Outbound sales
Humans contact target accounts one at a time, by email, LinkedIn or phone.
State of the channel in 2026
The only channel that still works when the ticket is high and the market is narrow. Pointless under $200 a month.
How to prove it is this channel
- SDR or AE job postings
- Pricing with no price on it
- A demo form instead of a signup
What it demands
- An ACV that pays for a salesperson
- A finite, identifiable list of accounts
- A sales cycle you can finance
What this channel actually sells
Choosing your customers instead of waiting to be found by them.
You never sell the product on a channel. You sell the benefit it ends up producing, and you fit the product inside that.
What to measure
- Reply rate, never send volume
- Meetings booked per 100 accounts touched
- Cycle length, because it decides whether you can finance the channel at all
The trap
Personalizing on the first name. That is not personalization, it is a mail merge, and everyone recognizes it instantly.
The generic playbook
- 1Write the named list of accounts you want. If it runs past 500 lines it is wrong
done whenThe account list is finite, named, and under 500 lines.
- 2Sell the first 20 yourself. Only hire after that
done whenYou closed the first 20 yourself before hiring anyone.
- 3Personalize on an observable fact, never on a first name
done whenEvery message references something you actually observed about them.
- 4Measure replies, not sends
done whenYou track replies weekly. Send volume is not on the dashboard.
2 products ran this
AttiostartupRead from signalsHARD
Paddlescale-upRead from signalsHARDIs this channel actually yours?
Describe your product. You get back whether this play holds for you, or which one I would run instead.