Federico Donatone: Align Your Outbound Strategy with How Companies Actually Sell

In a recent LinkedIn post, Federico Donatone discusses a common pitfall many founders encounter in their outbound sales efforts: a lack of alignment with how their target companies actually operate and convert customers. Donatone argues that many founders overly focus on basic company filters like industry or size, neglecting a crucial element – the target company’s go-to-market (GTM) motion.

Federico Donatone highlights the importance of understanding a company’s sales mechanisms before tailoring an outreach strategy. He points out that essential information is often overlooked, even within tools designed for prospecting.

“Inside Prospeo, there’s a filter many people overlook: Company Attributes. This tells you if the companies you’re targeting: offer demo, offer free trial, have a downloadable product, have a mobile app, have online reviews, have public pricing.”

Understanding the ‘How’ of Company Sales

Donatone emphasizes that these “Company Attributes” are not just data points; they are indicators of how a company engages with and converts its customers. By examining these attributes, sales professionals can gain a much deeper understanding of the target audience’s buying journey.

Matching Outreach to GTM Motion

The core of Donatone’s argument is that outbound messaging must mirror the target company’s GTM strategy. He provides specific examples to illustrate this point:

• If your goal is to book meetings, target companies that actively offer demos.
• If your objective is to drive sign-ups, focus on companies that provide free trials.
• If you plan to reference pricing in your outreach, ensure the company makes its pricing publicly available.
• If you intend to leverage social proof, confirm that the target company has existing reviews.

Failure to align messaging with these fundamental GTM motions, according to Donatone, leads to a disconnect from the very beginning of the sales conversation.

“Otherwise, your message is misaligned from day one. This is why most outbound doesn’t convert. Because the message doesn’t match the target company’s GTM motion.”

Shifting the Prospecting Paradigm

Federico Donatone advocates for a fundamental shift in how founders approach prospecting. Instead of relying solely on static demographic or firmographic data, he urges a focus on the dynamic aspects of a company’s sales process. This means moving beyond simply knowing ‘who’ a company is to understanding ‘how’ they sell.

Donatone concludes his post with a call to action, encouraging founders to test this approach themselves.

“Stop filtering companies only by who they are. Start filtering by how they sell.”

By adopting this more nuanced filtering strategy, Donatone suggests that businesses can significantly improve the effectiveness and conversion rates of their outbound sales efforts.