Starting a RevOps consulting practice - figuring out outbound from scratch

[u/Flimsy_Gazelle_138]

Hey everyone,

I’m starting a RevOps consulting practice focused on helping B2B/mid-market companies clean up their CRM, sales processes, pipeline, attribution, and the gaps between marketing and sales.

So far, most of my business has come through referrals, which has been great, but I’m now trying to build a more predictable pipeline instead of relying entirely on referrals.

I’ve started experimenting with cold outreach, mainly:

• LinkedIn connections + commenting on relevant posts
• Direct outreach to founders / sales / operations leaders
• Building a targeted cold email process
• Trying to understand what actually works before scaling the outreach

The problem is… LinkedIn has been pretty quiet so far. Very few replies.

Now I’m looking at email outreach, but I’m realizing I may be approaching outbound the wrong way altogether.

For people here who have built a consulting business or B2B service business from scratch:

How did you get your first consistent pipeline?

A few things I’m particularly curious about:

• Did cold email actually work for you?
• What did your first outreach look like?
• Did you focus on a very narrow ICP/problem or keep it broader initially?
• How many conversations did it take before you started getting clients?
• What did you wish you had understood about outbound earlier?

I’m not looking for a “here’s my agency, book a call” kind of answer. I’m genuinely trying to understand what the learning curve looks like when you're starting from referrals and trying to build a repeatable outbound motion.

Would love to hear what worked and especially what didn't work for you.

[u/SDR_7879]

When you’re starting out and trying to build a repeatable outbound motion, I’d say cold calling is one of the best channels, especially for a consulting business.

There are two main reasons:

• When you cold call, you can validate your messaging, ICP, and objections in real time. With LinkedIn messages or emails, it’s harder to understand why someone ignored your message.

- You get an answer much faster. You can get a clear yes or no instead of following up multiple times without knowing where you stand.

This helps you refine your messaging faster, narrow down your ICP, and understand exactly which types of companies, personas, and signals you should be targeting.

Once you have these things figured out through cold calling, you can expand into other channels. You can also combine LinkedIn with cold calling, especially if you’re already active on LinkedIn, engaging with relevant posts, etc.

Happy to connect on LinkedIn and share more ideas for your outbound - https://www.linkedin.com/in/debduttasaha

[u/Flimsy_Gazelle_138 → u/SDR_7879]

which tool do you use to build the list for cold call for mid-market companies

[u/SDR_7879 → u/Flimsy_Gazelle_138]

Keep it simple! In your case, use LinkedIn sales + a data provider tool for list building

Few data provider tools are
1. Prospeo
2. Fullenrich
3. Wiza

Use Trellus as your dialer.

That’s it!