Lost Art of Outbound Prospecting

Watch the recording on this training:

In this short training, my goal is to make sure that you understand the core principles that will make sure that you become an amazing outbound prospector.

I personally believe that outbound prospecting is the foundational skill set that makes it unreasonable for anyone running a business not to be successful and become a multiple six figures earner.

If you really want to change your life and become a valuable asset for not just our current business but for any business out there that needs clients, that needs meetings, then please pay attention!

WHERE:

Just like in Real estate, location or being able to locate the prospect is the most important thing.

There is no point in trying to target or launch an outbound prospecting campaign on a channel where you spend 80% of your time trying to locate the ideal prospect.

So it’s important for you to ask yourself what channel is the most effective when it comes to find {x niche} and where you can easily contact the prospects at scale.

I like to ask myself the following questions:

Can I find prospects on the social platforms that I regularly use? [I wanna remove friction at first and leverage something that I’m used to using]
Can I find a community of these ideal prospects on this platform? [ I wanna be efficient]
Am I able to locate and contact 50 prospects in less than 2 hours? [ If you can’t do these numbers on a specific platform then find another one where it can be done]

When it comes to finding our prospects, we will always rely on social media platforms since that’s where most of our customers are and since it’s much easier to gain their trust if they see all the social proof! ( 500k per month or more)

QUALIFICATION #1

When you find a prospect, ask yourself if the stuff you see on his profile makes him a qualified prospect.

Essentially you need to use whatever information you can get from the prospect’s profile to establish if he is someone who can make sense of paying $10,000 for our solutions.

Information could be:

Location, where are they from?
How long have they been in business?
Do they even showcase the fact that they have a business?

You should only spend 5 seconds on this step, since it’s not as important, the reason this step exists is for you not to waste time on Non Qualified prospects who can’t afford our solution.

ENGAGE AT SCALE + GENERATE RESPONSES (~10% response rate)

You need to start conversations at scale and make sure you’re not spending a whole hour trying to figure out what your first message should be!

The reason we want to do it at scale is that we want to do enough outreaches every day to generate enough discussions and responses!

Most people don’t understand the importance of Volume and that’s why they go out of business.

We understand the importance of volume so we focus on doing enough volume in a single day to make it Unreasonable for us not to get 10%-20% or more of the people we contacted to respond.

If you’re not getting more than 10% of people to respond, it’s because:

Your message is either wrong
You’re on the wrong platform AKA you’re on a platform that people don’t use as frequently
Your profile is really bad.

An average prospector will do 50 Contacts per day.

A Superstar prospector will do 100 contacts per day.

Your goal is to contact 50 new leads every day and expect to get around 5-10 new conversations per day that you can hopefully convert to a meeting.

If you’re not getting 5-10 people responding and conversing with you every day, How can you expect to get them on a meeting?

CREATE TRUST ASAP AND MOVE THE PROSPECT FROM THE REPTILIAN BRAIN TO THEIR RATIONAL BRAIN

If you want someone to pay attention to you and trust you enough to understand that you can actually help their business - you need to make sure that they’re in the right state of mind.

A lot of people don’t understand this and that’s why they can’t make their outreach work even if their lives were on the line.

There are three levels of the brain:

[reptilian brain] - instinctual and has the sole purpose to keep you away from danger

[Limbic brain] - emotional and feeling - driver of many behavior

[neo-cortex] - rational thinking/logic.

The #1 thing that needs to happen before a stranger can respond to your DMs or even do business with you, is that they need to feel like they can trust you!

Most people are stuck sending 100000 Emails, DMs, and cold calls but they never build assets or leverage mechanisms that can make strangers trust them before they even respond.

Examples: Look at these two situations and realize how big of a difference it makes having common ground, social context - trust VS not having it!

1. In 2018, Serge calls your phone number to try to sell you the half a mill a year program.

2. In 2022, your best friend of 10 years learns about your client acquisition issues and sends you the link to an 1h40 min VSL of Serge, and Serge ends up messaging you trying to get you on a call to sell you the program. The information of these two situations will be processed differently and certain levels of the brain will be prioritized.

When doing outreach we need to create the second situation more frequently than the first one!

HOW CAN WE CREATE SOCIAL CONTEXT ASAP AND MAKE THE PROSPECT TRUST US?

Content and posts:

Leverage content/sales assets/educational content that directly calls out their situation - solves their problems and where you show them that you understand them better than they do themselves.
If possible - get them to engage with your content and use that engagement as a reference point. [ leveraging two step posts 😉]

Create familiarity by bringing up something from their profile: this is pretty straightforward, find something that isn’t too basic and mention it in your first touch point!

Example: see that a prospect is from Australia - “many businesses aren’t open to scale since they’re limited, has it affected your acquisition”

The goal with this one is to make the prospect immediately feel like you’re someone who relates to them and who understands them.

Profile optimization is also an important part of creating social context:

Making sure you have a nice picture of yourself
Making sure that you have some video content for the prospect to consume
Having engagement on your profiles is great too - creates social proof, makes the prospect feel like they can trust you since other people trust you!

QUALIFICATION #2 - FIND INEFFICIENCIES IN THE PROSPECTS CURRENT WAY OF DOING THINGS.

Never try to sell or book a meeting with someone who doesn’t have a problem to solve, a gap to bridge!

In order to find these inefficiencies, you need to know the RIGHT questions to ask the prospect so he/she can tell you what you need to be able to sell them on getting on a call!

IMPORTANT: It’s still a conversation so please ask one question at a time and make sure to not treat it like a sales call. Avoid asking too many questions and trying to find too many inefficiencies, because that’s when you become too salesy and no one wants to talk to salespeople.

Examples of inefficiencies to look for and what questions you can ask to get these to pop up:

Agencies relying on traditional channels like Email outreach or Linkedin: Any agency that is solely relying on these two channels is lacking efficiency and effectiveness.

Question to ask: What channels are you currently relying on to generate meetings?

The average closing rate of the meetings they’re booking: you can try to bring this out as our current systems improve our current customers' closing rate - most of our customers close 50%+ of all the meetings they generate.

Question to ask: What’s the average closing rate from the meetings you’re booking with your current system?

Agency owners who are still doing all the client acquisition themselves: You can try to bring out this inefficiency as this is probably one of the most important inefficiencies that you can find. If someone is trying to build a successful business but they’re doing everything themselves then there IS A BIG PROBLEM!

Question to ask: Are you still doing outreach yourself or do you have it automated/delegated to someone else?

The quantity of meetings that they’re booking: You can target this inefficiency as if the prospect isn’t getting the right amount of meetings every month that he/she wants to be generating then it creates a Gap that our systems can solve.

Question to ask: How many meetings are you generating on average per month - once they answer - you can ask them “Are you looking for more meetings every month to grow your business?”

The predictability and consistency of the meetings they’re booking: Being able to book meetings isn’t enough, you need to be able to predictably book them and know that your calendar will consistently be filled when you want it.

Question to ask: How predictable is booking meetings through your current channel (email outreach, Linkedin, Instagram, etc)

The quality of the meetings that they’re booking: Many agencies/business owners don’t want to be wasting time with people who can’t afford their services, so if someone is not getting the right Quality people on the phone then there is a gap to be bridged.

Question to ask: How qualified are the people you’re getting on the phone?

The volume of outreach that agencies/biz owners are able to make each day/week/month: If someone is running a business and they can’t reach out to 50-100+ business owners per day through their current channels/systems then there is a big problem to be solved. Volume is the answer to everything.

Question to ask: How much volume are you able to do each day?

You can probably find more inefficiency in someone’s agency or business but these can easily help you jump on the next step!

The great thing about the inefficiencies/problems above is that if someone has one of them, they will also have a few other issues/inefficiencies from the list above!

EDUCATE THE PROSPECT/SELL THEM ON A BETTER FUTURE LEVERAGING ASSETS.

What most people will do once they see that someone has a problem that they can solve, is that they’ll automatically try to get them on a call...but that is really bad!

Even if a prospect has answered multiple questions from you, it doesn’t mean that they trust you enough to want to hop on a call or even want to do business with you.

Prospects need Time and Energy before they can trust you. Our goal is to shorten the time it takes for them to trust us and for them to agree to hop on a call with us.

Solution:

Step 1: Tell them about a better process that can solve their current inefficiencies.

Write them a short summary on why we try to stay away from his current way of doing things and educate him on our process (a new mechanism) and on the better outcome that our process creates.

Step 2: Ask him/her for permission to share a short video going over the exact process ( If there isn’t a video that explains this, then simply rely on text to explain it to the prospect or simply make a loom for him/her)

EVALUATE IF THERE IS INTEREST/CREATE INTEREST

When you send a video, 20% or less will seem interested but the majority will probably not watch the video or even finish it.

That’s not an issue, because the main reason why we share the video is that we want to provide value - which will induce reciprocity bias as well as position us as an authority.

20% of people who are interested: Go ahead and ask them if they’d be available for a quick 15 min chat this week where we can walk them through how they can actually implement the system themselves. If they know that we have a program already, then you can invite them on the 15 min call and position it as a program walkthrough

Message to send:

“ Are you free for 15 minutes sometime this week? I can walk you through exactly how we go about implementing this process” https://book.clientacquisition.io/book-with-our-team (use your booking link instead)

80% of people who don’t show interest: you need to be able to create interest for these people and you also need to FOLLOW UP LIKE A MAD MAN.

How do you create interest?

You can easily bring up case studies, proof of results, proof that our systems have solved the exact problem that the prospect has.

“We have a customer who’s running the same [specific business model targeting the same niche] who had the [same issue as the prospect is having] and after implementing this [new mechanism] he was able to from [bad current situation] to [desired situation]

Example of a message to send: “One of our recent customers - came in after having spent 4 months sending hundreds of looms only to book 2 to 3 meetings with no close, he implemented the IG workflow, sent 3 looms to three brands, and generated one meeting from the 3 looms and closed that first meeting.”

The most important thing with the 80% of people who won’t show interest, is to Follow up and make sure they acknowledge the fact that our process is BETTER than their current one.

And get them to book a call.

OFFER THE VALUE CALL

Once someone understands that we have better systems and processes to help him scale, the next step is to make sure he/she books in a call!

Are you free to hop on a 15 min call where I walk you through our process? I think it could be valuable for you to see how we do it and what kind of results our current customers are getting.

https://book.clientacquisition.io/book-with-our-team

“ Let me know if it’s okay for me to share with you the link to book a call”

Confirmation of the call: “Let me know if you can’t find a time that works for you” Or “ Let me know when you book the call”

MEETING BOOKED! = TIME TO CHANGE SOMEONE’S LIFE.

CONVERSATION BREAKDOWN

Title	Step	Message	What are we looking to find or create in the prospect’s mind
Start conversation: 1. Share something about them or something that only them [niche] would be aware of 1. 1st qualification	1	• Hey [first name], I see that you’re an agency owner from Australia, has the lockdowns made it harder for you to sign on new customers? • Hey [first name], I believe you’re running [x company in y niche] how are you dealing with [ Y situation] Example: Hey Serge, I believe you’re running an ecom agency for sustainable brands, how are you able to compete with the heap of agencies jumping in and targeting the same sub-niche?- Hey [first name], I saw your comment on [x post], were you able to get it answered? I think I can help.	Move them down to their rational brain as fast as possible by starting the conversation with something they can relate to.
Gain info about current situation/systems, gain micro-commitments & qualify further with questions about their current situation: Important: some people won’t answer your first,second, third message so it’s imperative that you follow up Pick any question from the - Qualification #2 section.	2	Question: Are you still doing outreach yourself or do you have it automated/delegated? Question: What channels are you currently relying on to generate leads and meetings? Question: How much are you charging for your current offer/service? Question: what does your sales process look like?	We need to learn about their current systems and the more questions that they answer the more committed they become to us, the easier it is to get them on a meeting. Avoid asking too many questions if you feel like the prospect is becoming cold.
	3	1. How is [x] performing? Are you happy with the number of meetings you’re currently getting from the {method/channel}. 1. Have you ever tried 2-3x your current prices? And seeing how the market reacts. 2. Have you ever tried automating and delegating your acquisition to $3/hour VAs? 3. What have you tried to increase the quality of the leads/meetings that you’re getting? 4. Have you ever tried [x channel] for outreach?	How objective are they & how aware are they about other strategies/channels,etc We want to get them to see their blindspots - what they don’t know
(Optional) - build more trustShare more info on us and the outcome we help similar agencies in his niche achieve. Send the prospect to my page - let social proof do it’s thing.	0	I’m asking a lot of questions and haven’t introduced myself. I’m a growth expert at @clientacquisition.io and we specialize in helping agencies just like yourself add an extra 50k in new monthly recurring revenue in 4-6 months by leveraging efficient client acquisition systems. Some weeks we’re able to add 40k+ in new monthly recurring revenue for our customers combined.	Let them know who you/we are and send them to my YT page/ website/ fb page/group to learn more about what we do. The goal with this is to show them that we’re not some nobody’s trying to make their first $ online.
Share new insight and educate them on a better process using a Value video or briefly go over it in the messages.	4	1. Would you like to see a video going over how we’re generating 10-20 warm {niche} leads and booking hundreds of meetings? 1. We’ve noticed an insane advantage with having the highest prices since you can leverage the big upfront capital to reinvest in team and acquisition - something that your competitors who are charging 2k/month can’t really do. So we get our customers to double or triple their current retainers. 5. We push all of our clients to stay away from emails or at least use it for second touchpoints. We’ve built and tested an Instagram outreach process that works really well in your niche. We’ve been able to book meetings consistently and get an average closing rate of 75% because of the process we make prospects go through. I can walk you through the process if you’re interested (or I can share with you a video about the process) 1. We’ve been able to add 20k in new monthly recurring revenue in 8 weeks with 95% of our acquisition handled by a $3/hour VA 2. We’ve been able to collect 113k in 60 days from leveraging paid audiences/communities. Instead of relying on outbound prospecting or paid ads to acquire customers we pay to access communities and turn them into our own audience. I can share a video that walks you through the process if you want.	From the information gathered in STEP 3, decide to share one new insight - a process we teach in the 50k month program that can help them! The goal here is to share with them a new frame - with which they can start seeing the world from our perspective and create intrigueSome educational assets you can leverage in this section: • What it take to book hundreds of meetings • How a VA scaled me past 20k per month in 8 weeks • What can our 3$ hour VAs do for you • Best instagram outreach workflow that can add 9k in new MRR in 5 weeks • Buying access to an audience made me 250k in 10 months • Flywheel of charging high prices • VSL - How to add 50k-100k in MRR effortlessly If you don’t have an asset that covers the concept simply do your best explaining it through messages.
Create interest - curiosityIf interested or showing intrigue in this new process - send them sales assets that educate them even further OR educate them through messages. Get them on a call for us to personalize the explanation to their current circumstances. PATH 2 - If prospect don’t show much excitement or doesn’t ask a single question: Find a new entry point- Gather/thank them for feedback if you sent them a value video- Ask them about their revenue goals	5	PATH 1 - If you receive the following responses/questions after sending a reply or a sales asset from the previous step (4) Invite the prospect to a value call - step 8 • How do you do it? • How do you find audiences to buy? Or this is great, how would you go about finding an audience of ecom brands [ their niche]. • How do I find VAs? How do I train them? • How do you outreach on FB, IG, Linkedin? How do you get brands to give them their email address and to book a call? • How do you create an 8k per month offer? How do I deliver services I don’t know how to do? PATH 2 - 1. What did you think of the video/process? Once they provide feedback, thank them and ask them the next question: 2. What is your revenue goal?	Step 5's purpose is to get the prospect to start asking the right questions and get them trying to figure out how to implement the new systems themselves. Get the prospect to want more information and providing them with an opportunity to get the support.
Find a gap: - Figure out if the prospect believes that he/she’ll achieve desired $$ goal through his current process	6	Do you believe your current client acquisition process will get you to $x per month?
Confident in achieving their goal through what they’re doing currently? 1. Yes: loop back to step 4 and find another inefficiency - educate them on a new process that can make it even more effortless to achieve their desired outcome.Can we reduce the effort/sacrifice and cut in half the time it takes to achieve the desired outcome? 2. No: Go to the next step - invite them to a value call	7	Confident: Awesome! Since you told me that you were strictly relying on email outreach, I believe that with a paid audience you can easily hit your MRR goal in 4 weeks. If he/she starts asking questions and shows interests - Jump to STEP 8 IMPORTANT: If the prospect is satisfied with the current process, don’t force them into wanting to learn about new systems or trying to get them on a call! Simply skip them and find the next qualified lead.
Value call invitation	8	1. If you’re free for 15 minutes sometime this week, we can hop on a call where I walk you through the process? 1. Would you like to hop on a call sometime this week with Serge? He’ll be able to walk you through the process and how you can implement it for your agency. 2. It would be a bit hard to map out the process by messages, if you’re free for 15minutes this week, I (Serge) can walk you through the process.
Send Booking link! & ask them to tell you if they found a time slot that works	9	Ask permission to send booking link: • Let me know if it’s cool for me to give you a scheduler for you to book a call. Once booking link is sent: • Let me know if you can’t find a time that works for you.
Book a meeting!	10	Follow up to confirm the call OR to thank them for booking the call!
	0	Yeah, we leverage instagram, get brands/local biz to give us their emails, we educate/sell them through a 5 min video and then they book a call. This simple process has been able to increase our closing rate to over 75% and our customers are closing an average of 3-4 every 5 weeks. ------------- We’ve figured out a way to buy access to communities of prospects who are already interested in the service that you sell. Imagine having access to 7&8 figs brand owners who are interested in CRO[service].

New message sequence - Linkedin // IG // FB

1		Hey first name, I know you get 10 automated DMs per day - trying to sell you weird stuff, but I’m reaching out as I noticed that you may be running a [specific niche biz]. We specialize in helping agency owners in the [niche] add $50,000 in new MRR by building new acquisitions systems. If you wouldn’t mind generating an extra 50k/month, I’d like to share with you a video going over the exact process that we leverage. Just respond “ Send it” and I’ll send the link. BTW a 14 years old is leveraging this process to book 23 meetings/week and closing 5k-10k in 48 hours.
First Message: We have two messages since we’re looking to find out if People will reply more frequently if we provide value upfront.	Step 1	Example: 1 Hey Vincent, Hope you’re doing good! I had a quick question, what channels are you currently relying on to get most of your customers for [business name]? We specialize in building highly predictable and profitable client acquisition systems for [specific niche] and I wanted to share with you a short video going over what has been working really well lately for our customers in [prospects niche] Let me know if it’s okay to share it with you. Example 2: Hey Vincent, Hope you’re doing good! I had a quick question, what channels are you currently relying on to get most of your customers for [business name]?
Second message	Step 2	Thank you for getting back to me! Okay cool, so you haven’t yet had the chance to leverage [instagram/facebook] as a prospecting channel? If you haven’t yet, I think you’ll find this short video really helpful as I go over exactly how prospecting on [Instagram/Facebook] has helped our customers add an extra 40k in New Monthly Recurring Revenue in a single week! Here is the link: I’d love to get your feedback on it.
Third message:	Step 3	Hey x, Did you get the chance to review the video I shared? I think one of the best insights you’ll find in that video is about the fact that you’re actually able to buy access to an audience. We’ve been able to help agencies turn into brands by simply helping them find a network of [specific niche] and turning that network into their own audience. This one insight has taken our consultancy from 30k/month to have a few 10k/day without spending a single $ on ads. Let me know if you’d like to learn more about how you can implement this for your agency
Fourth Message:		Do you have 15 minutes sometime this week? I’d be happy to walk you through how you or your team could put this in place in less than 10 days to start getting better results than your current acquisition process.

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