Use this when: Inbound isn't enough and you need to proactively generate pipeline. You've validated your offer and know who your ICP is, but you need more conversations than organic channels provide. Think about outbound in three phases: Target (pick who to pursue), Weapons (build your sales story, cold call scripts, and email templates), Execute (block time and do the work). Most founders stall because they skip phase two and jump straight from a list to sending emails without a clear, customer-focused message.
You're done when: You have a repeatable multi-channel sequence sending daily, your deliverability is healthy, and replies are converting to booked calls.
The Sequence
1. Set up your sending infrastructure
Buy a separate domain for outbound (e.g., if your company is acme.com, send from acme-team.com). Configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. This protects your main domain's reputation if something goes wrong. Use a warm-up tool (Lemwarm, Mailreach, or similar) to build sender reputation for 2-3 weeks before sending any cold emails. Start with 5-10 emails per day and ramp gradually.
- Deliverable: A sending domain with SPF/DKIM/DMARC configured, connected to your outbound tool, warming up.
- Common mistake: Sending cold emails from your primary domain. One spam complaint wave and your transactional emails (password resets, invoices) stop arriving.
2. Build your prospect list (and your Dream 100)
Use your ICP definition to build a list of 200-500 prospects. Pull from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, or similar tools. For each prospect, note: name, title, company, company size, and one specific detail you'll use for relevance (a recent hire, a product launch, a pain signal). Verify every email address before adding it to your sequence. Unverified emails destroy deliverability.
Within that list, identify your Dream 100: the accounts that would transform your business if they closed. In most markets, a small fraction of accounts carry a disproportionate share of the upside. Your version: pick the 50-100 accounts where your product would deliver the most value, and run a separate, higher-touch cadence for them. These accounts get personalized gifts, handwritten notes, or lumpy mail alongside your standard email and LinkedIn sequence. The Dream 100 isn't a replacement for your broader outbound list. It's a parallel track with 10x the effort per account and 10x the payoff.
- Deliverable: A verified prospect list of 200-500 contacts with relevance hooks, plus a separate Dream 100 list with higher-touch outreach planned.
- Common mistake: Prioritizing list size over list quality. 200 verified, well-targeted contacts outperform 2,000 scraped emails every time.
3. Optimize your LinkedIn profile
Your LinkedIn profile is your landing page. Every prospect you add or message will check it. Your headline should state the problem you solve, not your job title. "Helping B2B teams cut prospecting time by 60%" beats "CEO at Acme." Post content 2-3 times per week that demonstrates expertise in your prospect's problem space. This builds familiarity before you ever send a message.
- Deliverable: An updated LinkedIn profile with a problem-focused headline, relevant banner, and a content posting cadence.
- Common mistake: Treating LinkedIn as a resume instead of a credibility engine. If your profile doesn't make a prospect think "this person understands my world," it's working against you.
4. Write your email sequence using CPPC
Every cold email follows four parts:
- Context: Why you're reaching out (a trigger, a connection, something specific to them)
- Problem: The pain you've observed in their world (frame it generally, don't assume)
- Proposition: One sentence on how you solve it
- CTA: One clear ask. "Can we connect this week?" — not a menu of options
Keep it under 100 words. No attachments. No HTML formatting. Write it like you'd write to a colleague, not a prospect.
- Deliverable: 3 email templates (initial outreach, follow-up, breakup) following the CPPC structure.
- Common mistake: Writing emails about yourself and your product. The email is about their problem. You get mentioned in one sentence.
5. Design your 9-step multi-channel sequence
The sequence alternates between LinkedIn and email over 5-6 weeks:
- Connect on LinkedIn — no message in the invitation
- Wait 3 weeks — they see your content in their feed, building familiarity
- Email 1 — CPPC structure, value-driven
- Email 2 (2 days later) — short follow-up: "Just checking if you received my previous email. Available [date]?"
- LinkedIn message 1 — direct, reference the email
- LinkedIn message 2 (2 days later) — short follow-up
- LinkedIn profile visit — just for the notification
- Email 3 — mention you reached out on LinkedIn, include a customer case study
- Final touch — send a piece of content (article, insight, benchmark) relevant to their problem
Response rates tend to be linear across steps. People apologize for late replies. The 5th touch converts almost as well as the 2nd. The data on outbound cadence is consistent: it takes more touches than most reps are willing to make, and mixing channels outperforms single-channel persistence. That gap between what works and what reps actually do is where most outbound pipeline dies. The 9-step sequence above is designed to close it, but only if you actually run all 9 steps. Vary the media on every touch: email, then LinkedIn, then phone, then email again.
- Deliverable: A configured sequence in your outbound tool (Lemlist, Apollo, La Growth Machine, or similar) with all 9 steps loaded and timed.
- Common mistake: Giving up after 2 touches. Most replies come on steps 3-6.
6. Monitor deliverability weekly
Track bounce rate, reply rate, meeting rate, and spam complaints. Bounce rate above 3% means your list has bad data — pause and clean it. Do not track open rates — open tracking pixels can trigger spam filters and hurt deliverability. Reply rate and meeting rate are the only metrics that matter. If replies are low, your messaging or targeting needs work.
Short subject lines outperform clever copy. "Quick question," "[First name] - [company name]," or even no subject at all. Match the subject to the content: if you're sending an introduction, the subject is "intro."
- Deliverable: A weekly deliverability dashboard tracking bounce rate, reply rate, meeting rate, and spam complaints. No open rate tracking — it damages deliverability.
- Common mistake: Ignoring deliverability until it's too late. A burned domain takes weeks to recover.
Template
Example
A B2B SaaS founder selling workflow automation to operations managers set up a separate sending domain and warmed it for 3 weeks. She built a list of 300 verified contacts from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, all ops managers at 50-200 person companies. Her LinkedIn headline changed from "Co-founder at FlowOps" to "Helping ops teams eliminate 10 hours/week of manual work." She posted twice a week about operations bottlenecks. The 9-step sequence launched on week 4. By week 6, she had a 4.2% reply rate, 22 booked calls, and 6 closed deals. The highest-converting step was Email 3 (step 8), where she included a case study from a similar-sized company. Total cost: $150/month in tools and 5 hours/week of execution.
Written with ❤️ by a human (still)