I'll cold call for you.

Try me out for £1,000.

30-50 conversations with your target market.

I'll provide the list, mobile numbers, and reporting.

All I need to know is the problems you solve, who you solve them for, and why they'd be motivated to solve them.

If it goes well, we keep working together.

If not, you walk away.

Mark Bangs

“Just pick up the phone to grow your business.”

It’s ok advice, but it misses most of what actually makes outbound work.

Before a single dial happens, you need to:

- Build a quality list without Sales Nav sprinkling in Yoga Instructors and Chemistry Professors

- Find reliable data that isn't full of wrong numbers

- Set up a CRM so you can stay on top of tasks

- Choose and configure a dialler so you're not manually calling everything

- Write and refine messaging that doesn't make you sound like a call centre in Bangalore

- Track follow ups (it takes us 4.2 dial attempts on avg to get a conversation with someone)

- Work the list consistently

That’s a big ask for a founder who’s already wearing five hats.

What usually happens is this:

A few good sessions, a few missed ones, and that non-negotiable “prospecting time” ends up being quietly removed from the calendar.

At that point, most revert back to relying on referrals or inbound,  neither of which are scaleable or consistent.

The truth is, cold calling works.

But it only works when it’s done systematically, every day, at volume, by people who live and breathe it.

That’s why founders outsource it.

Not because they can’t do it but because it's a ballache.

I book qualified meetings for founders and MDs 📞

Spoke with a company recently who said they don’t cold call as they know everyone in their market. 

Yet I routinely see their MD twerking on every teenager's post to get their super secret AI prompt or n8n workflow for lead gen.

Maybe he just didn't like me.

Or he’d spoken with Céan.

That’s more likely.

🚨 Comment "BRO" to boost my reach. 🚨

If your outbound sales efforts aren’t landing, it might not be your pitch or your people.

It might be your list.

If you’re calling people who don’t feel the pain you solve, or who aren’t motivated to fix it, you’re probably wasting time and money.

Before you invest in outsourcing or hiring salespeople, make sure you know your target market inside and out.

If you don’t, that’s fine.

Just recognise that your goal shifts from selling to learning.

Use outbound to validate your assumptions.

Every “no,” “maybe,” and “tell me more” gives you clues about your market.

The wrong list makes sales impossible.

The right list allows you to learn exactly what matters to your ICP, what questions/objections they're likely to raise, and ultimately what will motivate them to spend money with you.

LinkedIn engagement ≠ quality service

Instead of paying someone to do your outbound sales because their posts get loads of likes and comments, think about:

1. What are their clients saying about them?
(If anything)

2. How many will actually vouch for them?
(We can point to several)

3. What is their overall retention rate?
(Ours is 92.3%)

The "fractional SDR" space is getting more popular as people realise they can just post selfies on LinkedIn and work for themselves.

It's important to vet these people and ask what kind of results their clients are seeing.

If you've got monkeys dialling for you, don't be surprised if it ends up being a banana skin for your business (yeah I know, terrible...)

🙈

The list is the foundation of any outbound campaign.

If the list isn't right, everything else falls apart.

You can have great messaging delivered expertly, but it's all for nought you’re not speaking to the right people.

By “the right people,” I mean those who actually have the problem you solve, and who are motivated to solve it.

This is why clarity on your ICP isn’t optional.

If you’re not clear on who you help and why, you’re probably not ready to hire an outsourced sales agency.

And hiring internally could be disastrous.

That said, outbound can still play a role in finding that clarity.

If you have a working hypothesis of who your ICP is and what your value proposition might be, cold calling is the fastest way to test it.

Every conversation is a data point.

Every objection, question, or nugget of feedback helps you refine your message and/or targeting

By having live conversations you’ll very quickly know whether to pivot or double down.

I'd never do "brand partnership" posts.

Mainly cos I never get asked.

Researching prospects before cold calling can be a waste of time.

Hypothetical A:

+ 6 hours of dialling time
+ 5 mins of research per call
+ 2 min avg. call duration
= 51 dials (assuming you don't eat, drink, or pee)

15% connect rate = 8 connects
80% connect to conversation rate = 6 conversations

Hypothetical B:

+ 6 hours of dialling time
+ 2 min avg. call duration
= 180 dials

15% connect rate = 27 connects
65% connect to conversation rate = 18 conversations

So for all you hyper-personalisation "warm call" advocates, a genuine question:

Is the quality of your 6 conversations higher enough than my 18 conversations to justify having 1/3 as many?

Could it make more sense to build a list and go after it with a relevant message?

Hybrid Anchor

As Managing Director of Hybrid Anchor, I lead a seasoned team in delivering innovative consultancy, web design, development, and software solutions for diverse industries. With over 20 years in the digital sector, I've cultivated expertise in strategy, operations, and fostering excellence in compliance-driven fields like health, renewables, law, and finance. 

Committed to client success, our dedicated professionals ensure Hybrid Anchor remains a trusted partner, offering exceptional service in custom software, web development, and digital marketing.

Managing Director & Digital Strategy Consultant

Off Canvas

Managing Director

SARGASSO HOLDINGS

We are actively exploring investment and acquisition opportunities with a robust digital presence. Whether you're a tech owner seeking an exit or a business poised for significant growth, we welcome confidential discussions on exit strategies, valuation, and merger & acquisition possibilities. Our interest spans software houses, digital/marketing agencies, and SaaS platforms.

Chief Executive Officer

NSDesign Ltd

As a digital consultant with a focus on software and ecommerce, I have spent years helping businesses across Scotland achieve their digital goals. With over 1000 hours of consultancy under my belt and a track record of success with over 125+ businesses across five local regions, I am dedicated to helping my clients leverage the latest digital technologies to achieve their goals.


Working as a consultant in partnership with NSDesign I help deliver support to clients under Digital Boost, BeReady and Expert Help frameworks, as well as on various private consultancy projects. Through this work I have had the opportunity to work with business owners from a diverse range of industries and categories, and have been continually impressed by the richness of Scotland's business community.

Ecommerce & Software Design Consultant

Clydewire

Clydewire adapt, innovative and reposition your website, turning it into an effective selling tool. Improve your content communication, build trust and ensure you are making it easy for prospective customers to engage with your company.

Co-founder & Shareholder

Moorfoot Glasgow

Board Member

Business Belters

Business Belters is a weekly podcast that discusses hot topics around business. Tune in for some knowledge bombs and business belters. The show is brought to you by Mark Connolly of Marketing Mavens and John Loudon of Hybrid Anchor.

Podcaster & Co-host

Loudon Design

Founder and Senior Consultant at Loudon Design Ltd - a digital agency based in Glasgow, working with great companies around the world and across time-zones in the provision of Conversion Led Design, Digital Marketing, Sales training and consultancy.

Looking to supercharge your business, and turn more visitors into lasting customers? Reach out, we would love to talk to you.

Branding | Conversion led Design | Ecommerce |  Automated Marketing | Presentation Design

Commercial Director & Founder

Indez Ltd

Head of Design at one of the UK’s leading ecommerce solution providers.  

Key responsibilities
        
- Creative direction, quality & project management 
- Responsible for all creative output for our strong network of ecommerce clients.
- UX/design innovation of our ecommerce CORE platform. 
- Lead the creative team/mentoring design staff
- Support the development team ensuring we remain a leader in our market
- Research & future proof our clients with the latest technologies/usability studies.
- Bespoke illustration, concept and wireframing.

Head of Design

BiP Solutions Ltd

Previously I lead the creative division within BiP Solutions with responsibility for all visual output. Whilst reporting to the media director, I also managed six direct reports within the design team consisting of one senior designer, two technical web designers and three graphic/web designers.

Main duties:

• Day-to-day management of the team
- - Compliance with web/security standards
- - Allocation of resources
- - Time management
- - Project management
- - Performance management
• Working alongside the team on projects.
• Maintain ad-hoc projects such SEO, UX, IA and performance across our network.
• Concept and enhance the systems to increase revenue for the company.
• Initiate focus groups on the creative direction of our products as well as more complex discussions that revolve around building a more reusable set of applications/modules.
• Process improvement.
• Continually strive to improve relationships and synergies between both halves of the design team by running various courses to illustrate cross-over in practice between teams/departments.
• Vendor & Product review, analysis of up and coming industry products which support the mission of the business and productivity of the team

Primary functions of maintaining and upgrading bespoke java based web applications.

Secondary functions include the creation and construction of government/procurement portals, some of the more notable clients include; UK Ministry of Defence, Central government DTI (Department of trade and industry), London 2012 Olympics and the Scottish Government.

I was chosen as lead designer for BiP's premium product which is responsible for almost 70% of the company's revenue.

Within this role I actively work with standard compliant (X)HTML, semantic CSS, Wordpress, and work alongside JAVA and PERL technologies within the open source framework Eclipse.

Web Designer

I am the Managing Director of Hybrid Anchor, a digital consultancy that helps clients turn their knowledge and educational materials into valuable and scalable digital courses. With over 20 years of experience in the digital industry, I have a deep understanding of what it takes to build successful software and web-based solutions that deliver results for clients.

At Hybrid Anchor, we specialise in providing custom web design, development, and software solutions to clients across a diverse range of industries. Our team of skilled professionals is dedicated to staying at the forefront of industry trends and emerging technologies, ensuring that our clients always receive the most innovative and effective solutions. My mission is to leverage technology to create and scale digital courses that enhance the value proposition and reach of our clients.

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Mark Bangs

John Loudon

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taplio

The Battle

Mark Bangs

John Loudon

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Mark Bangs's LinkedIn Performance

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