The average sales rep gives up after just 1.3 calls, yet a successful call cadence needs up to eight attempts to connect with a lead.
A striking fact: companies reach and qualify prospects seven times more when they contact leads within an hour. Your prospects need 9 to 12 touchpoints with your business before they make their purchase decision.
A well-laid-out, planned call cadence is a vital part of your sales success. The right calling strategy can transform your results, whether you want to improve prospect connections or increase conversion rates.
Let me show you how to build a call cadence that delivers results. You'll learn everything from planning your outbound strategy to measuring performance. This knowledge will help your sales team create a winning approach.
What Is a Sales Call Cadence
"A sales cadence is a strategic sequence of interactions with potential customers. It involves a planned series of communications across multiple channels, such as email, phone calls, social media, and even SMS." — Darryl Praill, Chief Revenue Officer at VanillaSoft
A sales call cadence creates a well-laid-out sequence of interactions between sales representatives and potential customers. The predetermined series of touchpoints works through multiple communication channels to build a systematic approach that helps teams connect with prospects.
Key Components of a Cadence
A successful sales cadence combines several core elements that create an effective outreach strategy. These components are the foundations of the process:
Communication channels (phone calls, emails, social media messages)
Timing intervals between touchpoints
Message content and templates
Follow-up sequences
Performance tracking metrics
Sales representatives need to make eight or more attempts to reach a prospect successfully. The spacing between these interactions matters because it helps prevent overwhelming potential customers while you retain control of consistent engagement.
Why Cadences Matter for Sales Teams
Sales cadences take the guesswork out of prospecting and give representatives a clear roadmap to connect with customers. A well-laid-out cadence helps sales teams deliver consistent interactions with all prospects.
The right implementation of sales cadences improves workflow efficiency. Sales representatives know exactly when they should make calls, send emails, or reach out through social media. This systematic approach increases their chances to connect with prospects through preferred communication channels.
A structured cadence simplifies result tracking and measurement. Sales managers can gather data to improve their messaging and optimize the entire process. Teams can scale their outreach efforts with this standardized framework while keeping quality interactions with each prospect.
The value of a proper cadence becomes evident in conversion rates. Research shows that booking outbound meetings needs between 1,000 to 1,400 touchpoints per sourced opportunity. Sales teams can handle these increased touchpoint requirements through a hosted cadence while delivering individual-specific engagement with each prospect.
Planning Your Outbound Calling Strategy
A well-laid-out strategy kickstarts success in outbound sales. Your sales team needs a strategic approach to focus on the right prospects through the most effective channels.
Setting Clear Goals
SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) objectives build the foundation of your outbound strategy. Your goals should line up with broader sales targets and help your team concentrate on what matters most. To name just one example, see these specific targets:
Call-to-meeting conversion rates
Qualified leads per week
Average sales cycle duration
Identify Your Target Audience
Detailed buyer personas based on your successful clients help identify prospects most likely to convert. You should analyze job titles, company size, industry, and engagement levels to score and prioritize leads. There's another reason to understand your ideal customer profile (ICP) - it lets you target buyers who:
Present fewer objections
Understand your product's value
Show urgency to buy
Choose the Right Channels
Digital platforms now drive direct sales primarily. B2B buyers now use up to ten channels during their buying process. A multi-channel approach has:
LinkedIn for professional networking
Email for detailed pitches
Phone calls for high-value prospects
Video messaging for customized outreach
Create Your Prospect List
LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps develop a test audience. Live analytics uncover trends and insights about potential customer behavior. So, AI-powered tools help score and prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert. Your prospects need effective segmentation to customize outreach based on:
Industry insights
Common pain points
Position in buyer's trip
Note that you should keep refining your prospect parameters as you gather more data about successful conversions. This systematic approach helps your sales team improve efficiency and focus their energy on prospects most likely to close.
Build Your First Sales Cadence
Sales teams need a smart outbound call cadence that balances timing, touchpoints, and messaging. Research shows successful sales cadences run for 17-21 days. This timeframe gives you enough room to build trust and handle any concerns your prospects might have.
Deciding Contact Frequency
The right rhythm makes all the difference when reaching out to prospects. The data points to 8-12 touchpoints for the best results. You should start with more frequent contacts and space them out as time goes on. The sweet spot is 2-3 touches in the first two weeks. After that, scale back to 1-2 touches per week until the sequence ends.
Mapping Touchpoints
A well-laid-out cadence uses multiple channels to maximize engagement. The most effective sequence has:
Day 1: LinkedIn connection request
Day 2-3: Email and phone call
Day 7-10: Tailored video message
Day 13-15: Follow-up call and case study email
Day 18-21: Final outreach and breakup email
This approach gives prospects enough time to respond while you stay visible. You should adjust your cadence based on how prospects engage with your outreach.
Writing Effective Call Scripts
Your call scripts lay the groundwork for meaningful conversations. We focused on scripts that sound natural and confident. Start by introducing yourself and your company clearly. Then build rapport through relevant questions about their business.
A strong script has these vital elements:
A compelling positioning statement that shows you know their industry
Open-ended questions that keep conversations going
Clear next steps or calls to action
Scripts work best as guidelines rather than word-for-word readings. Make each interaction personal while keeping your message consistent. Watch your engagement metrics for each touchpoint to fine-tune your approach.
Note that regional differences matter. To cite an instance, cold calling works better in the US market. APAC and EMEA regions need fewer touchpoints. Keep tracking and adjusting your approach. You'll develop a cadence that brings consistent results.
Best Practices for Making Outbound Calls
Your outbound calls' success depends on timing. Research shows that people answer Wednesday calls 315% more than Friday calls and 216% more than Monday calls.
Optimal Calling Times
The late afternoon works best to reach decision-makers. The 4-5 PM window gets 71% more answers than other times. People tend to be more open to conversations after finishing their daily work. The 11 AM to 12 PM slot ranks second best for productivity. You should skip lunch hours and after 5 PM since engagement drops during these times.
Voice Message Templates
Sales calls go to voicemail 80% of the time. A good voicemail message needs these elements:
Your name and company affiliation
Clear purpose of the call
Value proposition or benefit statement
Contact information (mentioned twice)
Specific call-to-action
Your message should stay under 30 seconds to avoid getting cut off by voicemail systems. Speak with a steady, confident tone. Skip filler words like "um" and "uh" to sound professional and create urgency.
Following Up Effectively
Sales data shows 40% of representatives quit after one call. A successful conversion needs up to six follow-up attempts. Your follow-ups need strategic timing to succeed. You should spread six call attempts over fifteen days.
Remote work has changed how we follow up with prospects. Mobile numbers connect better now because professionals forward desk lines to cell phones. Don't wait too long between attempts or use the same calling window repeatedly.
The "Power Hour" technique helps optimize your outbound calling. Block your most productive calling time, prepare your prospect lists, and remove distractions during this focused period. This method helps you stay consistent and maximizes your chances to connect with decision-makers.
How To Measure Cadence Performance
Your outbound call cadence success depends on tracking performance metrics. Organizations that monitor their cadence metrics achieve higher conversion rates by a lot.
Key Metrics to Track
Several significant metrics need monitoring to measure cadence effectiveness:
Email engagement metrics: Aim for 23% open rates and 1-3% response rates
Call connection rates: Target above 5% for optimal performance
Meeting booking rates: Strive for 10%+ conversion from connected calls
Pipeline velocity: Track how quickly leads move through sales stages
Response time metrics: Monitor speed of rep responses to prospect inquiries
Revenue influence: Measure pipeline and revenue directly attributed to cadence efforts
Message deliverability requires bounce rates to stay below 2%. Click-through rates help assess content engagement levels and show how well your messaging works.
Use Data to Optimize Results
Successful optimization begins with clear objectives for your cadence performance. Without doubt, analyzing segments by industry, role, and deal stage shows what works for different prospect groups.
These key areas need analysis to improve effectiveness:
First, get into where prospects drop out of your cadence sequence. This reveals potential friction points in your outreach strategy. Second, use team feedback to understand front-line engagement challenges. Third, identify optimal engagement times through analytics.
Regular review cycles - at minimum monthly - help assess automated steps and make adjustments. Companies that review and optimize their cadences see shorter sales cycles and work better.
Sales cadence software improves optimization efforts by:
Automating lead generation and original outreach
Scoring leads based on engagement levels
Providing actionable insights from raw data
Tracking response rates and unanswered calls
Better results come from focusing on these metrics and refining your approach over time. Comparing performance between multiple cadences helps identify the most effective sequences. This analytical approach maintains high-quality interactions while scaling outreach efforts.
Increase Your B2B Sales Now
Building a successful sales call cadence requires thoughtful planning, a lot (really, a lot) of trial-and-error, and an ongoing commitment to crawling through data to analyze your results. By reaching out multiple times across different channels—and avoiding the temptation to give up after one or two calls—you’ll have a much greater chance of having connections, and conversations with prospects that turn into customers.
You can do that by yourself of course, or you can get the heavy lifting out of the way with Tendril. Our agent-assisted dialing platform, Tendril Connect, streamlines your outreach by automating routine tasks like voicemail navigation, delivering call-ready leads, and integrating call outcomes into your CRM.
This frees up your team to focus on other activities.
The end result? a sales cadence that’s not just well-designed, but also well-executed—driving higher connect rates, more meetings, and ultimately, increased revenue (which is the name of the game).
Reach out today and discover how Tendril can empower you to develop, refine, and maintain a winning sales call cadence that delivers real results.
FAQs
Q1. What is a sales call cadence and why is it important? A sales call cadence is a structured sequence of interactions between sales representatives and potential customers across multiple communication channels. It's important because it eliminates guesswork, provides a clear roadmap for customer engagement, and significantly increases the chances of connecting with prospects through their preferred channels.
Q2. How many touchpoints should a typical sales cadence include? An effective sales cadence typically includes 8-12 touchpoints over a period of 17-21 days. This allows adequate time to build trust and address prospect objections while maintaining consistent engagement without overwhelming potential customers.
Q3. What are the best times to make outbound sales calls? Late afternoon, particularly the 4-5 PM window, has shown to be most effective for reaching decision-makers, with a 71% higher answer rate compared to other time slots. The 11 AM to 12 PM slot is the second most productive time. It's best to avoid calling during lunch hours or after 5 PM.
Q4. How can I improve my voicemail strategy for sales calls? Craft a concise voicemail (under 30 seconds) that includes your name, company, call purpose, value proposition, contact information (mentioned twice), and a specific call-to-action. Maintain a confident tone and eliminate filler words to sound more professional and create urgency.
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