1,300 people came to "Inbound-Led Outbound Workshop #1" & Outbound is DEAD

Hey RB2B Fans!

We had approximately 50x more attendees than I expected from the registration show up for the 1st ever Inbound-Led Outbound Workshop - 1,300 in total!!!

This week will be Workshop #2 - “How I Bootstrapped $22m ARR in 4 Years”.

I’m going to talk about:

• Going 0-$1m w/ Facebook Ads

• $1-10m w/ Philippines Cold Email

• Trying to build a Unicorn in 12mo (and failing spectacularly)

• Our churn problem and pivoting to B2B

• Co-Creating a product with my LinkedIn Audience.

Sign up here for the virtual event.

Outbound is Dead - All Hail Inbound-Led Outbound

This week’s content comes from a conversation I had with Scott Leese two weeks ago.

We share very similar thoughts about go-to-market.

Here’s the content of the week:

Two weeks ago 🏄‍♂️ Scott Leese told me, “Outbound sales, as we know it, is dead.” Here’s why Scott thinks he’s only got 3-4 years left as a sales consultant (and what the future of B2B sales looks like):

1. The trend in response rates is going one way… DOWN.

The biggest objection I get when I say “the Predictable Revenue model is dead” is “YOU'RE AN IDIOT because you have a $25k ACV and outbound sales never should have worked for that anyway.”

It’s undeniable response rates are down 50% the last 18 months. Let’s say that wiped out my $25k deal and now the floor is $50k. What do you think happens over the NEXT 18 months?

Response rates will be down ANOTHER 50%. So now we’re at 100k floor.

What about 18 months after that? Down ANOTHER 50%.

Now we’re at a $200k floor for outbound.

How many reps employed today sell something under $200k?

Almost everyone.

2. Usage of traditional channels is going one way… DOWN.

Scott and I both have our ringers off 24/7 and don’t use the phone at all. We both only read emails from people we know, and don’t even look at emails from people we don’t know.

Wait for the next generation. Scott has a 14 and 16-year-old, who literally NEVER use email, don’t text, and communicate with Snap and Insta DM only.

We’re currently seeing cracks in the foundation, but soon a generational change will lead to collapse.

3. Fewer buyers are interested in speaking to salespeople every day.

Scott told me that he just purchased a $1.1m investment property in Chicago without speaking to a single person. He brought up that Amazon is crushing every mom and pop store because you can sit on your couch, press a few buttons, and get anything you want.

Old dogs on LinkedIn (and I’m 43) insist people want to talk to people.

I think they’re wrong.

TAKEAWAY:

Outbound Sales, as we know it, is on the brink of collapse.

It’s not IF, it’s a matter of WHEN.

What’s the future of B2B sales look like?

We’re entering an era where sales teams will act more like editorial teams.

It’s a NEW MODEL centered around creating MAXIMALLY AUTHENTIC content that meets the buyers on the platforms they’re living on.

Teams will be much smaller, with WAY bigger reach.

They’ll be scaling human-to-human connection.

Sales teams will have one “builder” who will constantly be working on the machine that listens to signals from the content engine and nudges prospects down the funnel, capturing them when they’re ready to buy.

Sales cycles will be shorter because the awareness, education, and nurturing will be virtually zero-touch.

These teams will be lean, hyper-efficient, and fun to work for, because reps are basically artists who spend most of the day creating and only speaking to prospects when they’re ready to buy.

The sales leaders of tomorrow will either be able to:

1. Build audience over organic social media

2. Engineer scalable signal-based selling machines

If you can’t do one of those two things, you’re walking the plank.

Click here to join the 350+ comments!

The Hubspot Beta has STARTED

I am on vacation so I am not on top of this up-to-the-minute, but Tate has the email addresses of everybody that wanted to beta test, and we’re working our way down the list asking people to activate it.

We’re very excited about its functionality.

We can tie our identity resolution to the Hubspot tracking cookie, which if you are using it and understand what it does, opens the door to triggering sales workflows for many more site visitors.

The next thing you will want is ICP filtering so that you don’t add a bunch of noise into Hubspot, which is coming.

I am very excited about the combination of these two features, and think it will unlock a LOT of value for a LOT of users.

That’s all for this week!!!

Keep building.

Adam