Sales Prospecting Methods

The anatomy of a sales call has changed dramatically. Last week, I shadowed some of HubSpot’s top reps and what struck me was how differently the best sellers work today. They’re using AI at every stage: before, during, and after the call. And the results are real. The brain: before the call. AI does the heavy research — scanning 10Ks, news, emails, and past calls to surface the insights that matter most. Tools like Breeze Assistant can prep a full company overview in seconds. According to our State of Sales Report, 74% of sellers say buyers are showing up to calls more informed than ever before. Salespeople need to be just as ready. The heart: during the call. AI notetakers capture everything: next steps, budget mentions, open questions, so reps can focus on listening, not typing or scribbling notes on the side.  Also, AI assistants surface the right case study or testimonial in real time, making every answer sharper and every example more relevant. That means as a sales rep you are more engaged and relevant. The muscle: after the call. AI follows through fast. It drafts personalized follow-up emails in your own voice, outlines next steps, and flags what needs attention. More time with customers and less time writing emails. The result: sellers who prepare better, connect deeper, and close faster. The anatomy of a great sales call used to be manual effort and hustle. Now, it’s human connection powered by intelligence.

If you want to be rich, learn sales. I used to think sales was sleazy until I realized the world revolves around it. Sadly, most people don’t have the skillset. Here’s the sales framework that’s helped me sell $100M+ in products & services: Contrary to popular belief, sales isn’t about convincing people. It’s about reflection, not manipulation. Then buying becomes their idea, not yours. The TRUST framework helps you do that in five steps: 1. Tune In Most people think they're good listeners - they're not. Real listening means shutting up and taking notes. It means starting a conversation with questions like: • What made you reach out? • What's your #1 goal right now? • What's broken in your world? Your only job here is to understand their pain better than they do. 2. Reflect Now mirror back what you heard. "So it sounds like you're struggling with X and Y. Is that right?" When they say "Yes, exactly", you just earned trust. They've admitted their pain in their own words. The pitch should come after you’ve confirmed you understand their problem, not before. 3. Uncover This is where you dig deeper. Assume other people have already tried to fix their problem. So ask things like: • Am I the first person you've spoken to? • What have you tried already? • Why do you think it didn't work? Your goal is to help them realize they can't solve this alone AND surface why past solutions failed. This sets up the next step. 4. Share Stories beat a sales pitch any day. Use the pain points they just admitted to craft a story about someone exactly like them who got results: "We had a client with the same problem. Tried everything, felt stuck. Then we implemented one system that doubled their conversions in 60 days." Stories let them picture themselves in the solution. 5. Trade Lastly, frame your offer as the missing piece of the puzzle: "Your goal is X. The problem is Y. You've tried Z. The missing piece is [solution]. Here's how we'll do it in [timeframe]." Then finish up with a "Does that sound like what you need?" This makes you as a collaborator in their eyes. To them, you're not selling - you're solving. Ultimately, sales isn't about being slick. It's about being human. Listen more than you talk. Make them feel heard. And don’t forget the money is in the follow up. ↓ ↓ ↓ P.S. If sales is one of the bottlenecks in your biz, you might benefit from this... Me & my team are hosting an in-person Growth Accelerator in September. It's in Austin. 2.5 days. Sep 26–28. • Who it’s for: founders & operators moving fast, on the way to $1M-$10M revenue, ready for real-time laser coaching • Who it’s not for: pre-revenue owners, wantrepreneurs, consultants, or anyone looking for a traditional passive conference We helps owners scale and remove their bottlenecks. Not for everyone, but maybe for you: https://lnkd.in/eeS4zw-f

A solo business used to mean choosing between freedom and real money. In 2026, you can have both. The tools are cheaper, the audience is bigger, and one focused person can do what used to take ten. Most people CAN do it. But getting started is the hardest part. What they're missing is a clear system to follow. So I wrote one you can use: 1/ Solve Your Own Pain The easiest business to build is around a problem you actually have. Find the solution you'd pay for yourself. 2/ Validate Before Building Talk to 10 people who have the same problem before you spend time and money on any idea. Ask what they've already tried and whether they'd pay to solve it. Most people skip this and build for 3 months in the wrong direction. 3/ Build Your Personal Brand Your online presence can give you a serious advantage. It makes people feel like they know you before you even approach them. Pick one topic you know well, write about buyer problems, and use personal stories and case studies to prove you can help. 4/ Build An Offer Ladder Your first product can be one free lead magnet. Solve a narrow, painful problem with a fast win. Then build up from there. A checklist or template that saves someone an hour is worth more than a 40-page ebook nobody finishes. 5/ Use AI Wisely Use AI to draft, research, and organize - NOT to decide what to build or who to sell to. The strategy has to come from you. The execution is where AI can help. 6/ Ship The Simplest Version The first version only has one job: prove people care enough to pay. Start with something simple to build and maintain like a checklist or email course before building anything more complex and expensive. 7/ Make Buying Easier People buy when the result feels clear, fast, and low-risk. "First lead in week 1" converts better than "grow your business." 8/ Say No Often A one-person business only works if that person is maniacally focused on the main goal. Every yes to something outside your focus is a no to the thing that's actually working. A one-person business lives and dies by focus. Do fewer things. Do them longer. 📌 Want a high-res version of this sheet? Get it here: https://lnkd.in/gKzZUq-b ♻️ Repost to help your network build a one person business. ➕ Follow me (Will McTighe) for more like this.

In the last 10 days via Instantly.ai: ✅ 18 appointments booked ✅ 9 leads generated in a single day from 1 campaign ✅ First clinic partnership secured for a client Here’s what actually made the difference beyond just “personalization”: I didn't even use Clay. 🔹 Tight ICP filtering – Instead of targeting everyone in our target industry, we narrowed to decision-makers at mid-size companies that recently posted hiring signals, and confirmed their ability to take on additional work. Fewer contacts, higher hit rate. 🔹 Problem-first messaging – Instead of opening with “who we are / what we do,” every sequence started with the cost of their current status quo (missed appointments, staffing gaps, wasted pipeline). That framed the outreach as relevant instead of salesy. Trigger events > endless pitches. 🔹 Structured follow-up cadence – Most replies didn’t come from Email 1. They came from emails 3–4, where we shifted tone: lighter, more conversational, sometimes even with a short one-liner but always built urgency and displayed the ROI of the offer to the prospect. Consistency > cleverness. Outbound isn’t about “sending more.” It’s about sending smarter. If you’re only relying on referrals or inbound, you’re betting on luck. Cold email gives you control over pipeline. 👉 I’ll keep sharing breakdowns like this—so if you’re building outbound, follow along. #coldemail #instantlyai #outbound #GTM

How it started: 4,000 cold emails sent. 1 lead generated. How it’s going: $4M+ ARR. Top 1% Agency Award. 30-person team. 6 lessons that turned my outreach campaigns from crickets to conversions: 1/ The list is the strategy Putting your message in front of the right person matters more than anything else. Many spend little time building their lead list, and a lot of time figuring out what to say. Do the opposite. Hint: You want to identify people/companies struggling with a problem you can solve. For example, we ran campaigns for an HR SaaS that helped with employee churn. We looked at Glassdoor reviews, and the average employee tenure. If employees stayed less than 18 months on average, + reviews were bad… we hypothesized the companies were a fit. 2/ Be as valuable as possible Most cold outreach try to get. “can I have 15 min of your time?” “can I pick your brain on… ?” But the best outreach gives. How to do that? Think about the first thing you would do for them if you signed them as clients. And do it already… for free. For example, I ran an outreach campaign targeting recruitment firms. I figured that the first thing I’d do for them, would be to build a list of Talent Acquisition Directors in companies hiring for 10+ roles. So I built the list. Sent it to them. Along with a tutorial of how I built it. It worked. 3/ Write for 1 person, then scale. Most try to build the biggest list possible and come up with a message that’ll appeal to everyone. But appealing to everyone = appealing to no one. When I start a new outreach campaign, I manually write 25 messages, 1 by 1, by looking at my prospect LinkedIn profiles. The beauty of doing it this way, is that you uncover patterns, that you can later on scale with the help of tech & AI. 4/ Fix your deliverability Good deliverability doesn’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But bad deliverability guarantees you’ll fail. Make sure to follow ‘best practices’ - < 50 emails per day per mailbox - SPF, DKIM, DMARC Setup - No open rate tracking - Secondary domains - Email warm-up … and send emails you’d want to receive. 5/ Pair cold email with other channels Cold email is a great channel to start with. It’s cheaper than paid ads, faster to get results than with content. But when you send cold emails, people check you out. Guess who’ll they trust more between your competitor who’s a ghost online vs. you who’s been posting valuable content on a consistent basis? 6/ Use the best Sales Software The outbound landscape keeps on changing. The best tools stay on top of the market, and ship new features constantly. In the cold email world, no one ships faster than Instantly.ai… (and I’m not saying that because they gave me this beautiful golden plaque, they’re simply the best) P.S: We wrote a 14-page guide that includes how our $4M ARR outbound agency books meetings using AI & Tech. Interested? Let me know below and I’ll make sure you get it :) P.S 2: Thanks Ada for the pic 📸

My client fired their entire SDR team on Tuesday By Friday, their pipeline had grown by 60% This sounds impossible It's not After auditing 50 B2B sales organizations over 10 years, I've uncovered the most expensive myth in modern selling: → The belief that MORE activity at the TOP of your funnel will fix conversion problems at the BOTTOM Let me share what actually happened: This mid-market software company was spending $350,000 annually on their 4-person SDR team - 100+ cold calls per rep daily - 17 meetings booked weekly - "Incredible metrics" according to leadership - But their close rate? A devastating 1.2% The VP of Sales was convinced they needed MORE outreach, MORE automation, MORE top-of-funnel I suggested something different: pause all prospecting for 7 days Instead, we had their account executives do something radical - engage with the 215 prospects already in their pipeline who'd gone cold after initial meetings Using a framework we developed: - 65 prospects responded within 24 hours - 41 booked follow-up meetings - 23 re-entered active buying cycles - 6 closed within 14 days (total value: $212K) The shocking revelation? - Their pipeline wasn't empty - It was overflowing with neglected opportunity. This company didn't have a lead generation problem. They had a lead nurturing catastrophe. By reallocating resources from mindless prospecting to strategic engagement, they've now: - Reduced CAC by 60% - Shortened sales cycles by 30% - 2x their close rate The counterintuitive truth: Sometimes the fastest path to growth is to stop chasing new opportunities and start converting the ones you've already earned. What percentage of your marketing and sales budget is focused on prospects who've already shown interest vs those who haven't? That ratio reveals everything about your future growth trajectory P.S. If you need help with your sales, send me a message