An outsourced SDR team for your LinkedIn outbound. We prospect, you close.

What an SDR actually does all day

Sales development is the part of selling that happens before the first call. It is not hard to describe. It is hard to keep up every working day, which is why teams hire for it or hand it out.

• Decide who. The companies and roles worth reaching, and the reason they would talk now.
• Build the list. Find those people and remove the ones who do not fit.
• Start the conversation. A short first message about the reader, not a pitch.
• Follow up. Two or three more messages over the next weeks, stopping the moment they answer.
• Answer every reply the same day. The question they asked, in a line or two.
• Book the call. Offer a time, confirm it, and hand the person to whoever sells.

Hiring an SDR or outsourcing one

Hiring keeps the knowledge in the company, and a good SDR who stays becomes part of the team. It is also the slowest start: recruiting, months of ramp, a manager’s time, the tools and the LinkedIn seats, and the work pauses every time someone leaves.

Outsourcing can be live within a week, and the cost is one line you can plan. What you give up is some closeness: an outside team needs you to tell them who you sell to and how you speak, and to read the first messages before they go out. Most teams that outsource do it to get conversations started now, and keep the option to hire later.

What to hand over, and what to keep

Hand over the work that has to happen every day: the list, the writing, the sending, the follow ups and the first replies.

Keep three things. The offer, because only you can change it. The approval of what goes out in your name. And the sales calls, because that is where the outside team hands over to you. A good provider asks for all three on the first call.

Leads that show: getting booked calls people actually attend

A booked call only counts if the person turns up. Most no shows are decided before the call is booked: the person was not sure why they were talking to you, or the time was set days after they last replied.

• Book only people who asked. A call goes on the calendar after the person has said, in their own words, that they want to talk about the problem you solve. A polite reply is not a yes.
• Book while the reply is warm. Offer a time in the same conversation, the same day they answered. Every day between the reply and the booking makes a no show more likely.
• Say what the call is for. Confirm the time with one line on what you will cover, in their words. People turn up for a call they understand.
• Follow up a no show once, kindly. People miss calls for ordinary reasons. One short message offering a new time recovers many of them. More than one starts to cost you the relationship.

Four habits keep the people who book the ones who show. None of them is a trick, and whoever runs your outbound should do all four.

How to choose an outbound sales agency

Most outbound sales agencies describe the same work. What separates them is in the details, and you can find those out on a first call. These are the questions worth asking any provider, us included.

• Whose name do the messages go out under? Yours, from your own profile, or a stranger’s account?
• Who writes the messages, and do you approve them? Nothing should go out in your name that you have not read.
• What counts as a booked meeting? And what happens when a lead does not show up?
• Who answers the replies, and how fast? A reply answered the next week is usually a lost one.
• How long is the contract? And do you keep the list, the copy and the conversations if you stop?

Why the work here runs on LinkedIn

Your buyers read LinkedIn messages under your name, next to your profile, your posts and the people you both know. That makes the first message easier to trust than one from a stranger’s address.

Our team works on LinkedIn: connection requests, messages and InMail from your own profile. If you need cold calling, this is not the right fit, and it is better to know that now.

What it looks like with LinkedNav

You start with a strategy call. You tell us who you sell to, what you offer and how you speak. Our team builds the list, writes the connection notes, InMail and follow ups, and you approve the wording before anything goes out.

Messages go out every working day from your own LinkedIn profile, under your name. We answer the replies, and the people who want to talk are booked to your calendar or passed to you. You get a report every week on who was reached and what came back. The LinkedIn subscriptions and InMail capacity needed to send are included.

The price is flat: $597 a month for every 500 prospects reached. See the pricing page for the current numbers, or the done-for-you LinkedIn outreach service for the whole service.