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Writer's pictureMariyan Dimitrov

Sales Sucks! Explaining the Broken Sales Cycle Nobody Talks About

Updated: Nov 3

Why Traditional Sales Methods Fail


The sales process has been stuck in an outdated cold-approach method for decades. Despite all the technological advances, founders, sales leaders, account executives, SDRs, RevOps teams, and marketers still rely on multiple platforms to carry out everyday business tasks. From emails, messaging, and project management tools to prospecting tools, video conferencing, CRM systems, file editing, sharing, and storage, the fragmented nature of these tools leaves much to be desired. The result? A sales process that is inefficient, time-consuming, and often highly frustrating.


We call this the Three-Fold Problem for Businesses:


1. Fragmented Software Ecosystem

Over the past two decades, professionals have increasingly relied on multiple platforms to manage their daily operations. While each platform excels at solving a specific problem, collectively, they create a much larger issue: productivity loss. Business leaders waste valuable time switching between disparate platforms, trying to integrate tools that aren’t designed to work seamlessly together. This fragmented ecosystem leads to data silos, disjointed workflows, and a reduced ability to focus on what really matters—building meaningful business relationships and closing deals.


2. Subscription Overload

The modern business tech stack can be a financial burden, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). After interviewing over 100 professionals, we found that a typical company with six employees spends over $1,250 per month on approximately 11-12 software tools just to operate efficiently. This subscription overload results in companies spending money on tools that are either underutilized or redundant. Managing multiple subscriptions isn’t just costly; it adds administrative headaches, and as more tools are added to the stack, the issue only worsens.


3. Bad Data and Ineffective Outreach

A major issue in the sales ecosystem is bad data. Prospecting and building deal pipelines are essential tasks for any business. However, most tools that claim to increase reply rates on cold emails by targeting specific audiences often create more problems. Cold emails usually end up as unwanted SPAM in prospect inboxes. If there’s any response, it’s usually an “unsubscribe” request. The situation worsens when we consider compliance with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, AICPA, CCPA, ISO 27001, etc., as data providers continue to sell outdated information, causing bad data to circulate for decades.


Even when email lists are compliant, advanced spam filters and email authentication protocols (like SPF, DMARC, and DKIM) ensure that most emails end up in the SPAM folder, risking your domain’s reputation and brand. Research by Kaspersky shows that over 347 billion emails are sent daily, with more than 85% classified as spam or scam. This leads to billions of dollars in losses annually. As AI automates more business processes and is celebrated for its problem-solving potential, few companies are addressing the challenges it will create and I believe this global problem will only worsen, with negative numbers potentially tripling in the next 3 to 5 years..


Breakdown of the Typical Approach to Sales Outreach

While many sales teams continue using outdated methods like cold emailing, they now have to protect their domain health, reduce costs, and meet their targets. Below is a breakdown of how a single salesperson typically manages outreach with multiple key tools:

 

Step 1: Purchase Multiple Domains

Salespeople purchase at least 10 domains similar to their primary domain. These secondary domains allow them to scale outbound emails horizontally while protecting their primary domain’s reputation.


Step 2: Create Multiple email Inboxes

For each domain, they set up a few email inboxes. These inboxes handle outbound emails, and all inbound emails are forwarded to a master inbox.


Step 3: Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Salespeople use Sales Navigator to run lead searches and build lists of their ideal customer profile (ICP). Sales Navigator helps identify key prospects and businesses based on specific criteria.


Step 4: Scrape Verified Emails

Using various lead finder tools, they scrape verified emails from their prospect list. These tools charge either per verified email or by monthly subscription.


Step 5: Warm Up Domains and Send Emails

Using prospecting and email-sending tools, salespeople warm up their secondary domains and automate their outreach emails. Many existing tools also offer AI integration to enhance results.


A Complex, Costly, and Time-Consuming Approach

This approach, while complex, costly, and time-consuming, allows salespeople to reach 5,000 to 10,000 prospects per month through mass SPAM email campaigns, typically with identical messages. For example, as a founder, I receive an average of 200 emails per day with nearly the same message:


"Hey Mariyan,
Congrats on your new position as Founder at Aiobis.
We are doing this, and over the past 12 months, we’ve helped companies do that.
Let me know if you’re interested in an e-meet to discuss how we can help."

Since I use advanced email filtering, most of these emails go straight to my spam box. Out of frustration, I’ve set up a separate email address for public scraping tools and use my business email only for actual business matters.


The SPAM Campaign Mentality

The logic behind these SPAM campaigns is simple: for every 1,000 leads, salespeople expect a 5% reply rate, which results in around 50 replies. Out of these, 40 are negative, usually with an unsubscribe request, while 10 might express interest in learning more or scheduling a demo. After converting 10% of those demos, they expect 1 potential deal. This means that to reach a target of 10 deals per month, they would have to send 10,000 emails and conduct at least 100 demo meetings.


While the numbers can vary depending on audience, email message, and product, they are often lower than expected—especially for unknown brands with no track record. This process is time-consuming, frustrating, and often has a negative impact on the mental health of salespeople, especially if they fail to meet their targets.

 

Enter Aiobis: A New Era for Business Interaction

To address these inefficiencies in the sales process, we are preparing to launch Aiobis, an all-in-one business interaction suite that consolidates the typical business stack into a single, intuitive platform. Aiobis is designed to solve the Three-Fold Problem by creating a unified ecosystem where all your business tools are connected in one secure marketplace.


Aiobis aims to eliminate fragmented workflows by integrating the tools that founders, sales leaders, and marketers use for daily business tasks. But Aiobis is more than just consolidation—it enables businesses to match their products and services with customer needs through interest-based interactions. If a prospect engages with your offering, it converts into a lead without the inefficiencies and risks of traditional cold outreach. Users can start building meaningful business relationships that are more likely to convert into successful deals, reducing time and costs, while improving the overall process.


Welcome to 2024!


Hundreds of professionals have already joined the Aiobis waitlist, recognizing the need for a streamlined, efficient sales process. You can join the movement by signing up with your business email.

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