Want more pipeline this quarter? Outbound sales give you a repeatable way to find, qualify, and book meetings with your ideal customers. In this guide you’ll get step-by-step workflows, the metrics that matter, and ready-to-use PhantomBuster automations to source accurate lead lists and personalize your outreach.
Key takeaways for outbound sales
- Outbound sales give you a repeatable way to start conversations via cold calls, emails, and LinkedIn. Unlike inbound sales, which attract prospects organically, outbound sales require a structured approach to engage cold leads and turn them into paying customers.
- Key steps in outbound sales include the following stages (and the PhantomBuster automations to run each one):
| Key step | Tool used |
| Define your ideal customer profile (ICP) | PhantomBuster’s Advanced AI Enricher |
| Prospecting | PhantomBuster’s LinkedIn Search Export |
| Lead qualification | PhantomBuster’s AI LinkedIn Profile Enricher |
| Personalized outreach | PhantomBuster’s AI LinkedIn Message Writer |
| Sales calls and demos | Optional demo platform (e.g., Demoboost) |
| Closing deals and nurturing | CRM for pipeline and nurture (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce, or Zendesk Sell) |
These automations work together in one PhantomBuster workflow. PhantomBuster handles prospecting, enrichment, and personalization, then syncs results to your CRM and demo tools for follow-up.
- Best outbound sales tactics include:
- Social selling to build relationships and provide value before pitching.
- Cold calling for direct outreach with personalized value propositions.
- Account-based marketing (ABM) to run coordinated, multi-channel plays for high-value accounts.
- Referral programs that reward existing customers for introductions.
- Best practices for sales reps:
| Practice for sales reps | Description | Best tool |
| Focus on warm leads | Prioritize prospects who have already shown interest in your industry and are actively participating in relevant conversations or interacting with related content. | PhantomBuster’s LinkedIn Post Commenter and Liker Scraper |
| Personalize outreach messages | Craft tailored messages that resonate with individual prospects by referencing their specific activities, job roles, or recent company events. | PhantomBuster’s AI LinkedIn Message Writer |
| Keep your CRM up to date | Maintain an accurate and current CRM to track prospect interactions, job changes, funding news, and ensure timely follow-ups. | PhantomBuster’s HubSpot Contact Career Tracker |
| Automate tasks to improve sales efficiency | Use PhantomBuster’s pre-built automations to extract lead lists, enrich profiles, write personalized outreach, and sync to your CRM so reps spend time on live conversations, not admin. | PhantomBuster |
What is outbound sales?
Outbound sales means you start the conversation via phone, email, or LinkedIn. Use it when you have a clear ideal customer profile (ICP) and a defined list of target accounts.
Inbound and outbound sales process comparison
Inbound sales focus on organically attracting prospects, while outbound sales involve actively reaching out to cold leads. Here’s a quick comparison of the two sales processes:
| Aspect | Inbound sales process | Outbound sales process |
| Definition | Customers seek out the product or service through content, search engines, or referrals | Sales representatives proactively reach out to potential customers who may not be actively searching |
| Prospect intent | High intent as leads are self-motivated and come with pre-existing interests and research | Lower initial intent, so rely on triggers (job changes, funding, relevant posts) to raise relevance before outreach |
| Cycle length | Typically shorter because marketing has already built awareness and intent | Longer, as it requires multiple touchpoints to build trust and authority |
| Conversion rate | Higher, since leads are more qualified | Lower, as many prospects may not be interested |
| Lead generation channels | Website, social media, SEO, referrals, content marketing | Cold calling, cold emailing, social selling, paid ads, LinkedIn outreach |
| Cost per lead | Lower customer acquisition cost due to organic lead generation | Higher initial investment in prospecting and outreach activities for potential clients |
| Success metrics | * Lead to customer rate * Customer acquisition cost (CAC) * Engagement rate * Email sign-ups | * Response rate * Meetings booked per rep * Pipeline velocity |
Types of sales reps in outbound sales teams
Outbound sales teams rely on specialized sales representatives to drive revenue, improve sales velocity, and keep the pipeline full. Each role is carefully designed to focus on specific stages of the customer acquisition process.
- Sales development representatives (SDRs): SDRs are the first point of contact in your outbound process. They find potential customers, check if they’re a good fit using a lead score that weights seniority, recent activity, and company signals enriched via PhantomBuster, and then set up appointments or demos for your sales team. In lean teams, SDRs also run the initial outreach, using calls, emails, and social media to find qualified leads.
- Business development representatives (BDRs): BDRs, similar to SDRs, focus on outbound prospecting, but they target larger accounts and aim for strategic partnerships. They connect with key decision-makers, identify potential business opportunities, and explore ways to expand into new markets.
- Account executives (AEs): Once an SDR or BDR qualifies a lead, AEs step in to drive the deal forward. They lead sales calls, deliver product demos, address objections, and negotiate contracts. Senior AEs often manage the entire sales cycle, right from the initial proposal to final agreement.
- Lead response representatives: They are your quick-response team to inbound leads as soon as they come in. Lead response reps handle initial inquiries, whether from website forms, live chats, or social media. Their primary role is to quickly qualify leads and pass them to the right sales team members. Not every team has LRRs. On lean teams, SDRs or BDRs pick this up.
Main steps of the outbound sales process
Without a structured outbound sales process, lead engagement and conversions can become inconsistent. A clear, step-by-step approach helps maintain pipeline momentum and drive steady revenue growth.
Here’s a look at the essential stages that make outbound sales work:
1. Ideal customer profiling
Effective outbound starts with a clearly defined ideal customer profile (ICP). This means gathering crucial characteristics like industry, company size, and specific pain points of your prospects.
If you have 100+ customers and still can’t pin down your ICP, use PhantomBuster’s Advanced AI Enricher to analyze your customer list and surface common industries, company sizes, and pains, then generate a draft ICP you can validate with sales. The Enricher summarizes customer quotes from your dataset to label common pains and desired outcomes.
Create a prompt, upload your customer list, and get a structured ICP with clear rationale in minutes.
For example, you might discover that engineering managers at mid-market to enterprise companies are your ideal buyers, looking for solutions to boost engineering efficiency. With this insight, your outbound strategy becomes sharper, more targeted, and far more effective.
2. Sales prospecting list building
Now that you know your ICP, the next step is to find matching prospects. You could manually pull data from databases, attend LinkedIn events for networking opportunities, or use Boolean searches.
For example, a search for marketing directors in fintech companies might look like this:
“Marketing Director” AND (“Fintech” OR “Financial Services”) NOT “Intern”
LinkedIn will give you results, but manually copying them into a spreadsheet, one by one, is time-consuming. Instead, automate this process with PhantomBuster’s LinkedIn Search Export automation.
Run your search, paste the URL, and the automation will extract a complete lead list for you, along with key details like job titles, locations, and company names. Teams typically save five to eight hours per week on list building, time they can reallocate to live conversations.
Tip: Use publicly available data only, respect LinkedIn’s limits, and prioritize personalized outreach over mass messaging.
3. Lead qualification
Lead qualification involves researching and validating whether a lead fits your ICP and shows potential buying intent. Sales reps can check factors like company size, recent news, and social activity to gauge a lead’s interest level.
Think about a prospect who just posted about a challenge your product solves. They’re a strong candidate for outreach.
For a more efficient and precise approach, use PhantomBuster’s AI LinkedIn Profile Enricher and automate your lead qualification workflow. The automation can analyze LinkedIn profiles and assign a lead score based on custom data points (job title, seniority, recent funding, location, engagement history).
You’ll get a list of prospects, ranked by how well they fit your needs, based on empirical data. This helps you focus on the most promising leads and improve your chances of landing a sale.
4. Outreach
This is where you make initial contact with your prospect. These leads would already be bombarded with generic messages, which means your first contact needs to stand out. Before sending that initial message, dive into a prospect’s recent LinkedIn activity, recent career moves, or event history.
Use PhantomBuster’s AI LinkedIn Message Writer to turn profile context into personalized, ready-to-send messages in seconds. The automation analyzes prospect details and generates tailored, highly relevant messages based on your custom prompt.
For example, you can directly feed your previous prospect list into the tool and build some context around your background.
The AI creates a personalized invitation message for each prospect in your list.
A multi-touchpoint approach will improve your chances of receiving a reply from the potential client. Here’s a simple sequence: Day one, comment on their LinkedIn post. Day two, send a connection note referencing that conversation. Day four, follow up with an email referencing the thread. Day eight, make a phone call that references their recent post or funding round.
5. Sales calls and demos
Once a prospect shows interest, it’s time to move them toward a meeting or demo. At this stage, focus on addressing objections and tying the demo to a specific outcome.
Tie the demo to a number, for example, “reduce SDR list-building time by eight hours per week,” then show that workflow live. If your lead is hesitant about the offerings, use customer testimonials to show how your product has helped similar companies achieve cost savings.
A small incentive, like an extended trial, discounted onboarding, or a bonus feature, can encourage faster decision-making. Position it as an exclusive opportunity based on their specific needs rather than a blanket discount, reinforcing value rather than price sensitivity.
6. Closing deals
This is the final stage of your outbound sales process. When a prospective customer is ready to buy, you need to guide them smoothly through the final stages of the sales process. Highlight time-sensitive benefits, such as limited-time pricing, early-access perks, or exclusive onboarding support.
For end-user or mid-level decision-makers, provide ROI calculators, case studies, or a short executive summary that they can share with leadership for more buy-ins. A personalized follow-up with an ROI calculator and a relevant case study helps close the loop and accelerate the deal.
Not every deal will close in this stage, though. But that doesn’t mean the lead is lost forever. If a potential buyer isn’t ready to make a deal but fits your ICP, add them to a nurturing cadence. Send value-driven content like industry insights, product updates, or case studies tailored to their business needs.
When the timing is right, they’ll already be familiar with your solution and make re-engagement much easier.
Best outbound sales tactics
Outbound sales needs multi-touchpoint tactics to land potential customers and strengthen client relationships. Here are some of the key sales methods to refine your outbound sales strategy:
1. Social selling
Nobody likes a cold pitch out of nowhere. That’s why top social sellers focus on relationships first by warming leads before the first interaction. The best approach is to show up before you ask for anything.
Engage with prospects’ posts, respond to their questions, and share relevant case studies in their post comments. Leading with value and social proof builds trust and makes outreach feel organic. Comment with a relevant insight the day they post, then connect referencing that conversation.
Track job changes, company milestones, and industry events. These moments are ideal openers for outreach.
2. Cold calling
Cold calling is direct, real-time outreach that allows for instant feedback. But to make it work, you need research and a strong value prop. Say a sales rep notices a VP of Sales just hired multiple SDRs.
Instead of a generic pitch, they call with a tailored opener:
“I saw your team just expanded. How are you managing their productivity without drowning in spreadsheets?”
This makes the call feel relevant, not random. Sure, cold calling takes time, and not everyone picks up, but when done right, it sparks instant credibility that emails often can’t.
3. Account-based marketing (ABM)
ABM is a highly targeted marketing strategy where sales and marketing teams work together to identify and engage high-value accounts rather than casting a wide net. Take a cybersecurity firm that wants to land a Fortune 500 client, for example.
Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, they research the company’s vulnerabilities, create a detailed whitepaper addressing those risks, and run LinkedIn ads designed for key stakeholders. A personalized follow-up with an ROI calculator and a relevant case study helps close the loop and accelerate the deal.
4. Referral programs
Referral programs reward existing customers for bringing in new ones. Since people trust recommendations from peers over ads, referrals create high-quality leads that are more likely to convert.
For example, a SaaS company offers customers a free month of service for every friend they refer. A happy user shares their referral link in a LinkedIn post and generates sign-ups from their network. Since these new users already trust the product based on a recommendation, they onboard faster and are more likely to stay.
Best practices for outbound sales reps
A strategic approach can help your sales reps make meaningful connections and get higher response rates. Here are a few best practices to refine your outbound sales tactics:
1. Focus on warm leads
Focus on warm leads because they’re already showing interest in your industry and are more likely to engage. On LinkedIn, interactions like engaging with competitors’ posts or commenting on industry discussions can help identify these prospects.
You can use PhantomBuster’s LinkedIn Post Commenter and Liker Scraper automation to extract the details of these prospective customers.
Input the post URL in PhantomBuster, and the automation will gather the lead list that has interacted with the content:
2. Personalize outreach messages
Decision-makers are flooded with sales pitches and DMs every day, making it harder to get a response. Standing out requires more than just another generic message.
Shiup’s marketing director, Candice Gasperini, recently highlighted on LinkedIn how “authentic conversations based on actionable signals” turn cold leads into engaged prospects.”
This is where PhantomBuster’s AI LinkedIn Message Writer comes in. It helps personalize your outreach based on a custom prompt and real-time activity.
For example, take the list of people who liked or commented on HubSpot’s posts (extracted earlier) and feed it into the tool with a custom prompt.
In seconds, you’ll have a series of tailored messages designed to spark meaningful conversations.
3. Keep your CRM up to date
You need a CRM with real-time, updated data for a successful outbound strategy. If a key contact moves to a new company, you risk losing the relationship or missing a prime opportunity to re-engage them in a new role.
Use PhantomBuster’s HubSpot Contact Career Tracker to monitor job changes for your CRM contacts and keep records up to date using publicly available signals and HubSpot properties.
It updates records with new job titles, companies, start dates, and lifecycle stage. If available, it can add work emails from your CRM or connected enrichment tools.
With these automated updates, sales teams can respond to career moves as they happen and turn transitions into new business opportunities.
Tip: Respect platform terms and rate limits when monitoring contact data.
4. Automate tasks to improve sales efficiency
Manually scaling sales efforts doesn’t always lead to efficiency, and in some cases, it does the opposite. Automation, on the other hand, can transform the entire process.
PhantomBuster automates list building, enrichment, and message drafting, then pushes contacts and copy to your email tool (e.g., Reply or Mailshake) for sending and follow-ups. This means your team can focus on high-impact tasks like perfecting a sales pitch or building meaningful relationships.
With PhantomBuster’s prospecting automation platform, you run ICP discovery, list building, enrichment, and message personalization in one workflow and sync results to your CRM.
Important outbound sales metrics
We suggest sales leaders track the following sales metrics to fine-tune their outbound strategy. Here are the top five metrics for outbound sales:
| Metric | Formula | What it measures |
| Contact rate | (Number of contacts made / Total contacts attempted) × 100 | The percentage of successful contacts made from your outreach attempts. It indicates the effectiveness of your contact methods and list quality. |
| Response rate | (Number of responses / Number of messages sent) × 100 | The percentage of prospects who responded to your outreach, reflecting the relevance and engagement of your messaging. Specify per channel (email, LinkedIn, calls) for clarity. |
| Conversion Rate (Lead to Opportunity) | (Number of Opportunities Created / Number of Leads Contacted) x 100 | The percentage of leads that progress to the opportunity stage, showing how effectively your outreach converts prospects into potential deals. |
| Meetings booked per rep | Number of meetings booked / Number of sales reps | Measures individual rep productivity and the effectiveness of your outreach in converting conversations to meetings. |
| Sales Cycle Length | Average Time from First Contact to Closed Deal | Measures your sales efficiency by tracking the average time it takes to close a deal. |
| Average Deal Size | Total Revenue from Closed Deals / Number of Deals Closed | Average revenue generated per closed deal. The metrics provide insights into the value of your deals and help with revenue forecasting. |
| Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) | Total Sales and Marketing Costs / Number of New Customers Acquired | The total cost of acquiring a new customer. It can help you understand the ROI of your sales and marketing efforts. |
| Pipeline velocity | (Number of opportunities × Average deal size × Opportunity to close rate) / Sales cycle length | The speed at which opportunities move through your sales pipeline indicates how quickly you’re generating revenue. |
| Opportunity to close rate | (Number of deals closed / Number of opportunities created) × 100 | Indicates the effectiveness of your sales process and closing skills. |
Additional metrics to track include conversion rate (lead to opportunity), sales cycle length, average deal size, customer acquisition cost (CAC), and win rate.
Outbound sales FAQs
Is outbound sales cold calling?
While cold calling is a part of outbound sales, it’s not the only method. Outbound sales includes a range of proactive strategies to connect with potential customers. Outbound includes phone, email, and LinkedIn, often supported by ABM-style content that warms up target accounts.
What is outbound sales vs inside sales?
Outbound sales involve proactively reaching out to potential customers, often through channels like email, social media, and calls. Inside sales means selling remotely (phone, email, video). Teams can run both inbound and outbound inside sales motions.
Advantages of outbound sales
The key advantages of outbound sales are:
- Proactive lead generation: Outbound sales allows you to identify and engage with ideal customers, rather than waiting for them to come to you. This approach gives you greater control over your lead pipeline.
- Relationship building: Outbound sales fosters personalized interactions, allowing you to build strong relationships with prospects and establish yourself as a trusted advisor.
- Market expansion: Outbound strategies enable you to reach new markets and expand your customer base by identifying and engaging with untapped opportunities.
- Stronger brand positioning: Direct conversations help establish credibility, educate prospects, and position your company as a thought leader in the industry.
- Pipeline control and predictability: Unlike inbound, outbound sales allows teams to proactively fill and manage the pipeline rather than waiting for leads to come in.
- Shorter time-to-meeting and faster cycle time: Engaging decision-makers directly can accelerate the sales process, especially for problem-aware prospects looking for solutions.
Best outbound sales tools
The best outbound sales tools to produce sales qualified leads include:
| Tool type | Best tool | Key features |
| Prospecting automation platform | PhantomBuster | Build accurate lead lists, enrich profiles with AI, personalize messages, and sync to your CRM so reps book more meetings with less manual work |
| Email outreach automation | Reply.io, Mailshake | Automate cold email campaigns with personalization and follow-ups |
| Sales intelligence tools | Clearbit, ZoomInfo | Provide insights on leads, including firmographics, intent signals, and more |
| Customer relationship management | HubSpot, Salesforce | Track sales activities, manage deals, and improve follow-ups from a centralized location. Export lists and enrichment from PhantomBuster directly into your CRM for routing and sequences. |