I had a call with an agency owner last week. They recently inked a five-figure deal with a data provider and subscribed to various software for doing outbound. Fast forward three months, they launched a campaign that ended up producing zilch, then they got busy and the whole process fell apart after getting stuck in various expensive software contracts.
Instead of tackling the fundamentals, many agencies fall into the trap of chasing quick fixes and gadgets that promise the moon.
This often leads to:
A. You annoying your limited audience.
B. Failing to even get campaigns off the ground.
C. All of the above, coupled with squandering money on unnecessary software and data.
When done right, outreach is a straightforward way to forge new relationships with prospects. Countless successful B2B sales organizations depend on it daily. Outbound, though demanding time and attention, can yield the highest ROI for upmarket B2B services. It enables you to build relationships with your audience, positioning your organization as an authority before your competitors do.
Here are the questions to answer before you dive into building or outsourcing an outbound program:
Question #1: What are your measurable goals, and are they realistic?
Many fixate on opportunities and closed business. While those are the end goals, if you don’t measure all the middle steps you will quit in the dip. Our recommendation: start by focusing on relationships in the right companies and market intelligence.
Question #2: Who on your team will be involved in your outreach efforts?
As the book Who argues, amateurs start with ‘what’ questions but professionals start with ‘who’. Who on your team will run your outreach efforts? Can and will they allocate time every week? Our recommendation: assign Three hats—Strategy, Research, and Salesperson, and multiple might be worn by the same person or people if your team is small.
Question #3 On a company level, who are specific exact targets?
This should be based on the business problems you’re most poised to solved. As you get started it doesn’t have to be just one list of companies, but it shouldn’t be a dozen either. When in doubt, we aim for three Ideal Client Profiles (ICP), which is a fancy way of saying “buckets of companies”, even if our clients are pretty narrowly niched, that way we can test hypotheses and achieve scale.
Question #4: In what areas of your market do you already have trust?
The idea is to avoid being like everyone else and going in cold, instead only prospecting where you have an unfair advantage. You can pick low-hanging fruit for a very long time. For us and our clients, this involves mining data for personal and company commonalities, such as former employees of your best clients, or prospects in your physical vicinity.
Question #4: How big is your TAM really?
How many right-fit companies are there? This answer will greatly inform your strategy.
Most agencies and B2B service companies read an article or two to try to answer questions about the makeup of their market, but this research is of limited value. If you serve consumer packaged goods for example, only a small subset will be A. the right fit for YOU and B. find-able and reachable. Understanding your TAM happens best by looking at lists of all the specific companies and people you can serve, not reading articles.
Question #6: If you have to start with just one outreach channel, what will it be?
The problem is that most people start with tactical channel and software-related planning instead of nailing the foundation. Every sales channel brings work and complexity, so adding multiple early on can derail the project before it begins. For upmarket agencies, we’ve seen email yield the best results due to its scalability and the fact that it’s still where we all go to make plans and do business.
Question #7: Are you ready for when outbound starts producing results?
The KPI isn’t closed business but ideal relationships with the right decision-makers in your market. Imagine getting five new relationship weekly—what’s your plan for making time, as well as nurturing and advancing your process? Starting simple often works best, like scheduling 1:1 re-engagement for prospects inactive for at least 30 days.
Summary:
Outreach can be a game-changer, allowing you to build relationships in your market today rather than waiting for people to find you. To succeed, begin by addressing the meatier questions:
- Who’s running the program?
- What are your goals, and are they reasonable?
- On a company level, WHO will reach out?
- How many companies like this are there?
- In what areas of your market do you already have trust?
- If you have to start with just one outreach channel, what will it be?
Til next time,
-Dan
