How To Self-Source 30% of Your Pipeline In Sales

If you became an AE any time after 2010, this is arguably the toughest year in sales.

Gone are the days of relying on inbound and SDRs to hit quota. Top performing AEs self-source 30%+ of their pipeline from personal outbound efforts.

I'm Jason Bay, Founder/CEO at Outbound Squad (and multiple time 30MPC guest).

We help reps at the fastest-growing SaaS companies in the world (Gong, Zoom, Medallia, Rippling, and more) turn strangers into customers.

And AE self-sourcing is a big area of focus right now for our clients.

If you're an Account Executive who struggles to self-source opportunities in this economy — you’ll dig today’s newsletter.

Let's roll.

Step 1: Dial in the Sales Math

Don’t commit to an arbitrary activity target like “30 calls per day.” There’s no meaning behind that number. It’s not real. And you won’t stay committed to it.

Instead, dial in your sales math. Use this formula to determine the exact level of activity needed for you to hit target:

• Revenue target / avg. deal size = # of deals to close
• x % of pipeline you need to self-source = # of self-sourced deals to close
• / win rate on qualified opportunities = # qualified opps needed
• / conversion rate of 1st meetings to opps = # 1st meetings needed
• x # outbound activities to create a meeting = # total outbound activities needed

For example:

• $1M target / $50k avg. deal size = 20 deals to close
• x 30% of pipeline you need to self-source = 6 self-sourced deals to close
• / 30% win rate on qualified opportunities = 20 qualified opps needed
• / 30% conversion rate of 1st meetings to opps = 67 1st meetings needed
• x 80 outbound activities to create a meeting = 5,360 total outbound activities needed
• = 446 outbound activities / month (111 / week)

Now you have the exact number of outbound activities to create the meetings you need every week to hit target.

This creates meaning and “why” behind the outbound grind.

Don’t have great historical data to work with? Start with these benchmarks:

• Aim to self-source 30% or more of your pipeline
• Use a 30% win rate on qualified opps
• Use a 30% opportunity creation rate on 1st meetings
• Use between 60-80 outbound activities to create a meeting

Step 2: Prioritize the Targets

Avoid “slot machine selling,” where we rely on volume and luck.

Do the opposite by choosing the 30-50%+ of your accounts to IGNORE.

Apply these 3 patterns and triggers to your existing account list to prioritize the top 20% of your accounts with the highest likelihood of engaging right now:

1. Analyze every deal worked in the last 6 months:

• What are the top two industries where you win the most?
• For the closed/won deals, what persona(s) was the first meeting with?
• What personas mobilized the deal internally?
• What use cases/solutions did you sell the most of?
• For the closed/lost deals, what made them a bad fit?
• What size were these companies?
• Were there patterns in specific department headcount or growth?
• What triggers did they have in common?

2. Make a list of closed/lost deals to re-approach:

• Timing was bad
• Contract renewal dates are coming up
• Missing features or capabilities
• Didn’t get access to power
• Lost to a competitor
• Lost to no-decision

3. Add your accounts into Sales Navigator, and run these searches:

• Accounts with prospects who are past employees of current clients
• Accounts within industries where you have the most success stories
• Accounts with newly hired executives that match your personas
• Accounts with good emails/phone numbers of your ideal personas
• Accounts with ideal triggers (hiring, etc.)
• Accounts where you have intro opportunities through TeamLink (Sales Nav)
• Accounts where your leadership has connections
• Accounts where you have 1st-degree connections
• Accounts with contacts in your local geography
• Contacts who follow your company on LinkedIn
• Contacts you’ve had past interactions with on LinkedIn
• Contacts who are newly promoted into a leadership position

For the rest of your lower priority accounts, run “air coverage” high-volume outreach on the other accounts or ignore them entirely.

Step 3: Make a Daily Commitment

Prospecting is similar to maintaining your health. The work you put into today is for your future self.

The habit of prospecting is more important than the outcome.

I like Armand’s advice here: Maximize your golden hours (8am-3pm) every day.

• Use this time for nothing but sales calls, time-sensitive deal correspondence, cold calls, and responding back to cold emails
• Save time for follow-up emails and admin work after 3pm
• Plan ahead. As you start to see your schedule fill up later in the week, proactively block off time to prospect.

You should aim for an hour minimum of prospecting per day (5 hours per week).

And if your pipeline is looking empty, block off 2-3 hours per day until it fills back up.

My most successful clients run Get Sh*t Done (GSD) sessions.

AEs work in pods of 2-3 and hop on working calls together every day. Everyone’s on mute. And they make calls and send emails together.

Step 4: Execute The Outreach

Now it's time to get after it!

1. Leverage momentum and excitement

A hugely underrated strategy. Sales is all about momentum. And leveraging times when your energy and excitement are the highest.

• Just close a deal? Call into similar accounts.
• Just land a big meeting? Call into similar accounts.
• CS just shared a big outcome your client got? Call into similar accounts.
• On a roll with a specific persona? Call into similar contacts.

2. Work by industry/persona

Context switching burns up mental energy fast. Organize your outreach around specific plays, industry, and/or personas.

Let’s say your solution helps security, infosec, and operations leaders. Don’t run call blocks into all three personas at the same time. It’s too hard to get momentum.

Create daily/weekly themes. Dedicate specific buckets of time around a persona, industry, use case, or sales play.

3. Tag team accounts with your SDR

The best AEs know how to leverage their SDR counterparts. The strategy that works best is tag teaming the same accounts.

It helps when the SDR can do the heavy lifting around research and account mapping. And you can share the outbound responsibilities.

Here are some ideas you can try:

• AE goes high, SDR goes low. You spend time on the more senior prospects and the SDR focuses on users/influencers.
• Split by persona, industry, use case, account size, etc. This is a great way to work the same account at different angles

And if you do everything we've discussed today, you'll be on your way to sourcing 30%+ of your pipeline whether that gets you to quota or gets you to President's Club.

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Want more specific tactics on how make effective cold calls and send killer cold emails?  

Check out this doc (free & ungated) with our “greatest hits” and best outbound content.

And connect with me on LinkedIn here where I post content every day on outbound.

- Jason