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A common story I hear from reps and founders:

You close a few great deals, but struggle to find more opportunities like them.

The problem is most outbound strategies focus on broad targeting so you waste time on low-quality leads.

Reverse prospecting leverages existing customers (or opportunities) to find more high-probability targets.

Here’s how….

Step 1: Identify Common Traits

Last week I shared a play for building your ICP.

If you only have a few customers, I’d recommend starting there.

Then as build your B2B outbound GTM strategy you can analyze things like:

• who are the common investors across your customer base?

• what size/stage are customers when they come to you?

• what are the compliance risks if they do nothing?

• what problems do you help customers solve?

• who are your customers competitors?

One strategy I’ve seen work well for start-ups is to coordinate customer interviews then use tools like Crunchbase + LinkedIn to build searches.

Step 2: Build The List

You don't need expensive tools or big budget for B2B outbound:

Here’s an easy way to start:

1. Sign up for a trial of a tools like ZoomInfo, Apollo, LeadiQ etc.

2. Use LinkedIn to enrich prospect phone/email info

3. Write 1 cold email. Bump it twice (see step 3)

My recommendation is to always use an account based approach.

Step 3: Personalize Your Outreach

In late 2020, I scaled our outbound team from 10-20 reps.

To do this, we relied on signals like funding, growth and hiring to drive conversations.

Then the post-COVID tech bubble popped and and by January ‘22 funding had dried up, companies were hardly growing and hiring had stalled.

We spent months throwing things at the wall. Then had a breakthrough.

Regardless of who you sell to, all CXOs have to report to the board/investors.

What if we leverage investor connections and their portcos to drive conversations with key stakeholders?

So we gave it a shot and months later we were back on track.

I’ve used a similar approach to this at other companies and the results have translated into conversations and pipeline.

Here’s an example:

Remember, the best cold outreach isn't cold.

Identify common traits, build a targeted list and personalize your outreach.

That’s how make cold outreach…warm.

Until next Thursday,

TSG

P.S. I reply to all emails.