“We’re basing our entire GTM around this”

My entire career as a marketer, I have heard something like

“You’re too tactical”

“I want to talk strategy”

“Don’t get too into the weeds”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned the hard way, it’s that a lack of attention to detail tends to ruin revenue-generating activities.

Any B2B marketer who runs LinkedIn ads knows there are two innocent-looking little checkboxes that, if enabled, destroy the impact of your LinkedIn Ad campaign. (If you’re wondering: Enable Audience Expansion, and LinkedIn Audience Network).

As with marketing, so with sales. (They’re philosophical twins anyway, one is 1:few and one is 1:many). In other words:

The little things make a big difference

But don’t tell that to the recent comment Joey Gilkey got about cold calling strategy:

“Connect rate has no impact on CAC.”

False.

As Joey detailed in his reply:

Moving connect rates from 4% to 25% can lead to a 67% drop in CAC.

This principle holds true in all areas of outbound:

• LinkedIn connect requests and DMs can’t be too frequent or you’ll get banned.
• Cold calls must run on clean numbers that are not marked as spam.
• Email outbound lives or dies off of deliverability - the DMARC/DKIM/SPF setup of the domains and inboxes, the frequency and content of the sequences, who hosts the inboxes, etc.

And that list keeps going.

But why build a business specifically around connect rates?

And why has it sped past $5M ARR in under a year?

It’s a fair question. Connect Rates seem at first like a vanity metric.

Let’s frame it this way: There are 3 ingredients to effective outbound.

Good targeting. You won’t win unless you know who to talk to.

Good message. You won’t win unless you know how to speak to their needs.

Good data. You won’t win unless you can actually get in touch with them.

There are technical nuances within each, including the “channel” to deliver the message. But…

When it comes to the phone: everyone struggles with good data.

Most don’t even know what good looks like. (One rep can have 10-20 conversations a day with qualified prospects. One rep can book 5+ meetings a day. Etc.)

As a wise founder who knows the phone data industry well explained to me last year:

Everyone is buying their original US mobile data from two low-quality data providers. And the market is acclimated to cheap data. And no one wants to spend the time or effort or money on the “funnel above the funnel” (credit where it’s due).

Why get targeted when you can get volume?

The Outbound Machine circa 2015-2025

So it all fits: we don’t care so much about junk as long as it’s inexpensive junk (much like the American food system).

Low connect rates, tons of junk data, mountains of wasted activity, just generally a pain in the CRM, and a tragic revenue story.

And despite all this, we consistently hear…

“Cold calling is the only channel working right now.”

Real quotes from prospects (with industries) who haven’t bought TitanX yet:

• “The phone is driving by far the most results of any channel we’ve invested in.” (Outbound Services)
• "The phone channel is where all of our appointments and engagement conversations come from.” (B2B Ecomm Startup)
• “Cold calling is the primary driver of meetings and SQLs in the team right now.” (Mid Market AI Fintech)
• “The phones have consistently been a great way for us to build pipeline.” (Mid Market AI Startup)
• “In terms of setting appointments, it’s really the phone. Most of our business comes from cold calling.” (SMB Financial Services)
• “It’s probably still the best way to get in touch with people. I think email is terrible.” ($2B Professional Services)
• “It really does start with a call.” (SMB Marketing Services)

So:

All around us, outbound seems to be failing.

The strategies of yesteryear are broken.

Only one tactic works now.

Only the phone.

It only makes sense to build a business out of making it even more successful.

(Yes this is a tad dramatic. I know great people running great playbooks on email. But it’s super hard to scale.)

Speaking of dramatic…

🔥 NEW HYPE VIDEO 🔥

Watch here

Featuring, Hypercard, Docebo, and more. Past phone-skeptics and phone-natives alike.

Thanks for reading,

Evan Dunn (LinkedIn)