Mastering Outbound Sales: The New Era of Effective Emails

Name: Mastering Outbound Sales: The New Era of Effective Emails
Uploaded: 2024-12-22T13:58:35+00:00
Duration: 2 min 6 s
Channel: Jason M. Lemkin
Description: In this solo YouTube talk, Jason M. Lemkin warns that AI‑generated SDR emails and fake LinkedIn comments are flooding the market, eroding the…

22 Dec 2024 · 2 min

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2:06

In this solo YouTube talk, Jason M. Lemkin warns that AI‑generated SDR emails and fake LinkedIn comments are flooding the market, eroding the effectiveness of traditional outbound cadences. He contrasts this modern noise with a historical view that timely, problem‑solution outreach has always worked, dating back to early computer sales. Lemkin shares a concrete anecdote about the CRO of SuccessFactors (now part of SAP) who, in the early e‑signature era, bought Adobe Sign after receiving a well‑timed outbound email from his team. The story illustrates how a single, relevant message can close a major deal. He concludes with practical advice: slow down, avoid generic automated emails, be honest, and focus outreach on truly differentiated (10x) product features.

Chapters

So when I get the SDR emails, they're with AI, they're better than that. They're like, hey Jason, I'm so proud of this. But you can see that they all sound the same under the hood. But what I mean is, because they're better than that crappy human I got today, and because software will send it, we are already being inundated in SDR spam, and we're being inundated in LinkedIn comments that are fake. And now that's spread to Twitter and X and all of my— I get a lot of engagement on LinkedIn, if you ever see, I get hundreds of comments. Now 70% are AI, right? So it's destroying this old cadence that used to work. That's what I meant to say. Now, what I also said was that through all of the history of time of software, back to the early tools of the 1700s and the early 1800s on those really early computers, those 4-bit computers in the 1820s, selling software, finding someone through a carrier pigeon, parchment email today at the exact moment when they have a problem and sending them the solution has always worked. It has always worked. And I remember when I was first a SaaS founder, I didn't, I'd never done outbound. I'd done, I'd done like 7-figure deal, pick up the phone for huge deals, but I'd never done this type of outbound that we do. And then I was at Dreamforce actually, which is next week. And we had a customer panel and we had the CRO of SuccessFactors, which is bought by SAP. So a big part of SAP today. And he's like, how did I find Adobe Sign, EchoSign? It was the last week of the quarter and my damn sales team, I couldn't take them standing by the fax machine anymore. And I got an email from you, Jason M. Lemkin, at the right time. Like me? No, it was my head of marketing that sent it from me, but literally the busiest CRO running a public SaaS company. Any other time it would've been her, but he had that moment that day. He needed his problem solved. He had to close this deal. He could not stand it. This was the early days of e-signatures. And he bought that day, a public company, right? So that type of outbound, slow it the frack down, stop with the dumb emails. If you want to get you something, is your, so let's, if you're trying to get something off the ground, be honest first. Do you have a 10x feature?