Outbound Sales At Scale - Anand Kulkarni, Chief Scientist @LeadGenius

Outbound Sales that Scale
President, Chief Scientist
LeadGenius
@leadgenius, @polybot

About Me
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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:
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• 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

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Leadgen + SDR + Outbound: The Model

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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
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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.
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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.
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• 5% have valid data and qualify (2500 leads).
• 95% don’t qualify (47500 leads).
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• Real cost to marketing per qualified lead: $10 per lead
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• Wasted time in the sales organization:
5 minutes x 47500 leads = 4000 hours
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• 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
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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
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Alternatives: SDRs growing more powerful with technology
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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 about
every one of those customers
• Pitch at scale.
Write each one of those
customers a targeted, personal
message from a salesperson
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SDR is growing more powerful with technology
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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.
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• Know your market.
• Study your market.
• Reach out everyone in your market.
• Grabbing leads.
• Enriching leads.
• Pitching leads.
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Let’s show you how to do it.

Backing into your target number (using Salesforce)
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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?
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21,708,021 US businesses
6,049,655 US businesses w/ >1 person
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21,708,021 US businesses
6,049,655 US businesses w/ >1 person
Your customers are listed in:
• Yelp (47M establishments)
• LinkedIn (2M Companies)
• CrunchBase (650K Companies)
• AngelList (289K Companies)
• Manta
• Specialized databases
Avoid low quality sources…
• Data.com
• Dunn & Bradstreet
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Getting that information out.
The free tools Kimono and Import.io
allow you to grab structured lists of
people out of any website.
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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.

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• 5 closed deals

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• 5 closed deals
• 416 hours (at 5 min/pitch)

Virtual sales backup
In-person SDR:
$50K-$80K/year (full-time)
Slow to hire
Competitive to retain
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Virtual staffers:
$5/hr-$20/hr (contract)
Unlimited, scalable supply
Dedicated + 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
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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.)
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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!
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Setting up virtual SDRs
Find people here:
• Craigslist (DIY)
• oDesk/Elance (DIY)
• Freelancer (DIY)
• Job Boards (DIY)
• TaskUs (managed)
• LeadGenius (managed)
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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
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First, verify that the data’s good!
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• Rapportive
• Toofr
• kickbox.io
• Briteverify
• Eloqua

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

Software for Emailing
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This market’s exploding!
• Tout
• Yesware
• Outreach.io
• Cadence (Salesloft)
• Sidekick (Hubspot)
• MailGenius
• Boomerang
• PersistIQ
• Sendbloom
• Quickmail

Pitching leads
From: anand@leadgenius.com
To: sarah@hotlead.com
Subj: 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
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Subject line = crucial.
Don’t use “quick
question!”

Pitching leads
Hi Sarah,
Cheers!
AK
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Make it a custom,
handwritten email
Don’t be salesy!
Be helpful.

Pitching leads
Hi Sarah,
Cheers!
AK
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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!

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

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Question:
How much of this email had to be written
by hand?
Answer: None

Mass customization
Hi Sarah,
I saw you guys were hiring for SDRs. We
know each other through Michael James and I
Cheers!
AK
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Binary buying signal
(compelling event – one
of four possibilities)

Mass customization
Hi Sarah,
Cheers!
AK
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LinkedIn… (obviously)

Mass customization
Hi Sarah,
Cheers!
AK
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Sector-by-sector
comparison through
our lead list to find
potential customers in
their sector

Mass customization
Hi Sarah,
Cheers!
AK
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Background Research

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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.
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Blog Post
Dedicated Landing Page
Outbound

2. Scripting responses
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From:
anand@leadgenius.com
Subj: Quick Question, Sarah
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
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.
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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
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4. Other outbound tips
• Rank your leads.
• Don’t send outbound to EVERYBODY
• Message against buying signals.
• Start with folks with hot “buying signals”
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Monitor your team closely to make sure it works.
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ROI is everything!

Monitor your team closely to make sure it works.
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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
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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!
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Outbound Sales At Scale - Anand Kulkarni, Chief Scientist @LeadGenius

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