Outbound for B2B SaaS
We run outbound for B2B software companies with $10K or more in ACV. Email, LinkedIn, and phone, all about the same signal, run by someone on our team who’s on your account. Your AEs only take calls with people who already wrote back or picked up.
If you’re here, you’ve probably done the math on hiring two more reps: $70K to $100K each before tools, three or four months to ramp, and a manager to keep them from working a database pull through your sequencer. The list is where most of that money goes to waste, so that’s the part we’ve built the whole program around. It’s rebuilt every day from companies that just posted the role your product serves, or closed a round, or hired a new VP, or changed their stack. Email first, about that thing. Then we call and connect about the same thing. Gainsight got 90 sales accepted leads in two months this way. Starts as low as $2,999 a month, month to month, for the email, with the calling layer priced for your volume.
What the phone adds in software, and what it doesn’t
A lot of SaaS buyers don’t pick up the phone, and a lot of SaaS founders have decided calling is dead because they tried it on a database pull and got voicemail 200 times in a row.
What we’ve seen is that a VP who got an email Tuesday about the RevOps role she just posted picks up at a rate that would surprise you, and when she does, the call is short. “Hey, Sam here, I sent a note about the RevOps posting. Is that role about forecasting, or is it more the CRM cleanup side?” That’s a 90-second conversation, and it ends with either “not for us” or “actually, send me the calendar link,” and either one is fine. What you don’t get is the 15-minute discovery call with someone who was never going to buy.
LinkedIn works the same way. A connection request from a stranger sits there unanswered. A connection request from the person whose email about the Series B is in your inbox gets accepted, and now there’s a second channel. Most of the LinkedIn replies we get in software are one line, and about a third of them are “yeah, let’s talk.”
So the phone and LinkedIn add two things: they turn “I saw your email and meant to reply” into a meeting, and they catch the people who never open email at all. They don’t work as a first touch, and they don’t work about your product. They work as a follow-up, about the prospect’s thing.
Who does the calling, and what to ask about them
On our programs the person making the calls and sending the LinkedIn messages is one named member of our team, on your account. They see the signal list every morning, they know which company got which email and why, and they’ve been through your product enough to answer the first question and know when to hand off the second.
The question we get most from SaaS founders is “how is that different from just hiring someone.” Three ways. They start in week one, not month four. They’re working a list where every company has a reason to talk, so the dials-to-conversations ratio is a different sport. And when they leave, nothing walks out the door, because the list, the notes, and the domains are yours.
Whoever you hire for this, ask them:
Is the person dedicated or shared, and across how many accounts? Shared across two is normal at $10K to $50K ACV, because a signal list doesn’t produce enough dials for a full-time person. Shared across six means your prospects get called on Thursdays.
What do they know about my category? If your product is RevOps tooling and they’ve never seen a forecast, the first “so what does it actually do” ends the call.
What’s the conversation-to-meeting ratio on your last three SaaS accounts, counting conversations and not dials? On a signal list, one meeting per five real conversations is normal. One per twenty means the list or the pitch is wrong.
What the sequence looks like
Here’s 14 business days for a company that just hired a new VP of Customer Success, from a company that sells customer health tooling. Every touch is about her first 90 days.
Day 1. Email. Congratulations on the CS role. Most VPs walking into a team your size find renewal risk tracked in three places that don’t agree. We give CS leaders one view inside two weeks. Day 2. LinkedIn. Connection request to the VP. No note. Day 3. Call. “Elliot here, I sent a note about the CS role. Is the health score thing on your list for the first quarter, or is it further out?” Day 5. Email. Reply to day 1. The one-pager on agreeing a single health score definition with sales before building anything. Whether or not we talk. Day 7. LinkedIn. If she accepted, a message. “Sent you the health-score one-pager over email. Curious whether your first QBR cycle is before or after the holidays.” Day 9. Call. Second attempt. Voicemail if no answer, under 20 seconds, mentions the one-pager. Day 12. Email. Last one. Asks whether to close the file or check back after her first QBR cycle. Day 14. Call. Final attempt. If nothing, she goes back into monitoring and gets a fresh sequence the next time something changes at the company.
Eight touches, three channels, three weeks, all about her situation and never about the product’s feature list. And the moment she says “send me the link,” it stops, and your AE takes over.
The five signals
The list gets rebuilt every day from these. Whoever’s calling sees which one fired for each company before picking up the phone.
The role your product serves gets posted. The email offers the product as the faster version of the hire. The call asks what the role’s really for.
A round or a new leader. That’s the sequence above.
A stack change. The email leads with the integration. The call asks what else they’re changing around it.
A competitor’s renewal coming up badly. The email offers a migration path and a reference. The call asks when the renewal is.
Expansion into a new segment. The email asks how the new segment’s being handled. The call asks who owns it.
What we mean by “sales accepted lead”
Someone at a company that fits the ICP wrote back or picked up, they agreed to a call, it’s on your AE’s calendar, and your AE looked at it and said yes, that’s real. Your AE can reject any of them and it comes off the count. Held and no-show are reported separately, because they’re not the same thing.
Before anything sends we write down the line with you: company size, ARR band or funding stage, industries in and out, geography, titles, and whatever disqualifiers your sales team already uses.
That’s how Gainsight’s 90 were counted, against a line agreed up front, with every reply and every call outcome in front of their team the whole time.
How it runs
Week one we set up sending domains and mailboxes in your name, agree the ICP and the SAL definition, turn on the five signals across your segment, and assign the person on our team who’ll be on your account. They spend part of that week in your product.
Week two the first emails go out. Calling and LinkedIn start in week three, once the email’s shown us which signals are getting replies, so the calls go to companies that are already warming up.
Replies and booked meetings go to your AE the same day with the signal, the thread, and the call notes, so discovery starts from “you just hired a VP of CS” and not from “so tell me about your business.”
Every morning we look at yesterday’s SALs against the target. If we hit it, we send more and we dial more. If we missed it, it’s one of four things: wrong companies, not enough of them, the message was off, or it didn’t land. We find which, fix it, and that’s what goes out today. You can follow it in the log, by signal and by channel.
When you leave, the domains and mailboxes are yours, and the call notes go with them.
What it costs
Starts as low as $2,999 a month, month to month, for the email program on domains you own. No setup fee, no minimum term.
The LinkedIn and calling layer is priced per program, based on how many companies a month your segment produces and how much of a person that needs. We’ll give you the number on the fit call. It’s a flat monthly figure, not per meeting.
For most companies at $10K to $50K ACV, email plus the calling layer comes in well under one loaded rep, and it’s producing in week three instead of month four.
Results
Gainsight is a software company, and the case study has the detail on how the 90 were counted.
Book a 15-minute fit call
Tell us your ACV, your ICP, and whether you're weighing this against a hire. We'll tell you whether we'd take the account, what the calling layer would cost at your volume, and, if the hire's the better call, that too.
Other ways we work with B2B SaaS
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if you haven't picked a channel and want the SAL definition and the reply report first.
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if you've got your own reps for the calls and just want the email built on signals.
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if you want to retarget the same list with paid social while the sequence runs.
Outbound Sales for other industries
Questions people ask us
We’re deciding between this and hiring two reps. How should we think about it?
Hire if outbound’s going to be a core function you want to own long-term and you’ve got a manager for it. Use us if you want it producing in three weeks and you’d rather your first hires inherit a playbook than write one. Most clients at $10K to $50K ACV run us for the first year and hire once the signals and the messaging are proven. That order costs less.
Do SaaS buyers actually pick up the phone?
As a cold first touch, rarely. As a follow-up to an email about the role they just posted or the round they just closed, more than you’d think. And the calls are short. That’s the point of them. Ninety seconds to find out whether it’s a meeting or a no.
Can whoever’s calling talk about our product?
Enough to answer the first question and know when to hand off the second. They spend part of week one in your product. When the prospect asks something your AE should answer, they say so and book the call. A truthful “let me get Sam on with you for that” lands better than a bluff, every time.
Do we get a dedicated person?
Shared across two accounts is the default, because a signal list in one segment doesn’t produce enough dials to fill someone’s day. If your segment does, we’ll say so, and dedicated is available.
Can it run under our AEs’ names and profiles?
Emails go out under your AEs’ names on domains you own. Calls are made as your company. LinkedIn runs on a profile you control. Nothing runs on a profile you’d lose when the contract ends.
How was the Gainsight number measured?
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