Sales cadence: how to plan your touches, with 6 examples you can copy

By Zach Schleien

How to plan a sales cadence: how many touches, how far apart, which channels and what to say, plus six cadences you can copy for cold, inbound and old leads.

A sales cadence is the planned order of touches you use to reach a prospect: which calls, emails, texts and social messages you send, on which days, and when you stop. A good one gives every touch a new reason to reply, puts the first touches close together, spaces the rest out, and ends on a set day.

A lot of founders don't have one. They send one email, maybe a second, and then the lead goes cold. A cadence fixes that, because the next touch is on your calendar before you send the first one.

Below is how to build a sales cadence, six examples you can copy, and what to track. I've done the selling myself, from cold calling as a college kid to taking the high-ticket sales calls at Filteroff, the video dating app I built and sold.

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Key takeaways

• A sales cadence is a plan: who you're reaching, how many touches, how far apart, on which channels, what each one says, and when you stop.
• Put touches close together at the start, then space them out.
• Use more than one channel. Some people answer email, some pick up the phone, and some only reply to texts.
• Every touch needs a new reason to reply. "Just checking in" isn't one.
• Run your first cadence by hand. Automate it after you know which touches get replies.

What a sales cadence is

A sales cadence is the schedule behind your outreach. It answers six questions before you contact anyone:

1. Who is this for? Use one type of prospect per cadence.
2. How many touches will you make?
3. How many days go between each touch?
4. Which channels will you use: email, phone, text, LinkedIn or another social app?
5. What does each touch say?
6. When does it stop?

People use the words a little differently. A sequence often means the automated emails you load into a sales tool. A cadence is the whole plan, including the calls and personal messages no tool can send for you. Follow-up is any touch after the first one.

The sixth question is the one people skip. Your cadence should stop when the person replies, books a call, says no, asks you to stop, or reaches the last touch. If you don't decide that up front, you either quit too early or keep messaging someone who already said no.

Run your first cadence by hand

My first sales job, in college, was selling Cutco knives. I cold called parents from my high school directory, so every call was a cold call.

Years later at Filteroff, we were running out of cash, so I let go of our outsourced sales agencies to get my retainer back. I had to learn high-ticket sales myself. My close rate started around 20% and nearly doubled within 30 days.

Both times, I was the one making the calls. When you run the first cadence yourself, you hear which touch gets replies, which line makes people go quiet, and which objections come up again and again. Then you automate the parts that work and keep the parts that need a person.

6 sales cadence examples you can copy

These are starting points. The day numbers are made-up examples, so change them once you see your own replies.

1. Cold outbound to a business buyer

For a founder selling a service to companies, over about three weeks:

• Day 1: Email. One short message about their problem, with one question.
• Day 2: Connect on LinkedIn. No pitch.
• Day 3: Call. If they don't pick up, leave a 20-second voicemail that points to your email.
• Day 6: Email. Give a new reason to reply, like a short result, a story or an idea for their company.
• Day 9: Call again, at a different time of day.
• Day 12: If they accepted on LinkedIn, send a message about something they posted.
• Day 16: Email. Ask a simple yes or no question.
• Day 21: Last email. Say it's your last note, leave the door open, and stop.

That's eight touches in three weeks, on three channels. For what to write in each follow-up email, see Cold email follow up: when to send it, what to say, and when to stop. If you still need the list of people to contact, start with sales prospecting.

2. A new inbound lead

When someone fills out a form or downloads something, speed and the ask matter more than the number of touches.

On the investor campaign I built for a real estate sponsor, a setter called new leads within the hour. People who downloaded the deck got 14 days of email and text, with a path back to booking a call. Then the data came in: 65% of the people who booked a call never downloaded the deck, and the deck path cost 4 to 5x more per call. So the account moved to calls first.

For your inbound cadence, make the first touch fast, and make every touch after it ask for the call, not for one more download. I go through inbound timing and what to say in Lead follow up: how fast to reply, what to say, and how long to keep going.

3. Booked calls and no-shows

A cadence doesn't end when someone books. On that same campaign, every booked call got a confirm-or-cancel message, reminders before the call, and no-show recovery for people who missed it.

A simple version, with made-up timing: a confirmation right after they book, a reminder the day before, a short text an hour before, and if they miss it, a text and a call within the hour offering two new times.

4. After a sales call where they didn't buy

This is the cadence founders avoid most. The scary call is usually the money call.

I coached Simone Grossman, a matchmaker, when she was scared to make a follow-up call. I told her: "If you don't make this call, your business will fail and you'll go back to your 9-to-5." She made the call, shaking while she did it, and got the sale. She's done $160K in about five months since launching.

A post-call cadence, with made-up timing: a recap the same day with what you heard and the next step, a call two days later, a short email that answers the objection they raised, and a final call before any deadline you gave them. Here's what to put in the recap email, and what to say to the objections you'll hear most.

When you get them on the phone, ask for the decision. The line from the script Simone still uses: "Are you opposed to moving forward today?"

5. Old leads you never followed up with

A personal trainer client of mine had a list of old leads he'd never texted. I built his funnel, his offers and his landing page first, then coached him on how to reach out and what to say when leads replied. He reached out by hand to about 55 old leads, and 4 of them became clients in one day, at $150 per session. The reactivation is on track to be worth about $30,000.

An old-lead cadence can be short: one personal text, a second text two days later to anyone who didn't reply, and a call to anyone who replied with a question. These people already know you.

6. A slow cadence for big decision-makers

Some buyers don't want a message every three days. Send them updates instead.

The sale of Filteroff started with cold emails I sent straight to CEOs and CFOs at companies that might buy us. The email was a status update, not a sales pitch: "This is what we're up to." It said, "We're profitable and growing and reinventing the industry." That outbound produced the offer from the dating conglomerate that bought the company.

Investors work the same way. Nearly every Filteroff investor came from cold emails I sent myself. For investors, partners and big accounts, a short update with real numbers every month or so keeps you in front of them without wearing them out.

How many touches, and how far apart?

There isn't one right number. It depends on how much the buyer is spending and how fast they decide.

Here's how I'd set it:

• Put touches close together while the interest is fresh. A new inbound lead should hear from you within the hour.
• Space them out after the first week. Three or four days apart works for a cold prospect.
• Give bigger decisions more time, not more pressure. When the main cadence ends, move people who didn't say no to a monthly update.

The same math applies to events. On webinars, I've said, "It's not unheard of for someone to show up to your webinar 2, 3, or even 4 times before they buy." If a buyer needs four touches and you run a webinar once a month, that takes four months. Run it every other week and it takes two.

Don't let the fear of sending too much stop you. My view on email volume: "If they unsubscribe, they're not investing in you in the first place... if you do fewer emails, you're going to make less money. Stop thinking about the number of emails and start thinking about: am I providing value?"

Use more than one channel

I call it marketing love languages. Different people respond to different channels, so reach prospects on video, email, text and social.

A few rules for each channel:

• Email: keep it short, with one ask that's easy to answer. Give people an easy way to opt out, and stop when they ask.
• Phone: call at different times of day. Leave a short voicemail that points to your email.
• Text: only text people who gave you their number and agreed to hear from you, and check the texting rules where you sell.
• Social: connect first, comment on something real, then message. Don't pitch in the connection request.
• Video: record a short video for one person, saying their name and their company in the first few seconds.

What to say in each touch

Every touch needs a new reason to reply. These work better than "just checking in":

• A question about their situation.
• A short result or story from a customer like them.
• Something you noticed about their company.
• An invitation to a webinar, an event or a call.
• A real deadline. At Filteroff, I used a lot of timers and would typically do 50% of our revenue in the last 48 hours. Only use a deadline if it's real.
• A last note that says you'll stop.

Here's a made-up last email you can copy:

Subject: Should I close this out?

Hi [first name],

I haven't heard back, so I'll assume [problem] isn't a priority right now. If that changes, reply "later" and I'll check back next quarter. Either way, this is my last email about it.

[Your name]

What to track

Track each touch, not only the whole cadence:

• Reply rate for each touch. If almost nobody replies to one touch, rewrite it or cut it.
• Booked calls, and how many of them show up.
• Close rate on those calls.
• Days from the first touch to a booked call.

Don't judge a touch only by whether it got the reply. On the real estate campaign, cold ads looked dead on last-click reporting, but first-touch data showed they started journeys that booked later. Your first email can work the same way, even when the reply comes on the fourth touch.

Mistakes that ruin a sales cadence

• Sending the same message eight times with "bumping this" on top.
• Automating before you know which touches get replies.
• No stop rule. Messaging someone after they've said no burns the relationship.
• Using only one channel.
• Quitting after one or two tries. To get my dad's op-ed into the New York Times, I sent roughly 70 pitches to every Times writer covering that beat. One of them forwarded it to the op-ed editor.
• Handing the calls to the wrong person. At Filteroff, one agency handed me off to a rep who kept selling the smallest package, and the close rate was stuck around 18%. As I put it, "it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize the real problem was the guy making the calls."