Should we be panicking over the Outreach memo?!

Late last week, Outreach took over the LinkedIn feed with a memo sharing that Google and Yahoo will automatically block all messages coming from an organization with an abuse complaint rate of 0.3% or higher.

That’s 3 abuse complaints per 1000 emails.

Despite initial hysteria, this new standard is going to impact the industry positively.

Tom Slocum explained it like this,

Everyone acts like the world is crashing but let’s be real here—its just killing out the bad habits folks should have never fallen into.

Christian Krause added to his point saying.

We’ve said that outbound isn’t working as well as it used to. Now, even those who used to disagree have to admit that you can’t do outbound the way you used to.

With this memo, we’re going to see an increase in personalization, targeted emails, and customer research.

Jon Russo explained,

This is also why intent data is going to matter more in 2024—you’ll want to know who is interested in your product, either account or contact.

From now to February 1st, sellers will have to figure out new approaches.

And with that said, we anticipate a bunch of Sales Development and outbound leaders hopping over to the nearbound world real fast.

Nearbound selling can be as simple as a spreadsheet

Nearbound sales doesn’t have to be fancy. In fact, getting started can be as simple as a three-column spreadsheet.

Sales legend, Scott Leese (Founder of Scott Leese Consulting), shared why he’s bought into nearbound and how he used an Excel spreadsheet to close a multi-million dollar nearbound sales deal.

Why Scott is bought in:

Look around. Our behavior as a society has changed. In the 90s and early 2000s, everyone answered their phones and responded to emails. Today, people’s ringers are off, they don’t answer unknown numbers, and they archive 95% of their inbox.

Then, when you look at the way children communicate, it only becomes more apparent. These channels are not the future.

What we’re going back to has withstood the testament of time—trust.

How Scott uses an Excel spreadsheet to close deals:

In 2022 Scott did over $1 million in referral selling for two well-known companies. They approached him asking for warm introductions to individuals in his network. If the deals closed, Scott got a percent of the deal.

That was a mental unlock for him. Scott realized that his network was powerful.

So, how can a seller do this today?

Scott shared his number one tip:

Build a spreadsheet with three columns:

• Account name
• Key decision maker
• LinkedIn profile of that decision maker

Then run a nearbound motion internally and externally:

Send that spreadsheet (or a couple of specific accounts) to your internal teams and external communities. Ask if anyone knows these decision makers, and offer to split the referral bonus. Then, watch as the dots align.

Listen to the full session here.

Nearbound sales doesn’t have to be daunting. It can be as simple as a spreadsheet!  

The power of dots connecting

Imagine your brain supercharged on nearbound.

This is what it’d look like.

Thanks for the meme, Gary Gower!

Stuff you don’t want to miss!

• Nearbound Summit 2023 Recordings — The future of GTM is Nearbound. Watch the recordings to hear how B2B leaders across departments unite and with Nearbound strategies and tactics. Listen here.

Welcome to the era of nearbound sales

Share this with a seller who doesn’t know how to adapt to the outreach memo.