Notes on outbound
that works
Practical writing on SDR economics, cold calling, targeting, and pipeline. From the team that books the meetings so you can close the deals.
Booked is not held: fixing your no-show rate
The gap between meetings set and meetings held is where outbound quietly leaks money. The benchmark, the causes, and the fix.
Your SDR provider just got acquired. Now what?
The category is consolidating and clients feel it mid-contract. What to check this week, and how to move without losing momentum.
Cost per held meeting: the unit price of outbound
One number makes every outbound option comparable: what a held, qualified meeting actually costs. Our own math, shown.
Read the funnel, not the highlight reel
A report that only contains good news is a highlight reel. The five weekly numbers that make outbound steerable.
The brush-off is not an objection
"Send me an email" is not an objection. It is a reflex. What the four common brush-offs mean and what a trained rep does with them.
From signed to first dial in ten days
What happens between signature and first call: the definition, the list, the message, the training, and your sign-off on all of it.
Your first SDR hire is actually five jobs
The rep is one job of five. Recruiter, systems builder, data buyer, and coach are the other four, and they land on you.
The week after the wire hits
Fresh capital creates a pipeline slide and a hiring reflex. The three artifacts to build before the first sales hire.
Trust purchases get decided on the phone
Buyers who sell trust for a living answer the phone. The substance bar once they do is the real story.
What the AI SDR shakeout left behind
The category churned its customers and pivoted. What survived is a division of labor, and it is worth writing down.
Put the meeting definition in the contract
Every outbound dispute traces back to an undefined word. The three clauses that settle it before the first dial.
The reply-rate slide nobody wants to present
Cold email replies fell by more than half in seven years. The channel did not die. Its job changed.
Rent, build, or automate: the three shelves of outbound
Agencies, offshore staffing, AI platforms. Each shelf trades something away, and the trade is rarely printed on the label.
Call moments, not lists
The account did not change. Its moment did. The four signal families that tell a rep when to dial, and why they change the call itself.
Everyone left the phone. Good.
The migration to channels that scale emptied the calling lane, and calling got better for everyone who stayed.
An SDR seat, priced over three years
Year one is roughly $10,000 a month fully loaded. Years two and three add the number nobody puts in the plan.
We book the meetings. You close the deals.
One dedicated, full-time SDR inside a complete outbound system. Written meeting SLA, weekly reporting, month-to-month.
Book a strategy call