Part 4 · Play
Warming a named account list
Forty companies you want. Get seen before you get in touch.
Who this is for
You have a specific list of target accounts and you are about to email them. Do this first.
Before you start
- A list of companies with named people you want to reach.
- Content running on at least LinkedIn.
How long
Three to four weeks before the first message.
The sequence
- 01
Add every company to the watchlist. Evidence starts accumulating the day you add them, and you will want the history later.
/venture?step=watchlist20 minutes
- 02
Find the two or three people per company you would actually write to. Add them.
/conversations45 minutes
- 03
Follow them and connect, with no pitch. The connection is the whole ask.
LinkedIn, with the Sidecar panel open20 minutes
- 04
Publish for three weeks with those people in mind. Write about the problem they have, not the product you sell.
/approvals15 minutes a day
You should see: Some of them reacting or commenting. That is recorded on their timeline.
- 05
Comment on their posts when you have something specific to add. Not compliments.
LinkedIn10 minutes, twice a week
- 06
Only now open outreach, and only to people whose timeline shows they have seen you.
/conversations, then /approvals20 minutes
You should see: Drafts opening on a dated change, going to people who recognise the name.
You are done when
- At least a third of your named people have engaged with something you published.
- Every message you send goes to somebody with a touchpoint already on their timeline.
The commonest way this fails
You compress it to a week. Three weeks is the point: the recipient needs to have seen you more than once, and once is what a week buys.