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?

FXLoader

Managing a portfolio of 70+ enterprise SaaS customers from signup to renewal and beyond.
Delivering 10/10 daily support and working closely with an asynchronous team to solve complex client issues.
Co-developing and testing new product features.
Training the customer-facing and technical teams on LinkedIn Social Selling best practices. 
Leading website developments, marketing & operational improvements.

Customer Success Manager

The Thirst For Knowledge Show

Regan Wylde and I started this podcast from scratch to quench our thirst for knowledge and satisfy our cravings for curiosity. 

The premise is very simply to interview specialists in their domain to understand their passion and from there, build a community of curious people who want to learn something new in a fun and entertaining way.

Touching on obscure and interesting topics, we aim to build a network of specialists (and generalists!) who want to share their knowledge and open up their world to others who may not even know their speciality exists. 

Follow us to keep up to date on what's happening and when episodes launch!

Co-Founder & Host

Dash Hudson

Owned the full customer lifecycle from onboarding to renewal and expansion. 
Worked cross-departmentally with New Business to sign and manage Enterprise clients. 
Managed a portfolio of 30+ clients (c.1.5M ARR) with 100% retention rate.
Represented the business internationally at trade shows and conferences and generating 60+ new leads. 
Refined the onboarding processes, cutting Time to Value in half. 
Supported the company’s international expansion to Europe and UK through PLG strategies.
Earned numerous "succulents of success" for my involvement in signing new business and my proactive support.

Customer Success Representative

Doqaru Limited

Recruited and managed a Sales Enablement Intern.
Built out a new CRM (Membrain) and integrated it with our marketing tools (Hubspot).
Optimised our client journey and planned journeys for new products and services. 
Designed a referral programme to generate consistent leads. 
Delivered Social Selling workshops to over 100 attendees.

Customer Success and Sales Enablement Lead

Worked in a small sales and marketing consultancy startup, responsible for the company's entire book of business. 
Helped clients grow revenue and drive sales team performance through data-driven insights.
Supported client sales strategy sessions and salesperson recruitment.
Retained and grew accounts through effective and personable account management and customer success management.
Co-authored a cook book for a CSR campaign.

Business Development Intern

TAU Racing

I manage team members in their various roles to achieve the best result possible at competition. Together, we build a business plan from scratch, create marketing material and financials as well as a presentation which we pitch in front of a Dragon's Den style panel of investors at Silverstone.

Head of Business 

Peter Vardy Ltd

● Creating a luxurious experience for customers throughout their new purchase, renewal, or service journey.
● Contributing to a high-quality company image through a prestigious customer experience.
● Facilitating the sales process on test drives by answering customer queries and explaining vehicle features.

Showroom Host & Concierge

The King's Philharmonic Wind Orchestra

Orchestra Manager

Aged 11, I rebuilt a motorbike engine in my parents' garage. 
Aged 12, I started collecting and restoring axes. 
Aged 14, I tried (and failed) to build a racing lawn mower. 

Over a decade later, I deliver some of the best customer success on the market. 

How? 

By making customers feel heard and listened to. 

Oh, and caring. 

It's amazing how much of an impact genuinely caring about customers can have on retention and account growth. 

And I can do that in both French and English. 

I've also got a piece of paper which says I can speak German but it's rustier than some of the axes I've restored. I only put it on here to keep my mum happy. 

Anyway, here are some things I love: 

🥳 Happy customers 
🪓 Axes
👨🏻‍🍳 Cooking
🍫 Chocolate truffles 
🪴 Gardening 
😰 A Challenge (cf. climbing the tallest mountain in Scotland at night mid-October in a snow storm)

Somehow, I almost got famous on here for making croissants 🥐

Things I don't like: 

😢 Unhappy Customers 
📉 Churn 
☕️ Weak coffee 


🎯 HOW TO REACH ME

📧 sam.d.downes@gmail.com
☎️🇬🇧 +44 (0)7397778085
☎️🇫🇷 +33 (0) 783833708


🎯 SKILLS (for SEO - if you're a human, what are you still doing here?) 

Customer Success; Account Management; Customer Relationship Management (CRM); Client Retention; Customer Onboarding; Upselling / Cross-selling; Renewal Management; Churn Reduction; Customer Experience; Product Adoption; NPS (Net Promoter Score); User Engagement; Customer Satisfaction; Customer Support; Relationship Building; CSAT; Adoption; Product Onboarding

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Sam Downes

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taplio

The Battle

Mark Bangs

Sam Downes

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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Performance ScoreMark Bangs's LinkedIn Performance