, it, it's just something
to be mindful of and take notes on.
Once you understand how someone likes
to be communicated with, write it down.
Put it in your CRM system if you
have one next to their kids' names
and where they went to high school.
You know, texts back fast, never
opens email, hates voice notes.
I know we covered a lot of different
angles when it comes to correspondence
and communication styles, but
the biggest takeaway is flex to
the person, flex to the moment.
Think about what you want the objective
is, like what is that goal of that
message, that communication style?
What are the things I can remove to
make it easy for the other person
to do the action that I need?
And then remember it for next time.
It's a really easy way to make sure
that the other people understand that
you're seeing them, you're communicating
in the way that they like to be
communicated with, and that's one of
the easiest ways to really differentiate
yourself and bui- build quicker
and more meaningful relationships.
Thank you so much for tuning
in, and I'll see you next week.
Thank you so much for listening to
the Prospecting on Purpose podcast.
If you loved what you heard today,
subscribe to the podcast and
please rate and leave a review.
For more info on me or if you'd
like to work together, feel free to
go to my website, saramurray.com.
On social media, I'm usually
hanging out @saramurraysales.
Thanks again for joining me,
and I'll see you next time.