Industries

Yes. Smirnov Consulting Group runs LinkedIn and cold email outbound for construction contractors, specialist subcontractors and construction product and service suppliers. We book calls with the people who choose suppliers: procurement managers at main contractors, project directors, engineering managers, heads of health and safety and developers. Each campaign starts with one product and one buyer segment, and reaches several decision makers per company, because in construction more than one person decides. More on our construction companies page.

Yes, and that is often the first real goal. Most main contractors buy from suppliers already on their list, so meeting a procurement manager for the first time when the tender is out is usually too late. Outbound gets you known to procurement, project directors and engineering managers before the next package is let, and the first call is often a pre-qualification conversation rather than an order. See how it works for construction suppliers.

It works one level below the public tender. Tier-1 contractors hold the big frameworks and choose subcontractors, designers and suppliers for each bid, so we reach their project directors, engineering managers, bid teams and procurement leads, plus private clients such as developers, utilities, energy companies and ports. The message names one capability on one type of scheme, with a project reference an engineer can check. We do not contact public buyers about a live tender. More on our civil engineering page.

Launch takes about 15 days from signed contract, and the first replies and booked calls can come in the first 30 days. Orders and contracts take longer, because they follow project and scheme timing: B2B sales cycles often run 6, 9 or 12 months, and a call booked now may be for a project that starts next year. We recommend at least 3 months, and about 6 months is the industry average for outbound to work fully. Details for civil engineering companies.

Yes. For a US marketing agency, Smirnov Consulting Group ran LinkedIn outreach with email follow-ups and added cold email after the first week. In 60 days that produced 962 replies, 277 booked sales calls and 34 signed contracts worth $255,000+ in new sales. The calls were with the people who sign agency retainers: CMOs, VPs of Marketing, heads of growth and founders. The full case is on our marketing agencies page.

Pick one service and one type of client you have already won with, and go to them directly. Referral-fed marketing agencies usually restart with the whole menu, and "SEO, paid, social and web for everyone" gives a CMO nothing to reply to. Paid social for DTC brands, or SEO for law firms, gives them a reason. A UK social media marketing agency booked 714 sales calls in 12 months with us from LinkedIn, warm emails and cold email.

The mechanics match any B2B campaign, but two things change for an agency. Every message is a work sample: a CMO who gets a templated email assumes your client work looks the same. And the first ask has to prove skill, so we use entry offers such as a short review of their paid account or a teardown of one landing page instead of "a quick call". Outreach starts on the founder's LinkedIn, and email follows, so your name is familiar when it lands. Full process on our marketing agency page.

Work it out from what one new client is worth to you, not from the fee alone. In our US agency case the average contract was $7,500, so a handful of new clients pays for a lot of outreach. Done-for-you programs start at USD 3,000 (about EUR 2,500) per month. If that is too much right now, 1-on-1 or group coaching is the other route: your own team runs the system, and we show you how and review the work. Details for small marketing agencies.

Yes. An Australian advertising agency booked 2,582 sales calls with us across its full 12-month LinkedIn program. For ad agencies we build the campaign around the categories where you already have results, so the first message names the buyer's category and one number from your work, and the showreel waits for the call. The meetings are with CMOs, marketing directors and heads of brand at companies with a real ad budget. More on our advertising agency page.

Sell a result in one category instead of the whole agency. "We lowered acquisition costs for DTC skincare brands" gets replies, while "full-service creative and media" reads like every other pitch the CMO deleted that week. Then time the list: brands with a new marketing leader, a product launch or a marketing role left open are more likely to look at a new agency. Add a second category only once you have a case study to lead with there. See the advertising agency approach.

Keep outreach running every week, including the weeks when client work is heavy. An owner who prospects only between projects starts from zero each time, with a stale list and sending accounts that have gone quiet. Once a message gets replies, add LinkedIn accounts and mailboxes that run it, each with its own territory so no brand hears from you twice. That is how the number of calls grows without more of the owner's time. Our advertising agency page shows the setup.

It works best as the second channel. Your buyer, a CMO or marketing director, is pitched by agencies constantly and spots a template in one line, so a cold email only lands if it is short, names their category and carries one real result. Our Australian ad agency case ran on LinkedIn alone: in its tracked sequence, 41.2% accepted the connection request and 37.9% of those replied. Add cold email once your list is bigger than the owner's LinkedIn can reach. Channel details are on the advertising agency page.

Yes. A Swiss SEO agency booked 215 sales calls and signed 24 contracts in 3 months with Smirnov Consulting Group, from LinkedIn outbound on two accounts. That is roughly one new client for every nine calls. We never open with a list of errors on the prospect's website, because every business owner with a website already deletes those emails. We lead with a result you got for a company like theirs. More on our SEO agency page.

Build the list from the clients you already have. For a Singapore SEO company we found businesses similar to its current clients and put those clients' results into the message. It booked 78 sales calls in its first 30 days and 1,344 over 12 months. Lookalikes work because you can show you have done the job for someone like them. Then narrow it to one vertical where your clients already rank, and write to the marketing lead or the owner. Read more for SEO agencies.

Outbound is the main alternative for SEO agencies: LinkedIn outreach, email follow-ups to people who have already seen your name, and cold email as a separate campaign once the list is big enough. Search only brings companies already looking for an agency, while outbound reaches companies that fit before they start looking. Build a second list too: web design and development agencies that could pass you their SEO work, so one partner slowing down never empties the pipeline again.

Only if one new client is worth more than it costs to find. Run the numbers first. Our Swiss SEO client signed about one contract for every nine calls, so five new clients a quarter at that rate means roughly 45 calls. Multiply five clients by your monthly retainer and the months an average client stays, then compare that with programs starting at USD 3,000 (about EUR 2,500) per month. If one client does not cover it, fix your pricing before you start outbound. See SEO agency outbound.

Yes. A German IT company signed 5 contracts worth about EUR 1,250,000 in 35 days with Smirnov Consulting Group, after its own SDR had booked 2 calls in 3 months. LinkedIn, warm email and cold email ran side by side and produced 712 replies and 34 booked calls. Its average project was worth EUR 250,000. For dev shops we book calls with CTOs, heads of product, IT directors and non-technical founders who buy custom builds. The full setup is on our software development page.

Stop selling "full-stack development" and sell one thing to one kind of company, for example client portals for insurance brokers. CTOs get developer pitches every week, and a specific problem is what gets a reply. Before any outreach, check what a buyer finds when they look you up: recent case studies with numbers, a current website, a founder who looks active. Then reach buyers every week, not only when the bench is empty. A German software development company we worked with booked 488 sales calls over 6 months.

In four stages. We pick one service and one buyer, then fix the founder's profile, case studies and entry offer before anything goes out. We build the list by industry, company size and the roles that buy custom builds, and verify every address. LinkedIn outreach runs from the founder's or CTO's account, with a separate cold email campaign on dedicated domains. Our team qualifies replies and books the calls. For one software development company, that produced 392 replies, 29 calls and 5 contracts worth EUR 246,000 in 30 days. Details on the software development page.

Cold email works for dev agencies, especially next to LinkedIn. For a German IT company, cold email ran from 15 separate email accounts in 5-step sequences, alongside LinkedIn with warm email follow-ups. Together they brought 712 replies, 34 booked calls and 5 contracts worth about EUR 1,250,000 in 35 days. Two conditions: send from separate domains, never your main one, and write about one problem the CTO has instead of listing your tech stack. See the setup on the software development page.

We do. One IT services client went from 3 sales calls a month to 51 and signed 6 contracts averaging $200,000 each. Before any outreach went out, we rebuilt what IT buyers check first: the LinkedIn profile, the website, the sales video and the case studies. A company handing over access to its systems wants to know exactly who it is dealing with, so that step came first. See our IT services and consulting page.

Fix the positioning before you add volume. Most IT consulting firms describe themselves with the same words, proactive, trusted, 24/7, and a buyer cannot tell one from the next. An IT company in Germany whose own SDR had booked 2 calls in 3 months added two new angles to its existing offers and rewrote its website copy with us before the first message. It then signed 5 contracts in 35 days. After that, time your outreach to the moments companies switch providers, such as a new CFO or a contract coming up for renewal.

For a managed service provider (MSP), the list is often local and the pitch is a switch, and both shape the campaign. We cut the list to the area you can actually support, then find the real signer from your past deals: often a head or director of IT, sometimes a CTO, and at smaller companies the CFO. Each title gets its own message. Finance hears about predictable monthly cost and risk. An in-house IT manager hears about extra hands for the projects they never reach. See the IT services page.

Yes, because outbound lets you choose the size of company you talk to instead of taking whoever calls. IT services firms that move up market change three things: the buyer title, the proof (a case from a company that size) and the depth, with several decision-makers contacted per account. The sales cycle gets longer as well, so judge the campaign on the pipeline it builds, not on month-one signatures.

Business coaches and consultants who sell to companies fit us well, as long as the outreach comes from you. For a US business consulting and coaching firm we ran LinkedIn outreach and LinkedIn content from the founder's optimized profile. Calls went from 27 in month 1 to 35 and then 64, and the firm booked 204 sales calls in 4 months. We do not run campaigns for life coaches who sell to private individuals. See the coaches and consultants page.

Package one outcome for one type of buyer, then start the conversations yourself. "Leadership coaching" is a category. "A 60-day program that gets first-time managers running one-to-ones properly" is something a buyer can say yes to. Add a small entry point, such as a diagnostic session, so companies can try you first. A UK business coach we worked with sold a GBP 4,200 package through LinkedIn outreach and, four weeks after launch, was selling 6-7 packages a week. More for consultants and coaches.

For coaches, cold email works as the second layer, behind LinkedIn. You are the product, so buyers want to see the person before they reply. Email earns its place when the buyer group is large, for example HR directors or heads of learning and development across a region, and when the offer can be understood in one line. Details on the coaches page.

By targeting the moments a company needs part of an executive before it can afford a whole one. A company advertising a full-time head of finance or marketing may take interim help first, and a founder who just raised a round often needs a finance lead quickly. We build the list around signals like these and send from your own account, so the buyer meets the person they would work with. A fractional executive with limited hours should first decide how many new clients to take. Volume is a dial, and we set it to that number.

Financial advisory firms that sell to business owners are a good fit. A Canadian advisory firm booked 421 sales calls in 12 months with Smirnov Consulting Group, from LinkedIn outreach on the advisers' own profiles, organic LinkedIn activity and warm follow-up emails. Calls grew from 19 in month 1 to 26 and then 32. Because everything ran from the advisers' accounts, the 1,224 new connections stayed with the advisers after the campaign. See the financial advisory firms page.

Go local and pick one group of business owners. Owners reply more easily to an adviser in their own city, someone they could meet in person, and for an Australian advisory firm we worked with, that proximity was part of why conversations started at all. The firm booked 282 sales calls in 3 months. Give owners one reason to talk, such as an exit-planning review. More on financial adviser lead generation.

Wealth managers and accounting firms fit when they sell to business owners and companies, because we only run B2B outreach. Two things differ from other niches. Trust comes before the first meeting in financial advice: nobody hands a pension or a company sale to a stranger, so the adviser's proof must hold up when checked. And these markets decide slowly, with much of the value arriving months after the first call. Judge the campaign on qualified calls booked, not on assets signed in month two.

That depends on the country, the regulator and whether your compliance team treats a given message as a financial promotion. The UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and the US each have their own email and marketing rules, and your compliance officer has the final say on every sequence. How we handle it for financial clients: we follow each market's rules, build sequences that invite a conversation rather than make product or performance claims, and where a market requires prior consent for cold email, such as Germany, Austria or the Czech Republic, we lead with LinkedIn instead. This is how we work, not legal advice. More on the financial advisory firms page.

Across 4 months, Smirnov Consulting Group booked 684 demos for a B2B tech startup in the UAE, which added $1.31M to its annual recurring revenue. The first month went into building the system, so the demos came in three live months, about 228 a month. Cold email carried the volume from 50 inboxes at roughly 25 emails each per day, with LinkedIn outreach and warm emails running alongside. At that pace, decide who runs the demos before the campaign scales. Read more on the SaaS and tech startups page.

Your first pipeline is hiding in the customers who already paid you, not the market in your pitch deck. Write down who signed each deal and what they paid, then build a list of companies that look like them. Next, do the arithmetic: a target of 100 sales calls in a year means contacting roughly 20,000 people, so check that your market holds that many buyers. Keep the founder on the first calls, because early buyers of a startup want to meet the person who built the product.

It can, because an unknown name only hurts when there is nothing behind it. A weak message from a strong founder profile beats a perfect message from a ghost, so before launch the founder's LinkedIn should state the problem you solve, the website should say it in one line, and you need a few paying customers to point to. Outbound tests demand fast, but it cannot find product-market fit for you. More on early-stage SaaS outbound.

Outbound puts the budget into things you keep: your list, your sending accounts and the messages that work. With ads, results stop when the spend stops. Our published example is a financial services firm, not a startup, that came to us because it could not scale without paid ads. After we rebuilt its profiles, offer and lists, it booked 26 sales calls in the first week and 344 in 60 days. For a startup the mechanics are the same: once a message works, add LinkedIn accounts and mailboxes rather than raising bids. See how it works for startups.