Your Sales Team is Wasting Their Time (Here's Why - KD Live)

Sales KILLED sales. Don't take my word for it. That's what Kevin "KD" Dorsey told me. The way we do outbound makes it 10x harder on all of us to do outbound. Here are real #'s KD saw on the frontlines:

Connect Rates:

2020: 12-17%
Today: 0-1%

Open rates:

2020 50-60%
Today: 5-15%

Response rates:

2020: 10 > 8 > 6 > 4
Today: I’m not even going to say it, it’s too depressing

I'm sure you're thinking:

"Adam, of course outbound is harder now. There is SO MUCH more of it."

True, but...

The more we do the worse we also seem to get at it!

That's not how it should work.

Personalized emails objectively perform better.

Yet 93% of emails sent today are automated.

Why?

Because companies are addicted to speed and scale.

They've forgotten what “good” looks like.

Here's how we fight back:

We have to create messaging that is so good that it survives in a low engagement environment.

What does that mean?

We need to start building our outbound machines based on inbound signals.

Here's a few suggestions from KD:

1. Huddle with marketing.

- What are our highest performing headlines? >> make subject lines of emails
- What are our best performing content pieces? >> lead with value
- What are our best short/long tail keywords? >> speak to problems

2. Start with email

- Start with your highest ACV/lowest churn/stickiest buyer persona
- Create persona and industry-specific messaging
- Make the messaging problem-based
- Drive inbound w/ outbound activity

3. Stack calls on top of email engagement.

- Every vertical has a different pickup rate w/ calls.
- Use what you learned in email to formulate the call scripts.
- If your email inboxed, the iPhone MIGHT add your name to callerID (big win)

4. Iterate

- Forever
- Never stop
- Keep testing

TAKEAWAY:

If you’re selling on the frontlines (or running a team of sellers), you know outbound is harder than it used to be.

That doesn’t mean it’s not a great way to scale your startup.

But the engagement rates from 2015-2021 aren't coming back.

We must fight back against endless sequences and mindless automation.

We have to create better, personalized messaging.

We have build a better, more efficient, signal-based machine.

It’s time to sell better.

Tomorrow KD is joining me on "Unf*ck My Startup LIVE" to share his 2025 sales playbook, outbound best practices, and how to implement AI to maximize your revenue.

Join us at 3pm ET: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MRRTGcgpQmGYGEO7EyhSTw#/registration