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Doing the work

How do I build a target list that is worth working instead of scraping ten thousand random companies?

A list is a hypothesis about who has your problem badly enough to pay, so write the hypothesis down before you open any tool. Start from the accounts that already closed or engaged, find the two or three attributes they share (industry, size, tech in use, a recent trigger like a funding round or a new hire) and filter hard on those. Then tier it: a small set of dream accounts that get hand-written, researched outreach, and a larger tier that runs through sequences. Signal-based plays work well but only a fraction of your market is throwing off a signal at any moment, so you still need plain cold outreach to the rest. A tight list of five thousand beats a scrape of sixty thousand every time.

Go deeper

4 resources, 2 India-specific, 4 link-checked.

📰 Newsletter
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Shows the actual arithmetic of list building, cutting 66,000 companies down to 5,700 real targets, then tiering them by how much human effort each deserves. Also honest that signal-based plays alone are not enough, since most of your market shows no signal at any given moment.

An outbound playbook for 2025

From Growth Unhinged by Fivos Aresti long read

  • Filtered 66,000 companies down to 5,700 accounts by applying ICP criteria (VC-funded HubSpot users).
  • Tiers the outreach: a Dream 150 gets manual prospecting, Tier 1 adds cold calls, Tier 3 gets email only.
  • Four pillars: cold calling, automated email, LinkedIn signal plays, manual prospecting for top accounts.
  • Signals alone are not enough, only a fraction of the target market shows one at any given time.
Open growthunhinged.com
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

This is where the SDR and AE split came from, and the summary gives you the whole model without the book. The rule that no AE prospects and no SDR closes explains why GTM org charts look the way they do.

15-Minute Summary of Predictable Revenue

From Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross ~15 min read

  • Split the role into three: SDRs on cold accounts, market response reps on inbound, AEs as the only quota carriers who close.
  • Start SDRs at 50 to 100 prospecting emails a day, aiming for a 10 percent response rate.
  • The core myth it attacks: selling more does not mean hiring more salespeople, it means building lead generation.
  • Hire for talent and initiative over experience, since technique can be taught.
Open predictablerevenue.com
📄 Article
✓ Link checked India Free Intermediate

Built from a masterclass with Mohit Garg, former CRO at MindTickle, and written for cross-border companies selling from India, including how to structure SDR and AE teams for cost efficiency. Covers qualification, MEDDIC scoring, pipeline reviews and loss reviews in one place.

SaaS Playbook: Sales

From SeedToScale by Accel by Rachit Parekh long read

  • Expect 15 to 20 follow-ups: some of Mohit's biggest customers came on the 14th or 18th touch.
  • Score deals MEDDIC-style and only grant reference calls above a score of 9, treating references as scarce.
  • Set quotas only after the process is repeatable, since even great reps miss without one.
  • Many Indian SaaS companies run SDRs in India with AEs in the US for the cost advantage.
Open seedtoscale.com
🎧 Podcast
✓ Link checked India Free Advanced

The buyer's side of enterprise outbound, from a CIO who says roughly 80 percent of the startups he evaluates were found through outbound research, peers or LinkedIn. He also times each phase of his buying process, which tells you exactly how long your deal will take.

How Startups Can Sell to Big Companies ft. Karthik Chakkarapani, Zuora

On The Neon Show by Siddhartha Ahluwalia with Karthik Chakkarapani 62 min listen

Watch on YouTube neon.fund

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The same ground, at another level

How outbound that works reads from a different seat.

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