Playbooks

Why your outbound strategy isn't working

What most teams get wrong about cold outreach — and how to fix it.

June 3, 2025

Hey — I’m Rinat.

We help 25+ US & EU B2B teams to accelerate sales and scale GTM through structured outbound systems. Every week, I share tactics, benchmarks, and insights on building outbound that actually drives pipeline.

Today I want to talk about something I hear way too often:

We tried cold outreach. It just doesn’t work for us

But when we dig in, the campaign usually looks like this: 100 contacts per week, barely any segmentation, no follow-ups, and a message that could’ve been written by ChatGPT v1.

Doing outreach ≠ doing it right.

So, why doesn’t it work?

Because outbound only works as a system — not as a one-off experiment.

To get results, you need:

  • Clear value proposition

  • Volume

  • Multichannel sequences

  • And relentless iteration

Let’s start with the basics. If you don’t know exactly who you’re selling to and why they should care — no tool or automation will save you.

I break down how to craft your Value Prop in the post below but here’s what comes after that:

The bare minimum infrastructure

– 500+ contacts/month per segment (not a random mix) — and 2,000+ total

– 12+ multichannel touches per contact (email, LinkedIn, Telegram, etc.)

– Ongoing analytics and iterations — no set-it-and-forget-it campaigns

Without that, you don’t have a funnel — just noise.

Here’s what a healthy outbound funnel looks like for us internally:

1,000 contacts → 52 replies → 25 warm leads → 16 calls → 10 qualified opportunities → 1 closed deal → 1 in late-stage (6-mo horizon)

These numbers are normal.

So if you sent 50 emails and got nothing — that’s not a failure. That’s insufficient data.

And even when you do get replies — don’t celebrate too early. A positive reply ≠ a deal.

Outreach is just the beginning. Nurturing closes deals.

Here’s a win from our backlog: how I closed a deal with a US enterprise client:

– First message to their CRO on LinkedIn → he replied “sounds interesting”

– Sent a few follow-ups with case studies and our key selling points

– Managed to get an email-contact of their Sales Director in NYC

– Reached out → got “not ready to jump on a call yet”

– Sent a detailed breakdown of how we work

– Followed up three more times

Only after 6–7 touches across 2 channels (LinkedIn + email) — we got to the first call.

That’s what lead nurturing looks like. And that’s where most people drop the ball:

  • They either go in for the call too soon without context

  • Or back off too early, afraid to “annoy” the lead

But real deals happen between the first reply and the actual call.

You just need to guide the lead through the process — without pressure, but with clarity.

TL;DR

  • Outreach fails when it’s under-powered and under-planned.

  • You need volume, channels, and a reason to care (your value prop).

  • Replies aren’t revenue — nurture until cash hits the account.

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