For the longest time my outreach was a pure numbers grind. Connect with 500 people a month, get maybe 15 replies, close nothing.
Then I shifted who I was reaching out to. Same volume, same message, but 500 connects led to around 200 replies, of which I closed 12.
The entire change came down to targeting people who are already thinking about the problem I solve, rather than spraying my ideal customer profile at random.
In practice, that means only reaching out to people showing behavioural signals right now. They're engaging with competitors, commenting on relevant posts in my space, or publicly talking about the exact pain point I address. Those people convert at a completely different rate because the timing is right.
Three ways to find them without spending a cent:
- Pull the likes and comments on your top competitor's last ten posts. Instant warm list.
- Identify the three or four LinkedIn voices in your niche that your buyers actually follow, then watch who engages with them each week.
- Search LinkedIn for the specific phrases your customers use to describe their problem, and message the people writing those posts and engaging on those posts.
You can start doing all of this manually today. No tools required.
Honestly, an hour spent building a signal-based list will outperform an hour spent tweaking your opener for the hundredth time.
This whole approach is basically what I ended up building a little SaaS around, but the manual version works just as well when you're starting out. Happy to answer questions either way.
