So what is sales cadence in practice? It means understanding who your ideal prospects are, knowing when and how to contact them, and staying persistent even when responses don’t come immediately. While not every outreach attempt will convert, every interaction gives you insights you can use to improve your approach.

The good news is that creating a strong sales cadence is far more manageable than it seems. With the right structure in place, you can build a repeatable process that increases engagement, improves follow-ups, and drives more conversions. Here’s how to build one.

Sales Cadence Templates for your Outreach

Download these email templates to improve your sales cadence and connect with more prospects.

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1. Define your cadence objective 

There’s absolutely no point in setting up your sales cadence without an objective – every touchpoint within the cadence should be nudging your prospect towards a specific goal. 

So before you begin considering these touchpoints, you need to answer the following question: 

What objective do you want to achieve through your sales outreach cadence? 

This objective needs to be both realistic and unintrusive; it should feel natural to prospects. The purpose of your cadence should be to move your prospects toward the next step that nudges them closer to your end goal.

For instance, this could mean scheduling a product demo, setting up a free trial, or arranging a first sales meeting. 

2. Understand your prospects and buyers 

Of course, one of the most important aspects of sales prospecting is research. 

Doing your homework is the best way to really understand your prospects – as every sales rep knows, prospects won’t always just tell you everything you need to know to win them over, and best meet their needs. 

Therefore, to build the perfect sales outreach cadence, you first need to consider who your typical prospect and customer are. You can either collect this data through surveys and chatbots or extract it from your existing database.

Normally, when we’re considering how to sell to a prospect, we’re thinking about pain points and the psychology of selling. But when it comes to cadence in sales, you need to take more logistical factors into account.

Important facts to discover during this phase include:

• Time zone - Which time zone does your prospect sit in, and how different is it to yours?

• Geography - Where are they located? Are there any cultural factors to take into account?

• Industry - What industry are your target accounts in? How could this affect their time online or their approach to emails?

• Seniority - What job title does your typical prospect have? What does this mean in terms of free time?

3. Establish company size

Establishing your prospects’ company size is also of major importance for the effectiveness of your sales cadence. This is mainly because the job title you’re targeting and the way you target that person will change depending on the organization's scope. 

For example, enterprise clients typically have an established buying process. There’s often a lot of red tape around this process, and you’ll have to fit in with their system if you want to sell to them. 

When dealing with SMBs, on the other hand, you can be more creative. These organizations are typically too busy servicing customers – and have too few team members – to have developed complex internal structures. 

In these cases, you’ll likely be dealing directly with the company founder or CEO. Typically, you’ll find that these deals are pretty low touch – you have the ear of the one and only decision maker, who will sign off if they see the value in what you’re selling. There’s usually little regulation and no big board to convince. 

The structure of your sales cadence must therefore change depending on company size. For instance, a survey found that SMBs overwhelmingly prefer email contact. 

4. How to create a sales cadence contact plan

As we’ve discussed above, your sales contact plan will differ depending on the accounts you’re targeting. 

They may include:

• Social media messages

• Phone calls 

• Voicemails

• Emails

The more specific the contact plan, the more likely you’ll be to stick to it.

During its creation, ensure you break your planned contact into daily activities. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean you can schedule only one form of contact each day – instead, consider building in a combination of sales activities in a single day. For example, you could send an email and leave a voicemail in one day. 

It’s important to specify the exact number of times you will use each contact method during the plan, and remember to diversify your channels so you're not relying on a single outreach method. 

Here’s one of many sales cadence examples you could follow:

Week 1

Day 1: Send a LinkedIn message and a request to connect

Day 4: Call and send an email

Week 2

Day 1: Call, and if they don’t answer, leave a voicemail 

Day 4: Send an email and a LinkedIn message

Week 3

Day 1: Call

Day 4: Send a follow-up email with extra information

Week 4

Day 1: Call and leave a voicemail 

Day 4: Send an email 

5. Timing is important 

Getting the timing right is an important sales skill and is all about not annoying your prospect. 

As sales reps, we have to master the fine balance between providing enough information and not getting blocked from social media or having our emails sent straight to the junk folder. 

This is particularly important at the beginning of the cadence: your prospects are much more likely to feel harassed by your contact before they’ve put a face to the name and realized you’re human. 

And the last thing you want is to lose a prospect before you’ve even had the chance to really talk to them. For optimal timing, space out your attempts to contact them by at least a day, but don’t let more than 4 days elapse. 

After the first couple of contacts, increase the time between your communications following each attempt. A week or so is a good limit for the maximum time you should wait before giving up after repeatedly getting no response. 

6. Optimal number of touchpoints in an outbound sales cadence

According to a report published by the Online Marketing Institute, it takes an average of 7 to 13 touchpoints to deliver a qualified sales lead. 

Ideally, you want the sales cadence containing these touchpoints to last somewhere from two to four weeks. 

So what level of sales engagement should you aim for during this time, and at what point should you give up? 

To set yourself up for sales success, aim for 10-15 touches per prospect using your sales cadence. Remember that, in reality, most salespeople give up after just one or two attempts, so by sticking to your sales plan, you’ll put yourself head and shoulders above the competition. 

Remember to adjust the sales cadence, too. Once you’ve used it a number of times, you should get a feel for how many touches are optimal for your audience. 

Putting Your Sales Cadence Into Action  

As Voltaire once (allegedly) said, “perfect is the enemy of good.” So when it comes to applying these sales cadence best practices, you just have to start. At first, it won’t be perfect, and there will no doubt be a handful of missteps along the way.

But these missteps are super important when it comes to honing your sales cadence, which is what's going to get it as close to perfect as possible. And once it’s there, your sales game is going to climb to the next level. 

Sales Cadence Templates for your Outreach

Download these email templates to improve your sales cadence and connect with more prospects.

DOWNLOAD