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We recently ran an outbound campaign to steal prospects from one of our more established competitors - Netsuite.

Marketing created an account list and talk track for our sales org.

Guess what, it flopped.

The mistake was a common one - focusing too much on our competitors weaknesses and not enough on our strengths.

So we went back to the drawing board.

First, we built a new account list to outbound. Then, revised the cold call script to be more direct and targeted.

The results were much improved - 23% conversation to meeting scheduled ratio and $250k+ in pipeline.

In this post, I’ll share how we built the list and cold call script we used.

Let’s dive in.

List Building:

Technographic data from tools like Clearbit is often wrong (sorry Marketing).

And most vendor lists available for purchase are a total waste of money.

Instead, look for competitors by searching prospects on LinkedIn.

Or go to the “requirements” section on company career pages (if they’re hiring.)

Companies almost always list solutions they use here.

If they are spending on a competitor, there’s potential budget for you.

Account Prioritization:

Just because someone is using a competitor doesn’t mean they’re worth prioritizing for outbound.

You want to focus on companies that have a use case you’re able to support AND show a propensity to buy.

This is when tiering accounts can be helpful:

• Tier 1: use case AND propensity to buy

• Tier 2: use case OR propensity to buy

• Tier 3: neither

This step is crucial for ensuring you are effective in your outreach, not just padding activity stats.

Talk Track:

Poor messaging can still lead to revenue if you're targeting the right accounts.

Elite messaging won't lead to revenue if you're targeting the wrong accounts.

Here’s a cold call track that’s worked for us:

Few call-outs:

1. Address the elephant in the room at the beginning (using competitor)

2. Educate/align on a shift that’s happening in the market

3. Share how you’re uniquely positioned to help here (your differentiator)

4. Cold calls should be short - less than 5 minutes

5. Sell the meeting, not the solution

Until next Thursday,

TSG

P.S. I reply to all emails.