B2B Outbound Forefathers
A lot of companies have extremely well developed outbound B2B systems - where is it coming from
5/16/2026
Outbound Forefathers: Who Invented B2B Prospecting, and Who Benefits Most From It?
Aaron Ross was Sales Director at Salesforce in the 2000s. He developed a methodology that helped the company generate an additional $100 million in pipeline (according to him).
Back then, there was no LinkedIn, no Apollo, no databases... Finding the name of the person you wanted to reach within a company was already extremely difficult.
Cold calling basically meant calling company switchboards, trying to get transferred to the right decision-makers, and eventually booking a meeting with them.
Needless to say, it was incredibly challenging.
His $100 million technique? Sending a short email directly to the CEO, simply asking who was responsible for a particular subject within the company.
This created a more legitimate entry point for future outreach, provided the CEO replied.
In my opinion, this technique is still worth testing today (except when targeting small businesses)!
B2B prospecting has since become much more developed and industrialized.
See here why B2B cold calling still works.
1. The Inventors of Outbound 2.0: Salesforce
A) Predictable Revenue: SDR / AE / AM
Aaron Ross and his book Predictable Revenue (2011) popularized the SDR / AE / AM model, which is now widespread across the industry.
The SDR (Sales Development Representative) is responsible for booking meetings, the AE (Account Executive) conducts those meetings and closes deals, and the AM (Account Manager) manages existing customers.
Personally, I'm a freelance cold caller, but I believe the full-cycle sales model is the best approach.
There's nothing better for a salesperson than booking their own meetings, building their own pipeline, and potentially managing the customers they've personally closed.
That's exactly how I started: I was an SDR, AE and Account Manager all at once. And it didn't stop me from closing around 35 companies, mostly sourced through my own prospecting, in a single year.
Over-segmenting these roles creates the risk of generating lots of pointless jobs, where everyone actually spends a significant amount of time getting very little done.
B) The Problem With the Segmented Model
An SDR can't prospect all day. An AE can't close deals all day. An AM can't manage customers all day.
Without some variety in your responsibilities, you get bored. Eventually, it becomes impossible to stay motivated.
I'm also convinced that combining all these roles actually makes you better at each of them.
Managing customers gives you a break from prospecting and helps you better understand their business challenges.
Prospecting allows you to take a step back from customer management and confront yourself with the realities of the market.
Closing deals allows you to see the actual results of your prospecting efforts.
Everything is interconnected. Excessive segmentation creates inefficiencies at every stage.
But you still need to know how to prospect in the first place, and that's relatively rare: most sales teams underperform in this area.
Another problem with the SDR / AE model:
It encourages sales teams to look down on the Sales Development Representative role, and therefore on prospecting in general, treating it as a junior function and a low-level task.
It encourages Account Executives to become lazy, often to the point where they don't even bother prospecting anymore.
It leads to a general decline in sales skills. A salesperson who doesn't prospect won't know how to close deals properly either. In my opinion, prospecting is what keeps your sales mindset and instincts alive.
After all, it's incredibly easy for an AE to criticize the quality of meetings booked by SDRs and behave like a supermarket cashier, simply waiting to scan a QR code and collect payment.
But the role of an outbound salesperson is precisely to create curiosity and uncover potential needs, rather than simply process demand that already exists.
The latter is much more common in inbound than outbound sales.
See here for more information on how to improve your closing rate.
Interestingly, the SDR model is declining, with companies increasingly expecting Account Executives to handle prospecting as well.
2. Modern Prospecting 3.0: A Myriad of Influencers and Different Systems
Today, prospecting has become industrialized. There are countless tools for cold calling, email outreach, LinkedIn prospecting, and many other techniques.
A) Kold Klub: The Bulldozer
In France, I have to mention Kold Klub and Enzo Colucci, who have become highly visible on LinkedIn and industrialized an interesting cold-calling technique.
Personally, having used it extensively, I don't think it's optimal. However, it certainly has the advantage of generating a lot of meetings.
My main criticism of this technique is that it doesn't ask for permission to pitch, moves too quickly, and doesn't even mention the actual product you're trying to sell.
The idea is simply to mention, in a few words, the theoretical benefits your product could bring to a professional, and then immediately suggest booking a meeting to discuss it.
It's too vague, and it generates a lot of no-shows (prospects who don't show up to the meeting).
Nevertheless, it can be an interesting technique for very mature outbound sales teams that can potentially follow up with no-shows afterwards.
It's still an opening, and that's better than nothing.
But in my opinion, the real goal should be to book qualified meetings, which this technique unfortunately doesn't even attempt to do.
B) Segantini: The Comedian Salesperson
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there's the cold-calling technique used by Giulio Segantini, a very well-known influencer in the English-speaking sales world.
He takes the opposite approach: you should ask the prospect for permission to pitch right at the beginning of the cold call, preferably using humor, to open the door to a longer conversation.
It's based on the Sandler methodology from the 1960s: not being pushy can actually be a position of authority.
You don't desperately need the prospect. You simply want to have a conversation, understand whether they have a business problem, and pitch your product if they do.
It's a technique based on intelligent disqualification.
Of course, this approach will get you rejected quite frequently right from the start, with prospects who don't want to talk.
But at least, when someone agrees to have a conversation, you can actually have a meaningful discussion because they've given you permission.
There's no need to desperately try to book a meeting within 15 seconds, Kold Klub-style.
This makes it possible to book more qualified meetings following a genuine conversation.
I like Giulio Segantini's technique, but I find it a little too heavy-handed.
I do believe in asking for permission, but with a little context to make yourself relevant to the professional you're contacting.
You also need to be more direct and concise when asking for permission, because many professionals are extremely busy throughout the day.
Combining more context with a concise permission-based opening can significantly increase your chances of getting permission to pitch.
Anyway, all of this is simply to say that my cold-calling technique is the best in the world!!
Of course, I'm not going to reveal it here. That will be the subject of a future article.
Take that statement with a grain of salt, or perhaps one and a half grains, because I genuinely believe I've developed a pretty good technique.
Alongside these cold-calling influencers, many people also talk about the importance of multichannel prospecting. And I genuinely believe this is the best approach.
Most companies that take outbound seriously combine several channels: email, LinkedIn and cold calling.
3. Who Is Successfully Doing Outbound Today?
In both the US and France, several companies have successfully industrialized multichannel prospecting systems.
Let's look at some of the best-known examples.
In the US:
Salesforce: We've already discussed them. They popularized the SDR / AE / AM model. Their outbound pipeline has been massive for over 20 years. More recently, they seem to be struggling with the SDR / AE model, which is currently undergoing significant changes within the company.
Rippling: A highly sophisticated approach, with more than five data engineers dedicated to segmenting their total addressable market (TAM).
Snowflake: More than 2,000 salespeople and $3 billion in ARR. They have taken Account-Based Marketing to an extreme level, with very close collaboration between their SDRs and marketing teams.
Gong: Highly targeted, data-driven outbound. They use their own product to improve their outbound prospecting continuously, since they sell a sales intelligence platform.
CrowdStrike: Outbound based on Sandler methodology, permission-based prospecting and a highly multichannel approach combining email, social selling, and more. Long enterprise sales cycles.
In France, some of the best-known companies successfully using outbound include:
Pennylane: Financial management software for small businesses, SMEs and accounting firms. A unicorn that will also benefit significantly from the upcoming mandatory electronic invoicing reform.
Spendesk: A fintech company specializing in business expense management.
Aircall: A SaaS company specializing in cloud-based business telephony, with a highly structured and specialized sales organization.
And many others. I'll cover them in future articles.
I've found fewer details about their internal sales organizations than for American companies, which tend to share much more information publicly.
Conclusion
Outbound is an acquisition channel that can deliver excellent results.
There are many different techniques and approaches available.
Personally, I've developed a methodology that combines several different cold-calling techniques. For multichannel prospecting, I use another approach that combines automation with manual outreach.
If you're interested in testing this acquisition channel or outsourcing your prospecting to an experienced outbound specialist like myself, feel free to book a meeting to discuss it.