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Outbound sales is a copycat league.

The pattern repeats itself:

1. New approach works

2. Gets shared on social

3. Everyone copies it

4. Prospects get immune

5. Race to next thing

But as the story goes, history repeats itself.

Eventually, plays that are declared "dead" make a comeback:

• Forward emails - 2015 → 2024

• Cold calling - 2022 (?) → 2024

• In-person events - 2020 → 2024

While new strategies like micro-communities, AI-powered research and influencer marketing emerge.

This week, I’ll dive into the plays that I’m seeing work across cold outreach, outbound and partnerships.

Let’s dive in.

1. Micro-Communities

Meet prospects where they already hang out.

Examples include:

• Slack channels - RevGenius 

• LinkedIn groups - Hubspot for Inbound Marketers

• Private communities - Fsuite 

The goal isn’t to pitch your product in these in channels. Most will prohibit this.

It’s to listen to the questions asked, problems described and recommendations.

Then use this to direct who you should reach out to and what to say.

Find out where your prospects hang out, for me it was FSuite.

2. AI Research

My favorite outbound AI feature is company/buyer summaries.

Doing research will help you form a point of view.

Having a point of view will help you sound more credible.

Credibility builds trust. Trust leads to longer conversations.

The challenge: buyer research often takes 3-5 minutes per account/buyer.

The good news: solutions like ZoomInfo can help automate this process.

If you’re looking for a point solution for research, check out Pocus.

3. Micro-Events

Business travel is back.

While conferences are great for large gatherings.

Micro-events offer a more intimate setting.

One strategy that’s worked for me - hosting small roundtables and dinners.

Small enough for real conversations, big enough for peer-peer learning.

This play alone has helped scale our partner channels 5x over the last two quarters.

4. Insight Marketing

Package your sales conversations into anonymous trend reports.

Then, share the data with potential buyers and ask for their input.

This is a great play if you’re a Start-up trying to find message-market fit.

I wrote more about this here: The Interview Method.

This is what it looks like fully packaged:

TL;DR

For outbound, new plays might evolve in the form of:

• Mico-communities

• AI workflows

• Deal rooms

But the principles of effective pipeline generation remain the same:

• Target the right audience

• Align sales and marketing

• Share your point of view

Until next Thursday,

TSG

P.S. I reply to all emails.