outbound sales at scale - anand kulkarni, chief scientist @leadgenius

Outbound Sales that ScalePresident, Chief Scientist

LeadGenius@leadgenius, @polybot

About Me

• President and cofounder, LeadGenius

• Ran sales at LeadGenius for 3.5 years, raised $8.2M in venture backing from YC, A16Z, Sierra Ventures.

• Worked with virtual workers for 10 years, applying them in sales for 5.

• ex-PhD from Berkeley, National Science Foundation Fellow

Leadgenius runs outbound sales at scale for some of Silicon Valley’s fastest-growing companies.

• LeadGenius runs a team of 700 virtual outbound sales development reps working from home to support sales teams at lots of fast-growth companies.

The inside view of lead generation and outbound processes.

• We’ve had an inside look at how hundreds of companies have set up their lead generation and outbound processes.• Both startups and enterprise• 1-person operations to 200-SDR powerhouses• In many cases, we helped them build their processes along

the way

• You can do stuff that doesn’t scale to grab leads…• … I’ll show you how to make it work at large scale.• We eat our own dogfood.

What I’ll share with you tonight:

• What’s working and what’s not in outbound sales models in Silicon Valley

• How you can apply what works yourself as an individual rep

• How you can scale these out as a founder or sales leader

• Strategies you can use to:— source hundreds of leads / week for yourself on the cheap, using either software (free or paid) or virtual staffers (paid)— pitch and engage with 50-100 customers per day, automatically and convincingly–– repeatably generate consistent sales from virtual outbound, either solo or with a marketing team

Leadgen + SDR + Outbound: The Model

Once you’ve found product-market fit,the only acceptable limits on your sales growth are:

* How fast you can hire top talent. * How fast you can fill your funnel with leads.

The way “filling your funnel” used to go was like this:

• Marketing buys a giant list of names, emails and phone numbers

• Sales director hires a huge, cheap, and hungry sales staff

• Sales team works their way down that lead list with cold calls

Filling your funnel this way doesn’t fuel the fire.

• Random cold prospecting against a marketing list works occasionally and keeps sales busy …

• … but more often, teams waste time on bad leads and end up unhappy.

Typical list results

• Marketing buys a list of 50,000 names, emails, and phone numbers at 50¢ per lead, and passes over to sales, spending $25K.

Typical list results

• Marketing buys a list of 50,000 names, emails, and phone numbers at 50¢ per lead, and passes over to sales, spending $25K.

• 5% have valid data and qualify (2500 leads).• 95% don’t qualify (47500 leads).

Typical list results

• Marketing buys a list of 50,000 names, emails, and phone numbers at 50¢ per lead, and passes over to sales, spending $25K.

• 5% have valid data and qualify (2500 leads).• 95% don’t qualify (47500 leads).

• Real cost to marketing per qualified lead: $10 per lead

Typical list results

• Marketing buys a list of 50,000 names, emails, and phone numbers at 50¢ per lead, and passes over to sales, spending $25K.

• 5% have valid data and qualify (2500 leads).• 95% don’t qualify (47500 leads).

• Real cost to marketing per qualified lead: $10 per lead• Wasted time in the sales organization:

5 minutes x 47500 leads = 4000 hours

Typical list results

• Marketing buys a list of 50,000 names, emails, and phone numbers at 50¢ per lead, and passes over to sales, spending $25K.

• 5% have valid data and qualify (2500 leads).• 95% don’t qualify (47500 leads).

• Real cost to marketing per qualified lead: $10 per lead• Wasted time in the sales organization:

5 minutes x 47500 leads = 4000 hours• Wasted cost to the sales team (at $80K/year/rep): $160K

per list

This is a bad approach, and a common approach!

How common?• Time studies found that just 33% of all sales people’s time is

spent on actual selling. The rest is spent on data entry, research and busywork. - ToutApp

The best salespeople (and sales teams) figure out ways – with or without help – to aggressively minimize time spent on:

• Prospecting• Data Entry• Research• Cold-calling unqualified leads

Alternatives: SDRs growing more powerful with technology

Sales Development Representatives

• Specialized market response reps• Outbound prospectors• Specialized lead development reps

What’s better: hyper-targeted lead generation• Construct targeted lists of leads at

scale.Find and rank every potential qualified customer in an entire market (with no engineering help!)

• Learn their pain.Figure out relevant data aboutevery one of those customers

• Pitch at scale.Write each one of those customers a targeted, personal message from a salesperson

SDR is growing more powerful with technology

Sales Force Automation• Drip sales messaging: MailGenius, Tout, Yesware, Cadence,• Research & Enrichment: LeadGenius, TaskUs, Datanyze• Meeting management: Calendly, Clara, Assist.to• Communication automation: Conversica, CharlieApp

Sales Development Representatives

• Specialized market response reps• Outbound prospectors• Specialized lead development reps

Let’s show you how to do it.

• Know your market.• Study your market.• Reach out everyone in your market.

• Know your market.• Study your market.• Reach out everyone in your market.

• Grabbing leads.• Enriching leads.• Pitching leads.

Let’s show you how to do it.

Grabbing leads at scale

Backing into your target number (using Salesforce)

If you want to close 5 deals a month to hit your number…

• 5 closed deals• 25 proposals (20% close rate) • 50 opportunities (50% qualify rate)• 5000 leads (1% response rate)

How many businesses are in the US?

How many businesses are in the US?

21,708,021 US businesses6,049,655 US businesses w/ >1 person

How many businesses are in the US?

21,708,021 US businesses6,049,655 US businesses w/ >1 person

Your customers are listed in:• Yelp (47M establishments)• LinkedIn (2M Companies)• CrunchBase (650K Companies)• AngelList (289K Companies)• Manta• Specialized databasesAvoid low quality sources…• Data.com • Dunn & Bradstreet

Getting that information out.

The free tools Kimono and Import.io allow you to grab structured lists of people out of any website.

You can research information about each of those leads using services like Rapportive and BuiltWith.

Capture the basics to start: title, name, contact data.After that, try to winnow that list down.

Scaling it up

Backing into your target number (using Salesforce)

If you want to close 5 deals a month to hit your number…

• 5 closed deals• 25 proposals (20% close rate) • 50 opportunities (50% qualify rate)• 5000 leads (1% response rate)

Backing into your target number (using Salesforce)

If you want to close 5 deals a month to hit your number…

• 5 closed deals• 25 proposals (20% close rate) • 50 opportunities (50% qualify rate)• 5000 leads (1% response rate)• 416 hours (at 5 min/pitch)

Virtual sales backup

In-person SDR:$50K-$80K/year (full-time)Slow to hireCompetitive to retain

Virtual staffers:$5/hr-$20/hr (contract)Unlimited, scalable supplyDedicated + Happy

Your first team

Start with:• 1 virtual lead generation rep

• Researches new leads

• 1 outreach/writing staffer• Sends emails

• 1 manager/QA staffer (!!!)• Saves you time

Sample results

One team like this can produce• 5-10 verified leads per hour• 1000-2000 leads per week• 1000-2000 emails per week

(We run 3x this in house with a dedicated in-house email marketing manager, since prospecting is fast.)

Sample results

One team like this can produce• 5-10 verified leads per hour• 1000-2000 leads per week• 1000-2000 emails per week

(We run 3x this in house with a dedicated in-house email marketing manager, since prospecting is fast.)

Don’t let them qualify – we have an SDR, too!

Setting up virtual SDRs

Find people here:• Craigslist (DIY)• oDesk/Elance (DIY)• Freelancer (DIY)• Job Boards (DIY)• TaskUs (managed)• LeadGenius (managed)

Lead Generation: Go Global

Outreach & QA: Stick to the US

Equip your new VSDRs

Give prospectors:• LinkedIn Premium• Yesware, Outreach, or Tout• Salesforce/CRM access

Give researchers:• LinkedIn Premium• Google Spreadsheets• Import.io• Rapportive• Toofr (verification) • Datanyze or BuiltWith

Enriching Leads

First, verify that the data’s good!

• Rapportive• Toofr• kickbox.io• Briteverify• Eloqua

Next, check whether they’re in the target market.

• Extra pieces of information• Company size, subindustry, • Specialized qualification criteria:

— if selling to hospitals, check the number of beds — was a decision maker hired recently? are they hiring for

roles that would use your products? — solar leads – check Google Maps to see if they’re sun-

friendly

Last, add relevant content to help you close the deal.

• LinkedIn connections – who do you know in common?• Social media activity – have they complained about your

competitors?• Product usage – what are these folks using?• Coworkers – who else works there on their team?

Pitching Leads

Software for Emailing

This market’s exploding!

• Tout• Yesware• Outreach.io• Cadence (Salesloft)• Sidekick (Hubspot)• MailGenius

• Boomerang• PersistIQ• Sendbloom• Quickmail

Pitching leads

From: anand@leadgenius.comTo: sarah@hotlead.comSubj: Michael said you needed SDRs?

Hi Sarah,

I saw you guys were hiring for SDRs. We know each other through Michael James and I wanted to see if we might be able to help you scale your SDR team. I have a few extra SDRs we can push your way.

Let me know if you’d like to chat further – we’re doing this for SoldLead8 already.

BTW, congrats on your recent round!

Cheers!AK

Subject line = crucial.

Don’t use “quick question!”

Pitching leads

From: anand@leadgenius.comTo: sarah@hotlead.comSubj: Michael said you needed SDRs?

Hi Sarah,

I saw you guys were hiring for SDRs. We know each other through Michael James and I wanted to see if we might be able to help you scale your SDR team. I have a few extra SDRs we can push your way.

Let me know if you’d like to chat further – we’re doing this for SoldLead8 already.

BTW, congrats on your recent round!

Cheers!AK

Make it a custom, handwritten email

Don’t be salesy! Be helpful.

Pitching leads

From: anand@leadgenius.comTo: sarah@hotlead.comSubj: Michael said you needed SDRs?

Hi Sarah,

I saw you guys were hiring for SDRs. We know each other through Michael James and I wanted to see if we might be able to help you scale your SDR team. I have a few extra SDRs we can push your way.

Let me know if you’d like to chat further – we’re doing this for SoldLead8 already.

BTW, congrats on your recent round!

Cheers!AK

Be genuine + helpful – don’t spam.

Show social proof.

Prove you’re not a robot – include personal

Double-Tap: LinkedIn profile view on the same date!

Question:

How much of this email had to be written by hand?

Question:

How much of this email had to be written by hand?

Answer: None

Mass customization

From: anand@leadgenius.comTo: sarah@hotlead.comSubj: Michael said you needed SDRs?

Hi Sarah,

I saw you guys were hiring for SDRs. We know each other through Michael James and I wanted to see if we might be able to help you scale your SDR team. I have a few extra SDRs we can push your way.

Let me know if you’d like to chat further – we’re doing this for SoldLead8 already.

BTW, congrats on your recent round!

Cheers!AK

Binary buying signal (compelling event – one of four possibilities)

Mass customization

From: anand@leadgenius.comTo: sarah@hotlead.comSubj: Michael said you needed SDRs?

Hi Sarah,

I saw you guys were hiring for SDRs. We know each other through Michael James and I wanted to see if we might be able to help you scale your SDR team. I have a few extra SDRs we can push your way.

Let me know if you’d like to chat further – we’re doing this for SoldLead8 already.

BTW, congrats on your recent round!

Cheers!AK

LinkedIn… (obviously)

Mass customization

From: anand@leadgenius.comTo: sarah@hotlead.comSubj: Michael said you needed SDRs?

Hi Sarah,

I saw you guys were hiring for SDRs. We know each other through Michael James and I wanted to see if we might be able to help you scale your SDR team. I have a few extra SDRs we can push your way.

Let me know if you’d like to chat further – we’re doing this for SoldLead8 already.

BTW, congrats on your recent round!

Cheers!AK

Sector-by-sector comparison through our lead list to find potential customers in their sector

Mass customization

From: anand@leadgenius.comTo: sarah@hotlead.comSubj: Michael said you needed SDRs?

Hi Sarah,

I saw you guys were hiring for SDRs. We know each other through Michael James and I wanted to see if we might be able to help you scale your SDR team. I have a few extra SDRs we can push your way.

Let me know if you’d like to chat further – we’re doing this for SoldLead8 already.

BTW, congrats on your recent round!

Cheers!AK

Background Research

Advanced Techniques That Work

1. Content marketing mash-up.

Share targeted content aimed at your audience at the same time as an email campaign. (LinkedIn, email). Ask marketing for help. Blog Post

Dedicated Landing Page

Outbound

2. Scripting responses

From: anand@leadgenius.comTo: sarah@hotlead.com

Subj: Quick Question, SarahHi Sarah,

I saw you guys were hiring for SDRs. We know each other through Michael

James and I wanted to see if we might be able to help you scale your SDR team. I have a few extra SDRs we

can push your way.

Let me know if you’d like to chat further – we’re doing

this for SoldLead8 already. BTW, congrats on your

recent round!Cheers!

AK

Interested?Here’s 3 times that work for

me!

Here’s more information!

Check back later.

Specific question

Automatically schedule a

follow-up mail

3. Send before you hire.

• Reps ramp far faster when they have leads to close against.• When you hire a sales rep, start sending emails for them!• Let them walk into ready deal flow and live calls.

4. Other outbound tips

• Mix it up! Authenticity is maximally important as email becomes an increasingly crowded channel.

• Consider non-email channels (InMail) or asking for referrals from your own network to penetrate into companies before contacting

4. Other outbound tips

• Rank your leads. • Don’t send outbound to EVERYBODY• Message against buying signals.• Start with folks with hot “buying signals”

Monitor your team closely to make sure it works.

ROI is everything!

Monitor your team closely to make sure it works.

5. When to DIY

• You have more time than resources• Ability to pay for large-scale databases.• Willingness to experiment and train• Don’t know your ideal customer profile

DIY

• You have more time than resources• Ability to pay for large-scale databases.• Willingness to experiment and train

Buy

That’s it!

• Tell me what’s working for you or what I forgot to share:anand@leadgenius.com, @polybot

• If you want to use our tools:www.leadgenius.com, @leadgenius

• We’re hiring (sales enthusiasts):leadgenius.com/careers

• Check out Ryan’s Sales Collider series!