does your outbound…compound?

Last month, a founder needed help generating more pipeline.

I started by asking what they'd already been doing and what kind of results they were getting.

They were running pretty consistent outbound campaigns to their ICP. Copy was decent, they were doing the work. 

And... the response rate was low (2-5% is baseline here). Momentum was slow. It wasn’t going to get them where they needed to be. 

So I started asking about other strategies.

"Are you asking for customer referrals?"

"Yeah, we did a referral campaign sometime last year. Actually, now that you bring it up, that's a pretty good idea. We should do something like that again."

Annnnd there it was. 

They were thinking about pipeline generation as a series of campaigns. 

• Outbound campaign

• Referral campaign

• Product release campaign 

One thing at a time, start and stop, rinse and repeat. But your buyers don’t work like that. 

You need layers. Multiple strategies running at the same time, compounding on each other. Each layer gives the other layers a higher chance of success. 

Your goal: Expand your network, then harvest from it systematically.

Think of this as three tiers:

TIER 1: People Who Already Know You

This is where trust already exists. You will see highest conversion here.

Sources:

• Customer referrals — happy customers who can connect you to similar buyers

• Your professional network — former colleagues, friends

• Investors & advisors — people already incentivized to help you win

The key with referrals: specific asks convert, generic asks don't.

Do the work for them. Pull 2-3 actual names from their LinkedIn. Have a forwardable email ready to go. Make it easy to say yes.

Build referral asks into your regular touchpoints (2-4x year).

TIER 2: Parasocial Relationships

These are people who know you online, but not yet IRL. 

When they get a DM/email from you, they've seen your name in their feed, read your posts, seen you comment. 

This dramatically improves response rates.

The flywheel has four parts:

• Content 

• Commenting 

• Connecting 

• Conversations 

All four work together to create a flywheel that compounds over time.

TIER 3: Signal-Based Cold Outreach

Yes, signal-based outreach is still “cold”. The goal is to find people who will "get it" quickly because they're already thinking about the problem you solve.

Two approaches:

Lookalike use cases — Spider out from your existing customers. If it worked at Company X, where else does it work? Similar business models, similar challenges, similar company profile.

Market events + company signals — Find people experiencing acute pain right now. Industry shifts, legacy system pain points, hiring patterns, recent announcements.

Stack signals: market trigger + fit signals = qualified cold target.

Run all these layers in parallel. 

Each one compounds. 

In 90 days, your pipeline looks completely different.

Try this week:

Audit your current pipeline generation. Which tier are you working most in right now? Which one are you doing the least in? 

Pick ONE action to take in the area you’re doing the least in.

Then move on it this week. 

Let me know what you find!