Sales Masterclass 6: Finding Your First 50 Customers With $0 Budget
Learn cost-effective strategies for kickstarting your outbound marketing and sales efforts. Featuring Dor Vardi
Watch the Video:
Episode Highlights:
Waiting for your VP of Sales to jet in from America and magically open doors for your startup? News flash: they're not coming. In a startup’s early days, sales is a founder job. This might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s essential in order to refine both your sales pitch and your product based on real-world feedback.
But how do you initiate this process when you're a newcomer to the market and your product is unknown? The answer lies in leveraging your existing network for introductions and methodically broadening your sphere of influence. This isn't just a temporary tactic; it's a core strategy that should be implemented from day one and sustained throughout your journey.
This Masterclass covers cost-effective strategies for kickstarting your outbound marketing efforts. We'll show you how to effectively tap into and expand your network, setting the stage for successful product demos and, ultimately, sales.
What you’ll learn:
How to define your ICP
How to efficiently request introductions
How to strategize and execute cold email campaigns
Meet the expert: Dor Vardi is the Founder & CEO of Samplead - A generative AI sales agent. Dor also founded bootstrapped and sold products to 400+ companies, generating $1M+ in sales using outbound only.
Step 1: Define your ICP 💁
Your primary objective is to create enough interest in your product that individuals will engage in a call with you. This initial interaction serves as the first signal of engagement, and not all of them will result in a demo. However, each conversation is a step closer to a broader network and a deeper understanding of how your product market fit.
Your outreach journey begins with a clear understanding of whom you're targeting. This step involves specific criteria to identify your target companies—such as those with 200-500 employees and an ARR of $5-10 million—and the key personas within these organizations, like HR directors. Your target groups might include potential prospects, as illustrated, but the same approach would apply to various potential investors or design partners.
Define 2-3 distinct personas or company types. This allows you to test your initial assumptions and refine your approach based on feedback. You want more than one to be able to compare results, but too many personas will be spreading yourself to thin.
Be specific with who you aim to reach based on the pain points your solution addresses. This specificity means deliberately excluding certain personas if your product doesn't meet their needs. If you cannot say, "My product wouldn't benefit this particular group at this time," you're likely casting too wide a net and missing the opportunity to tailor your solution to urgent customer pains.
This profiling is primarily a conceptual exercise performed away from the frontline realities of the market. Expect your understanding and strategy to evolve as you engage with more people, refine your product, and expand your business's footprint.
Step 2: Referrals 🗣️
After defining your ICP, the next step is to contact your existing connections and ask them for introductions. Referrals are a continuous, week-by-week effort and not a quarterly blitz, so you should establish clear goals for your referral strategy. For example, if your objective is to achieve 50-60 sales calls within a quarter, you’d need at least 100 requests for referrals. “I aim for five introduction requests each week, and not meeting this target signals a potential thinning of my future meeting pipeline.”, says Dor.
The more meetings you secure, the richer the insights you'll gather, and the clearer the emerging patterns will become. This iterative process begins with identifying the individuals you aim to connect with and those who can bridge that connection. Dor suggests maintaining a weekly updated spreadsheet to track these connections, ensuring systematic follow-up and engagement.
Specificity is key to reducing friction and making the process as smooth as possible for potential connectors. When reaching out, you should:
Request introductions to specific individuals rather than a general type of contact. Provide a list of relevant individuals to your connector and ask them to indicate those they can introduce you to.
Include a Calendly link (or similar) to your calendar to make scheduling as straightforward as possible.
What to do when you get a meeting
Listen first - when you're in these meetings, your focus should be on understanding the other person's perspective, not on praising the virtues of your product. Authentic interest in their challenges will naturally lead the conversation towards potential solutions, including your product, if it's a fit.
Land and expand - every meeting should at least open the door to another. Even if it becomes apparent within the first few minutes that the person you're meeting with isn't the right fit for your product, they likely have connections—colleagues, bosses, friends—who could be valuable for feedback or potential interest.
Segment and evaluate - after your meetings, take the time to categorize them according to your ICP groups, and analyze which strategies resonate best with each segment. Refine your approach, and repeat the process.
Real World Example: A Compelling Introduction Request
Zero in on your desired connection: Begin your email with the specific name of the person you're seeking an introduction to. Reflect this in both the subject and opening lines of your email to immediately convey your intent.
Value the referrer's time: Start your email with your primary request. Once you've made your ask, you can then offer broader context about your product.
Lead with a request for insight: Rather than soliciting a sales-oriented conversation, ask for feedback. This approach opens the door for a more genuine and insightful dialogue.
Use social proof: Include a compelling piece of evidence that illustrates the value of your product or service. In this scenario, highlighting that "users are seeing a 25x increase in savings" immediately demonstrates the impact of the offering.
Step 3: Establishing Thought Leadership 💡
Starting a business is tough with an unknown name and unproven product. Early on, relationships are key, and your expertise is your strongest asset. To establish credibility, start writing and publishing your thoughts (in a blog or on LinkedIn). It's not a quick fix for customer growth, but it will inform your audience and shape the conversation around your solution.
Content Writing Tips
Set achievable goals: you're an entrepreneur first, not a full-time content creator. Set yourself up for success with attainable goals—mine is to publish ten posts per quarter.
Focus on the industry, not your product: your blog should be a space to discuss broader industry challenges, trends and insights, not showcase your product's latest features.
Learn from competitors: read your competitors' websites and social media to see what kind of content resonates with the audience. Use this as inspiration and a starting point to create your own unique content that reflects your expertise and vision.
Step 4: Expanding Reach with Colder Outreach 🥶
Eventually, you'll need to go beyond your network and embrace cold outreach. Success here means engaging where your target audience already is, from LinkedIn to niche online forums. To establish common ground, personalize your outreach by referencing mutual activities, like real-live events, webinars or forums you both frequent.
Here a few tips on how to engage with your target audience:
Initiate contact: begin by connecting on LinkedIn. Craft your connection requests to reflect shared interests or activities. For example, if you notice someone has commented on a shared connection, mention their comment as a common ground in your invitation to connect.
Follow-up: if you don’t receive a response, follow up a few days later.
Concluding the outreach: end the conversation gracefully if your attempts don't bear fruit. Before moving on, you might suggest a smaller action they could take, such as following your company's LinkedIn page.
Step 5: Scaling Cold Outbound ✉️
The most cost-effective method to validate your assumptions about your ideal customer is through targeted cold emailing. This approach is built on the same principles as online networking: to engage genuinely, convey a willingness to learn, and, most importantly, avoid coming across as automated.
While this is a big topic in itself, here are a few tips to keepin mind:
Personalized engagement: Your emails should feel one-on-one and tailored to the individual. Make it clear that you've done your homework and show that you're interested in the person you’re emailing, not just in making a sale.
Test and iterate: Begin with a small, carefully selected batch of emails sent manually. Pay close attention to your subject lines and the body of your emails. Analyze open, click-through, and response rates to determine what works and what doesn't.
Scale with automation: Once you're confident in your email's effectiveness, consider using an oubound email automation tool to reach a larger audience.
Initial outreach is how you turn your vision into viable customer relationships. Keep refining your approach with the insights gained from each interaction, and you'll build a customer base and an engaged community around your product.
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