Qualifying Leads Before Outreach

I’ve spent 5 years auditing outbound systems for B2B companies. And if you had to add just one step to 10x your performance… It’s this: Check for a warm path before you go cold. Sounds obvious. But almost no one actually does it. Most of you are running the same playbook: → build a list → write a sequence → add personalization → hit send at scale And then wonder why replies sit at 1–2%. Here’s what you’re missing: You’re reaching out to people that someone in your network already knows. You just don’t see it. So you keep doing: → more follow-ups → more tools → more volume When the real leverage was never in volume. It was in access. Cold outreach is getting harder every month. But warm intros? Still converting at 30–40%. That’s not an improvement. That’s a different game. The problem is not effort. It’s visibility. You don’t know: → who in your network knows your ideal customer → which teammate has a stronger relationship → where an investor or ex-colleague can open the door So you default to cold. And you’ve probably felt this before: → you chased an account for months → sent multiple emails → got ignored or soft replies Then randomly find out… Someone on your team could’ve introduced you instantly. That’s the blind spot. The best GTM teams aren’t sending more. They’re doing one thing better: → they check who can get them in first Because once a warm path exists, cold outreach becomes backup… not strategy. So before you send your next campaign, → check if a warm path already exists → use it first → then go cold if you have to Because if a door is already open… why are you still knocking on the cold one? If you want to actually see those hidden paths inside your network, you can try Draftboard here → draftboard.com

Where Productive Fundraising Conversations Begin: Content First Fundraising does not begin when a fundraiser contacts a prospect. In most instances it's one contact and that's the end of story. Fundraising begins when a compelling concept (not a formal proposal) is put in front of a viable donor. The more that concept resonates with a prospect’s primary philanthropic purpose, the greater the probability of fundraising success. That means a great deal of forethought must be given to the development of content known to resonate with a donor or groups of donors. They are proving less inclined to give to institutions and more inclined to look across institutions to determine which are addressing issues they care most about – and giving the most to those that best define where their investments will lead to more robust outcomes. This is the new and growing reality of fundraising: content first. That means: ▫️ Strategic plans, to be truly strategic, must tie institutional aspirations to issues donors care most about ▫️ The search for new donors will be a matchmaking exercise, looking for those whose known passions align with one of the institutions top 3-5 objectives ▫️ If the potential for alignment is murky or unknown, the first outreach from the organization must be a discovery interview, not a pitch ▫️ If a tentative alignment is reached, only then can a philanthropist be characterized as a viable prospect ▫️ Fundraisers or other institutional representatives should not approach those prospects without a concept that has a high probability of aligning with their interests ▫️ The approach should test whether theoretical alignment can me made concrete around a specific initiative, which should be presented at the drawing board stage in the form of brief draft document ▫️ If the prospective donor shows interest in the initiative, true fundraising can unfold as parties work together, usually over months, to convert an initial alignment into a gift agreement and the beginning of a productive partnership If organizations hope to raise more money in the face of mounting challenges, to make the most of the fundraising talent at our disposal, and to create realistic fundraising expectations and performance metrics, they must put content first.

Before you chase leads, answer this: Not everyone who books a call is worth your time. (Yes, even if they seem interested.) We’ve learned this the hard way. Here’s our 5-step sanity check to qualify leads before we pitch: 1. Are they your ICP? If they’re not the kind of person you built your offer for—skip. 2. Do they NEED what you offer? Interest is not the same as need. Big difference. 3. Are they LOOKING for a solution? If they’re just “exploring options”... come back later. 4. Do they have the BUDGET? A broke lead is not a lead. It’s a distraction. 5. If not, walk away. Seriously. Even if your calendar feels empty. The best businesses say “no” more often than they say “yes.” Your time is not free. Question: Do you have the courage to disqualify a lead—even if they booked a call? #leadgeneration #b2bsales #qualifyleads

Over the past 9 years, I’ve acquired 1,000+ clients for my agencies. If I were starting over today, here’s exactly how I’d land my first 10 clients: Step 1: Start with the right data The biggest challenge when starting out? Finding highly targeted prospects who are ready to buy. Here’s how I’d solve that: Google Maps. Yes, I said Google Maps. Why? Because it’s an untapped goldmine for qualified leads. With over 4,000 B2B categories, it’s packed with local businesses and SMBs often overlooked - or missing - from LinkedIn. These are hidden gems waiting to be discovered. Scrap (https://scrap.io/s/9MYK) transforms this goldmine into actionable leads by extracting from Google Maps listings: - Emails, phone numbers, & websites - Social media profiles - Website technologies - Even Google Maps ratings & reviews Filter and focus on your ideal targets in just 2 clicks. For example: - Restaurants with 4+ ratings but no Instagram. - Local businesses with websites but no ad pixels. - SMBs in specific niches or locations. Scrap’s real-time data extraction ensures you always have the most accurate info - and it’s available as a Chrome Extension for instant insights. Step 2: Personalize your outreach Generic outreach doesn’t work - relevance is everything. Try this playbook: - Subject Line: Use something attention-grabbing like “Quick question about [business name]” or “Idea for [service].” - Personalize: Reference their Google Maps reviews, website, or niche. For example: “Congrats on your 4.9-star rating - I can see why people love your café.” - Partner Up: “I help cafes like yours boost foot traffic through email marketing. I noticed a few opportunities I’d love to share.” - CTA: End with a low-pressure ask: “Does this sound worth exploring?” Pro Tip: Pair the emails from Scrap (https://scrap.io/s/9MYK) with LinkedIn outreach - connect or engage with their posts to build trust. Step 3: Stay consistent and scale your efforts Build momentum through persistence: - Follow Up: Most responses come after the 2nd or 3rd touch. Example sequence: Email → LinkedIn connect → Follow-up email → Call. - Track Metrics: Monitor open rates, replies, and booked calls. Aim for a 20%+ email response rate and 10%+ meetings booked. - Leverage Referrals: Once you’ve landed a few clients, ask, “Know anyone else who might benefit?” and share testimonials like, “We helped a local coffee shop grow foot traffic by 20% in 30 days.” - Automate: Use Scrap for fast lead gen and a CRM to manage outreach. Recap: - Use Scrap (https://scrap.io/s/9MYK) to turn Google Maps into a lead-gen machine for local businesses, SMBs, and niche prospects. - Personalize your emails with insights and a clear CTA. - Stay consistent by following up, tracking results, and leveraging referrals. - And remember: Your first 10 clients lay the foundation for scaling. #ScrapPartner

Your prospect says: "We need a new sales platform because we want to grow the business." What happens next determines whether you're average or elite. AVERAGE REP: "Great! Let me tell you about our features..." (You’ve ALREADY lost if this is how you answer) (Let’s watch an elite rep handle this now…) ELITE REP: "Grow the business?" [waits in silence] PROSPECT: "Yes, we need to increase revenue by 30% this year." ELITE REP: "Why is hitting that 30% target so critical right now?" PROSPECT: "We need it to secure our Series C funding." ELITE REP: "What would missing that target mean for the company?" PROSPECT: "We'd have to delay expansion and possibly cut headcount." ELITE REP: "And for you personally, what would it mean to secure that funding?" PROSPECT: "My equity would finally be worth something. Plus, I'd prove to the board they made the right choice promoting me to CRO." ELITE REP: "So if I understand correctly, you need to grow 30% to secure Series C funding, which would both protect your team from layoffs AND potentially make your equity worth seven figures while cementing your position as CRO. Is that right?" PROSPECT: "Exactly. So how can you help us?" THIS is the difference between qualification and transformation. After coaching thousands of reps, I've found that most never get past the first layer of discovery. They treat prospects like a checklist rather than an onion. The fortune is in the follow up questions. My CHAN Code for ethical influence has three simple steps: 1. Ask an open-ended question 2. Go DEEP with the RIM framework (Relevance, Impact, Motive) 3. Repeat back as a question for understanding When you master this process, you transform "we want to grow" into concrete business and personal impact that makes it impossible for prospects to ghost you. The hardest territory to manage isn't your CRM. It's the six inches between your prospect's ears. — Sales reps… want me to break down the Wolf of Wall Street’s B2B discovery session? Go here: https://lnkd.in/gPT-Qprv

The 3 marketing systems every B2B brand needs before scaling paid media Scaling paid media without systems in place is the most expensive mistake in B2B. I watch it happen every quarter. A founder sees a competitor running ads, gets impatient, and throws 5K per month at Google or LinkedIn. Six weeks later, leads are coming in. But no one can tell which ones are qualified. Before you spend a single pound scaling paid media, you need three systems operating first. System 1: Conversion infrastructure. Your landing pages must do one job. Convert a specific buyer on a specific problem with a specific outcome. If your paid traffic lands on a generic page, you are paying for clicks and hoping for conversions. System 2: Lead qualification and routing. Every lead that enters your pipeline needs to be scored, categorised, and routed within 4 hours. The qualification criteria should be defined before the campaign launches. Revenue range, company size, urgency, and current setup. If you cannot tell a qualified lead from an unqualified one within 60 seconds of form submission, your sales team is guessing. And guessing is expensive. System 3: Measurement and attribution. You need to know which campaign, which keyword, and which landing page generated each qualified opportunity. If your reporting stops at cost per click or cost per lead, you are optimising for the wrong thing. The metric that matters is cost per qualified opportunity. Everything upstream is just noise unless it connects to pipeline. The Paid Media Readiness Checklist We Use: 1. Dedicated landing pages with single-outcome forms. 2. Lead scoring criteria defined and documented. 3. Routing and response time under 4 hours. 4. CRM pipeline stages mapped to buyer journey. 5. Attribution connecting ad spend to closed revenue. When all three systems are running, scaling paid media becomes predictable. I audited a B2B SaaS company last month that was spending 12K per month on Google Ads. Their cost per lead was 48 pounds. Looked healthy on paper. But only 11% of those leads were qualified. The real cost per qualified opportunity was £436. Once we installed these three systems and rebuilt the campaign around them, the qualified lead rate went from 11% to 34%. Would you scale a campaign if you could not tell which leads were qualified and which were noise? P.S. Save and share the framework!

How it started: 4,000 cold emails sent. 1 lead generated. How it’s going: $4M+ ARR. Top 1% Agency Award. 30-person team. 6 lessons that turned my outreach campaigns from crickets to conversions: 1/ The list is the strategy Putting your message in front of the right person matters more than anything else. Many spend little time building their lead list, and a lot of time figuring out what to say. Do the opposite. Hint: You want to identify people/companies struggling with a problem you can solve. For example, we ran campaigns for an HR SaaS that helped with employee churn. We looked at Glassdoor reviews, and the average employee tenure. If employees stayed less than 18 months on average, + reviews were bad… we hypothesized the companies were a fit. 2/ Be as valuable as possible Most cold outreach try to get. “can I have 15 min of your time?” “can I pick your brain on… ?” But the best outreach gives. How to do that? Think about the first thing you would do for them if you signed them as clients. And do it already… for free. For example, I ran an outreach campaign targeting recruitment firms. I figured that the first thing I’d do for them, would be to build a list of Talent Acquisition Directors in companies hiring for 10+ roles. So I built the list. Sent it to them. Along with a tutorial of how I built it. It worked. 3/ Write for 1 person, then scale. Most try to build the biggest list possible and come up with a message that’ll appeal to everyone. But appealing to everyone = appealing to no one. When I start a new outreach campaign, I manually write 25 messages, 1 by 1, by looking at my prospect LinkedIn profiles. The beauty of doing it this way, is that you uncover patterns, that you can later on scale with the help of tech & AI. 4/ Fix your deliverability Good deliverability doesn’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But bad deliverability guarantees you’ll fail. Make sure to follow ‘best practices’ - < 50 emails per day per mailbox - SPF, DKIM, DMARC Setup - No open rate tracking - Secondary domains - Email warm-up … and send emails you’d want to receive. 5/ Pair cold email with other channels Cold email is a great channel to start with. It’s cheaper than paid ads, faster to get results than with content. But when you send cold emails, people check you out. Guess who’ll they trust more between your competitor who’s a ghost online vs. you who’s been posting valuable content on a consistent basis? 6/ Use the best Sales Software The outbound landscape keeps on changing. The best tools stay on top of the market, and ship new features constantly. In the cold email world, no one ships faster than Instantly.ai… (and I’m not saying that because they gave me this beautiful golden plaque, they’re simply the best) P.S: We wrote a 14-page guide that includes how our $4M ARR outbound agency books meetings using AI & Tech. Interested? Let me know below and I’ll make sure you get it :) P.S 2: Thanks Ada for the pic 📸