The four guides run in the order a small company meets its leads. Two of them turn on federal enforcement cases, one against a credit bureau and one against a camera maker, and two on published studies of sales leads.
The guides in sequence
- Warm outreach to people who already know you starts with the list a company already has: past customers, old inquiries and lost deals. Its real case is the FTC's 2023 action against Experian Consumer Services over marketing emails to account holders with no way to opt out.
- Cold outreach that earns a reply builds a list from the accounts already signed, one reason per row, and covers the CAN-SPAM requirements, sender set-up and the FCC's rules on AI voices. Its real case is the FTC's 2024 settlement with Verkada, a seller of security cameras to businesses, over marketing email that recipients could not unsubscribe from.
- Counting outreach before judging a channel shows how wide a reply rate's range stays at small counts, then runs a revenue target down to a weekly count and checks it against the hours a founder has.
- How to qualify leads when you are the whole sales team sets two scores, fit and timing, and a short list of deal breakers, and ends where a proposal conversation begins.
The two worksheets
The weekly outreach tally is one printed page for one week: the daily count of warm and cold messages, replies, engaged leads and same-day callbacks, and a line for the one change made that week. It goes with the first three guides.
The lead qualification worksheet holds the fit and timing scales, the deal breakers, an hours check for the week and a log with blank rows. It goes with the fourth guide. Both open in full on the page and print from the browser.
Beyond the qualified conversation
The guides stop at the qualified conversation. Offers and pricing, landing pages, paid ads, content production and the long-run value of a customer are outside them.
Reading path
- Warm outreach to people who already know you
Where a small company's first leads come from, and the federal rules that still apply to a message sent to someone who knows the sender.
- Cold outreach that earns a reply
What a stranger sees in a cold message that gets an answer, and the sender set-up and federal rules behind it.
- Counting outreach before judging a channel
How many messages it takes before a reply rate means anything, with the arithmetic from a revenue target down to a daily count.
- How to qualify leads when you are the whole sales team
Two scores and a short list of deal breakers that one person can keep current, and what a study of sales reps found about leads left unworked.
Worksheets for this guide
- Lead qualification worksheet
A one-page sheet that sorts the week's leads by fit and timing, sets aside deal breakers and checks how many calls the week can hold.
- Weekly outreach tally
One printable page for a week of outreach, with a row per day and a line for the one thing changed that week.