Post by Martin MacArthur

Here’s something I’ve been reminded of (the hard way) over the last couple months of prospecting 👇 Prospecting manufacturers expanding internationally is not the same game as prospecting early-stage to Series A SaaS. Not even close. First difference I keep running into: If you connect with a SaaS founder or sales leader on LinkedIn, you can basically send a blank invite and… ✅ Accepted No note. No context. No explanation. Try that with a CEO or Global Sales Leader at a multi-million-dollar manufacturer and you’ll hear… nothing. Ever. Silence isn’t ghosting. It’s filtering. Those invites need to be relevant and nuanced or they go straight into the abyss. Cold calling is the same story. SaaS cold calls usually start with the greatest hit of all time: “Hi [Name], this is [Me]. You weren’t expecting my call, were you?” Followed by some version of: “Are you open to putting time on the calendar?” Manufacturers? That opener dies on contact. When you’re calling manufacturers, especially ones expanding globally, you’d better know: Which regions they’re entering What regulations come with those regions Where distribution and decision-making actually happens Otherwise you sound like you’re guessing. And they can smell that instantly. One thing I’ve been doing lately: I take everything we know at the account level, plug it into Gemini, and ask it to identify: Where the company is already expanding Where they’re likely planning to expand next Then I use Jen Allen-Knuth framework to draft an email narrative. And then I rewrite it. Because frameworks don’t sound human. Operators do. Add one more wrinkle: I’m totally blind and use a screen reader. Which means I have a deep, personal, emotional relationship with broken sales tools. Most of them fight me. Daily. So I build workarounds that actually work for me — even if they take longer than I’d like and would probably make a RevOps person twitch. But here’s the point: Manufacturers don’t respond to volume. They respond to signal. If your outreach doesn’t show you understand where they’re going and what that means operationally, internationally, and commercially… you’re just noise. And noise gets ignored. Back to refining, rewriting, and swearing quietly at my screen reader! #Outbound #Prospecting #Manufacturers #GTM #InternationalSales #RevOps #GlobalSalesMentor #TheOutboundSalesGuy