This Outbound Psychology Trick Helped Close $10M+

by Jen Allen-Knuth

May 16, 2025
Prospecting

You've probably seen this headline: "The frenzy to create Ghibli-style AI art using ChatGPT's image-generation tool led to an additional 1M users in one hour on Monday".

Here's what's interesting to me about it.

Much of my LinkedIn feed lately has been people posting ChatGPT images of themselves. In Ghibli style. In the action figure style. In Simpsons style.  

Isn't it interesting that when given a new technology, our first instinct is often to see what it makes us look like?

(BTW - I'm not judging. My first experiment with it was creating the above image of me eating a Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme, surrounded by dogs, with a newspaper headline of "Kyle Asay Imprisoned For Slander".)

What’s interesting is how much this reiterates our very human desire to see ourselves through a different lens. To compare what our output looks like vs. others. In a way, it's a form of benchmarking.

We see what someone else has done. Now, we want to see what it looks like for us.

It’s why so many of us LOVE to share our Spotify Unwrapped lists.

When I think about great outbound messaging that creates a magnetic pull, it's because it gives the reader/viewer the ability to benchmark themselves.

So, how do we create these A-HA moments for our B2B outbound prospects?

Example A-HA Moment From Lavender

Here’s an example from when I worked at Lavender.

We all write cold emails. We don't have an objective way of knowing if they're "good".

When I saw Lavender's scoring mechanism as an AE, I couldn't wait to see if my “good” emails scored an A.

Most of the ones I submitted scored a C.

That created dissonance. It, on my own terms and without anyone else's involvement, showed me a gap. It taught me I had a need.

So, when I joined Lavender, my first thought was, “How can I get sellers at target outbound accounts to have that same “a-ha” moment I did?”

Here are 3 tactics I used, using 3 different channels:

1. Events

We sponsored small to mid-sized dinner events.

Before the event, I emailed registered prospects with an offer for them to submit a “good” target account email so they could see their score + feedback. I brought their results with me to the event. It made it easy for me to start a convo + created an insightful discussion about their current state.

If I wasn’t able to attend the event, I sent them their results + feedback before the event, and mentioned the name of my peer who would be attending the event (to make it easier for them to strike up a conversation).

2. LinkedIn

I wrote posts offering to grade + share feedback with the first 50 people who commented with a cold email.

I wrote posts talking about long-standing beliefs and assumptions I held about cold email, before seeing the Lavender data.

I wrote posts with lessons learned from graded emails that were submitted by the community.

I didn’t have to explicitly ask people to try Lavender. The content was simply meant to spark curiosity in seeing what their grade would be. It wasn’t a push. It was a pull.

3. Email

I wrote outbound emails to spark curiosity that didn’t reference the product/company name at all.

Instead, I used my Problem Prompter framework.

"Heard Kelly speak about the goal to drive $50M in aftermarket services revenue by 2025.
Looks like much of that revenue is expected to come from AM/CSM convos with existing customers.
Not sure if those AMs and CSMs have much experience writing outbound emails to upsell customers.
ACME’s customer teams were writing emails that scored a “C”.
Open to sending me one of your AM/CSM’s upsell emails and I’ll reply with how it scores?”

Instead of leading with the product, I’m leading with the customer’s objective + a problem hypothesis + giving them a way to gauge if there’s a problem worth solving.

I’m not telling them they HAVE a problem. I’m giving them a way to decide for themselves.

Wrap Up

As much as things are changing, human behavior is so very predictable.

It's why I'm a big believer that becoming great at Sales isn't about mastering the newest, flashiest tactic.

It's about understanding basic human psychology.

Ask yourself: “How can I use a diagnostic, a calculator, a set of questions, or benchmarking data that holds up a mirror to underappreciated risks/costs of their current state?”

Want to hear how companies like G2, IBM, Square, Autodesk, and Juniper Networks are training their teams to create A-HA moments with outbound prospects? Visit www.demandjen.com. Or, follow along with the free, tactical advice I share on my LinkedIn.

How to create your own A-HA moments with outbound prospects

Join 60k Newsletter Subscribers and hand-deliver tactics to you every week

Toolkit

The Perfect Outbound Sequence Template

Cold Call Course

Cold Calls to President’s Club

Cold Call Course

Cold Calls to President’s Club

Jen Allen-Knuth
Jen Allen-Knuth is the Founder of DemandJen and spent the last 18 years selling and advising CEOs, Chief Sales Officers, and Chief Marketing Officers, for Challenger Inc, Corporate Executive Board (CEB) and Gartner.
Forward Fresh Tactics!

Warm Nick’s heart by sharing this newsletter with a friend who might enjoy a solid tactic!

Or Share on Socials:

…or subscribe yourself if you haven’t already!

Want more tactics like this? Keep reading:

How 'Yo-Yo Selling' TRIPLED his Income to $720k/Year

Read more

Her Conference Playbook Took HackerOne from $5M to $75M

Read more

3 Step Team Building Blueprint from a 7x President’s Club Winner

Read more

This 1-Page Business Case Sells For You

Read more

How To Win More Deals Using The Give/Gets Equilibrium

Read more

These 15 Tactics Changed The Way We Sell

Read more

2x President's Club Winner Swears by This Calendar Hack

Read more

How My #1 Rep of All Time Pretty Much Never Discounts

Read more

How I Handle “Send Me Some Information” on a Cold Call

Read more

6 Discovery Tactics That Make or Break Your Deal

Read more

Q2 Roadmap: The 30MPC Discovery Course is Here.

Read more

How to Teach The Hardest Skill In Sales: Discovery

Read more

The Secret to Make Your Prospect Sell Themself

Read more

How to Ask Discovery Questions That Won't Make Your Prospect Puke

Read more

The Problem Trees: How to Uncover Pain on Any Discovery Call

Read more

3 Steps to Teardown Discovery Tapes (Without Putting Your Team To Sleep)

Read more

3 Questions to End Every Discovery Call (BEFORE you set a next step)

Read more

4 Questions to Write Painfully Triggering Cold Emails

Read more

How to Prioritize Your Cold Outreach (Instead of Cold Email Spray and Pray)

Read more

How I Tag Teamed Deals as a VP of Sales (Without Blowing Them Up)

Read more

How to Nail the First 90 Seconds of a Discovery Call

Read more

The Ultimate 30MPC 5-Stage Sales Process

Read more

3 Cold Emails That Cut Through The Noise (Before vs After)

Read more

How to Make it to President's Club in 2025

Read more

How to Set 2025 Goals That Are Impossible to Fail

Read more

Read if you're still closing deals on December 31st

Read more

How to Multithread and Get to Power In Sales

Read more

How to Book Outbound Meetings Around The Holidays

Read more

How I Leveled Up My Sales Team as a VP of Sales

Read more

How to Close Your Deals Before The End of The Year

Read more

How To Avoid “Death By Discovery” in Outbound Opportunities

Read more

How to Automate Your Prospecting Research with AI

Read more

The (Non-BS) Business Case Template

Read more

3 Questions Before You Become a Sales Leader

Read more

My 4-Step POC Framework (80%+ Win Rate)

Read more

How To Crush a Sales Job Interview (In 4 Steps)

Read more

3 Questions I Ask In EVERY Software Demo

Read more

How To Outbound Recruit Top 1% Sales Reps

Read more

How To Build The Perfect Cold Call Pitch

Read more

Q4 Roadmap: Book Launch, The Course, The Club Community, & Tactic Teardown

Read more

How To 3x Your Sales Pipeline At Conferences

Read more

How to act like an actual human being on a cold call

Read more

How To Speed Up Sales Contract Reviews (With The Redline Deadline)

Read more

My Ultimate 4-Week Sales Onboarding Program

Read more

6 Steps to Maximize Your Email Deliverability

Read more

The 8 Discovery Questions That Got Me to President’s Club

Read more

Should you leave voicemails when cold calling? (Data-Backed Answer)

Read more

3 Steps to Bypass The Gatekeeper on a Cold Call

Read more

How to Book More Meetings in Fewer Cold Calls (Cold Call Metrics)

Read more

Is Cold Calling Actually Dead? (Data-Backed Answer)

Read more

The Ultimate 30MPC Cold Calling Framework

Read more

My 4-Step Minimum Viable Discovery Call Framework

Read more

How to Run 1-on-1s and Practice Roleplays in Sales

Read more

The Perfect Outbound Sequence Template

Read more

Q3 Roadmap: Book launch, care package, 5 weeks of phones, host change

Read more

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

Read more

4 Steps To Run A Pipeline Review (That Doesn't Suck)

Read more

I Book 1 In 3 Cold Calls With This Opener

Read more

4 Ways To Run Discovery Like A Conversation (Not An Interrogation)

Read more

How to Deliver Demos That Don't Suck

Read more

How To Finish A Negotiation In One Cut

Read more

How To Win The Negotiation Before It Starts

Read more

How I Run Monday Morning Meetings as a VP of Sales

Read more

How to time block in sales (with 4 calendar layers)

Read more

How To Drive Timeline In Sales

Read more

My 4-Step Account Executive Interview Process

Read more

30MPC’s ChatGPT Prompt

Read more

How to personalize cold emails at scale

Read more

How To Set Next Steps In Sales With The 5 Minute Drill

Read more

Checklist To Brief Your Exec Before A Sales Call

Read more

Q2 30MPC Roadmap

Read more

The Ultimate Discovery Call Prep Sheet & Question Guide

Read more

How To Ask Discovery Questions (ft. Charles Muhlbauer)

Read more

How To Uncover Pain On A Sales Call (ft. Keenan,  Author of Gap Selling)

Read more

How To Set An Agenda In Sales With PPO

Read more

5x5x5 from Kyle Coleman

Read more

Don’t let yourself pee until you’ve made 5 cold calls

Read more

Sales Mantras to Stay in the Match

Read more

The Greatest Time-Waster in Sales

Read more

Morgan Ingram's 10/30/10 Video Prospecting Formula

Read more

Breakdown: 30MPC Discovery Trees

Read more

Breakdown: Five Minute Drill

Read more

JBay’s Keys to Getting to Power

Read more

How JC Pollard Makes a Cold Call

Read more

How to handle "I'm the wrong person" on a cold call

Read more

How to Write A Good Sales Email

Read more

2024: How much money can you make in tech sales?

Read more

Mark Kosoglow's Rep Assessment Matrix

Read more

Two Effective Ways To Open Your Cold Calls

Read more

How to Book Meetings on LinkedIn by Charlotte Johnson

Read more

How To Keep Track Of Everything In Sales

Read more

The 10 Best Sales Tactics of 2023

Read more

Chapter 1: How To Be A Cold Calling Machine

Read more

Q1 30MPC Roadmap

Read more

How to Forecast

Read more

6 Ways To Be An Inbox Superhuman

Read more

Jason Bay's Cold Calling Framework (3/3): Saying Goodbye

Read more

Q4 30MPC Roadmap

Read more

Fall Down 7 Times; Get up 8

Read more

Learning When To Quit Your Job

Read more

Want more tactics like this? Keep reading:

Her Conference Playbook Took HackerOne from $5M to $75M

Read more

How I Handle “Send Me Some Information” on a Cold Call

Read more

4 Questions to Write Painfully Triggering Cold Emails

Read more

Ready to dive in?
Join these sellers who made it to President’s Club!

Taught reps get to power and close deals faster!

30MPC has been so impactful for not only my team, but for me as a leader.
There's not a more tactical sales approach out there, and not just for your typical skills like cold calling and discovery, but for things like increasing the velocity of legal review and how to get to decision-making power at the right time.

Taught reps get to power and close deals faster!

Josh Rosenthal
,
Sr. Director of Sales @ Corestream
Booked 13 meetings in 3 days!

The cold calling course literally got me 13 outbound meetings in 3 days. My favorite thing about the cold calling course is that it’s immediately actionable.

My second favorite thing about Club Pass is that it got me 13 outbound meetings in the first 3 days I started using it.

Booked 13 meetings in 3 days!

Makenna Turner
,
#1 SDR at  Practice
More in the first 40 pages than every other sales book combined!

Throughout my sales career, I’ve read plenty of sales books, but after just 40 pages of Cold Calling Sucks, I’ve already gained more tangible and actionable steps to elevate my sales skills than from all the others combined. Structured advice >> conceptual advice

More in the first 40 pages than every other sales book combined!

Daniel Haddad
,
AE at Docusign
Ranked in the top 1% of all AEs at LinkedIn

Dude. I’m going to President’s Club. But not just any President’s Club. A New program – Club One. Designed for top 1%. Holy s***. Thanks to you guys at 30MPC..

Ranked in the top 1% of all AEs at LinkedIn

David Rosenstein
,
AE at LinkedIn (Top 1%)
Booked a whopping *100* meetings!

Transitioning to sales at 40 was a big leap, but 30MPC has been instrumental in my success. By October, I was able to hit my annual quota of 100 bookings – a milestone I wouldn't have reached without all the tools and resources they provide..

Booked a whopping *100* meetings!

Genavie Garcia
,
Top BDR at Revspring
Went from 60% to #2 at Gong!

I got to President's Club. I started listening to 30MPC in January of last year. I had moved to a new role and just wasn't getting there, I was on 60% of my year. Exactly one year of listening to 30MPC and I hit 180% attainment! I finished this year as the number 2 seller in my company and I'm going to President's Club!

Went from 60% to #2 at Gong!

Alex Copeland
,
President’s Club and #2 Rep at Gong!