ABM Playbook for closing high-ticket deals worth $50k+

Today, I want to share the process I built for one of my previous agencies, which helped me close high-ticket ($50k+) clients EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH.

Since we were a premium agency charging $6000+/mo for our services, we couldn’t just run outreach campaigns and get clients.

For someone to subscribe to our services (while also not dragging the sales cycle for months), the customers needed to trust us.

And a simple cold outreach isn’t enough for that.

So we needed a plan B.

That’s when we created the system that allows us to:

• Build relationships with our dream clients
• Get a ton of new content to publish every single day (to get even more clients)
• Make our potential clients trust us
• Close $50k+ deals

Today, I’ll walk you through the entire system step-by-step. 

The best part?

Everyone can implement it in any vertical.

So let’s get started.

The Overview of ABM Playbook

ABM stands for Account-Based Marketing, so this playbook takes a personalized, one-on-one approach (building relationships with individuals and creating mutual content) with a one-to-many part (distributing that content).

This allows us to build relationships with key people and distribute the final product of those relationships (content) to the masses, earning the trust of our dream clients and attracting many inbound leads eager to work with us.

We combined the best of two worlds into one.

Here’s the overview of ABM Playbook:

So, in short, we need to have a “content platform”.

I usually choose podcasts because they can be used for content repurposing. One podcast episode can be repurposed into 10 shorter clips, Twitter threads, LinkedIn posts, and blog posts.

So from one podcast episode, you can get 30+ pieces of content to use and distribute on your channels, giving you tremendous reach and potentially a lot of inbound leads.

However, the “content platform” can be pretty much anything that includes collaboration between two parties.

Such as the newsletter, written form of interview, webinar, guest blog post, and more.

The general idea is to use content collaboration or podcasting as an excuse to contact the prospect.

We’re sending our initial email about them. We’re not selling them anything (yet!).. Instead, we’re putting our dream clients in the spotlight.

In general, I’m getting between 30-45% acceptance rate for content collaboration.

Then, we use that podcast episode (or any other form of content we create together) to distribute the content and give additional reach to our dream clients.

After that, we continue building relationships with them, and when the time is right, we reach out to them with a subtle offer.

That’s, in the nutshell, what this ABM Playbook is about.

However, there are many finesse to make this system work like a charm.

We’ll break down everything, step-by-step.

Creating your Content Platform

There are two main reasons why we have a content platform as our “first step”:

• It’s an excuse to build a relationship with the dream 100
• It allows us to quickly create a lot of content that we later use to distribute and get even more eyeballs on ourselves and our company (not to mention that the content you create will be unique and position you as the thought leader—a huge benefit considering that you’re trying to close high-ticket deals).

As I already mentioned, a content platform can be pretty much anything—podcasts, newsletters, blogs, communities, and webinars.

However, I always recommend doing podcasts since they are such versatile content types that allow us to repurpose our content quickly and easily into other content formats.

So, from one content format, you’ll have:

• Long videos
• Short videos
• Twitter threads
• LinkedIn posts
• Blog Posts,
• Etc.

It’s content creation on steroids.

In the following chapters, I’ll be mainly talking about using podcasts as your content platform, but keep in mind that the same applies to other content formats as well.

So, how do we create our podcast?

I will not go into all the tiny details and step-by-step guides for creating a podcast. There are many good guides on the web for that.

Instead, let’s talk about your podcast/content platform from a business and sales perspective.

A good podcast for this ABM Playbook must:

• Help you understand the specific guests’ specific problems (dream 100) – so you can later use these problems as an excuse to offer them your solution/product.
• Be relevant to the guests, and show them in a good light – remember, you’re putting your dream 100 in the spotlight and making them look like rock stars.
• Be unique compared to similar podcasts in your niche. You won’t get a lot of reach or high-quality content if you’re just another sales podcast. You need to have either a unique POV, angle, or format. 

I recommend taking your time and doing extensive research. Don’t just skip this step; it’s important.

Check what other content creators are doing, and askound your audience what kind of content twantlike to hear.

Listen to a few other popular podcasts, and try to realize:

• What makes them excellent and successful
• What could be better

Write down your findings, and you have a good content platform.

Figure out the unique and catchy name, design some visuals, and you’re ready to go.

Identifying your Dream 100

Now it’s time to do some prospecting!

Dream 100 is essentially the list of the Dream 100 clients you would like to work with.

So they’re your most ideal clients. 

They have a problem, are aware of it, want to solve it, and have extensive budgets.

Instead of going after 1000 people who are just your company type, we will go after the 100 most ideal clients.

However, I like to go one step further.

Instead of just creating a Dream 100 Clients list, I also like to create a Dream 100 Partners list.

When I say partners, I mean other content creators in the field who publish high-quality content to your ideal clients.

Why?

Building a relationship with them, will help you:

• Get access to their audience (meaning your ideal clients, meaning more eyeballs to your content)
• This can result in mutual partnerships (i.e., they become your affiliates, bringing you even more clients).

Sometimes, one good partner can bring you 4-5 new referrals each month, each worth $50k+ a year.

That’s $200-$250k+ in new potential revenue just from one affiliate.

Now imagine if you have a perfect relationship with ten other famous people in your niche.

So, as in the previous step, you want to invest a lot of effort into creating a good Dream 100 Clients and Dream 100 Partners list.

Note: This concept is called Dream 100, but in reality, you don’t need to have exactly 100 people in the list. It can be 80 or 200. However, I always recommend not going too broad since it will probably sacrifice the quality of the leads. So, make a good balance between quality and quantity.

What data do you need to collect? 

First of all, we need the basics:

• Name
• Title
• Company
• Domain
• Email
• LinkedIn URL
• Topic idea

Most​​ importantly, we need something to use as an icebreaker, or the reason why we’re inviting someone specific to the pod.

If you have nothing, you can always say something like:

I love the content you publish on LinkedIn. Would you like to come to my podcast to talk about XYZ?

But of course, it’s recommended that you have something more specific.

The best approach is to identify the prospects’ specific expertise and invite them to the pod to speak about those topics.

If you still have absolutely zero connections, look at your mutual connections on LinkedIn. Then you can use it for this icebreaker:

I recently spoke with {mutualConnection}, and he mentioned you and {companyName}. I was amazed at what you’re doing!

How to invite your Dream 100 to the podcast

I always recommend people to reach out to Dream 100 on LinkedIn because:

1. It’s more personal
2. Chances are small that your message will go unnoticed (compared to email, where they get hundreds of new emails each day).

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide on setting up your outreach campaign in less than 5 minutes.

1. Create your Dream 100 clients and partners list in a CSV, using all the information mentioned in the last chapter.
2. Log in to your Expandi account, or sign up if you don’t have one (there’s a 14-day free trial as well)
3. Once you’re in, click on Campaigns in the left menu, then click on + Add new campaign in the upper right corner.

4. We need a simple Connection campaign for this, so no need for some extensive or omnichannel flows that Expandi offers. Simply type Boost my booking power for sales in the search box and select the template that appears on the right:

Now, just fill in the blanks:

As your connection request message, you can either write nothing (to be honest, I usually always do this since I found out that it always has the highest connection acceptance rate), or you can write something simple like:

We are in the same industry, so I thought I would connect.

Or,

Would love to follow your work.

Once the prospect accepts the connection request, after 1 day, reach out to them with the following message:

Hey {firstName},

{Icebreaker – i.e., Saw you’re a pretty strong advocate of how marketing and sales departments should collaborate}.

Would you like to come on my podcast where we can discuss {topic – i.e., how marketing and sales teams can improve their communication and collaboration)?

I’ll also send you 5-7 short video clips you can later use to post on your LinkedIn.

Cheers,
{yourName}

In my experience, around 15-30% of people will reply to you after the first message.

However, if someone still doesn’t respond, you can send them a follow-up message 3 days after:

Hey {firstName},

Wanted to circle back here quickly.

I would like to put you in the spotlight where we can dive deeper into your thoughts on the {topic}.

The podcast is fairly new, but it will be heavily distributed across 10 of our channels, giving you a big reach (cca 20-30k people).

Let me know if you’re interested, and we can book the time that works for you.

In my experience, 35-50% of all prospects will contact you and book the interview.

Half of those who don’t are usually busy at the moment, but they’ll gladly join you in a few months.

Note: Remember that the classical sales outreach will usually not give you more than 5% of interested leads. With this ABM approach, you get around 30-50% of them. Not to mention that those are the high-quality prospects compared to the low-value ones you usually have on your list during the sales outreach.

Once all your messages are ready, just click on the Create Campaign button, and you’re ready to go!

See? Less than 5 minutes!

What to do during the podcast recording

The purpose of this article is not to explain how to record the podcast. However, let’s cover some important things for your content, future relationships with the guest, and eventually closing the deal.

Here are some things to pay attention to:

• Build an automated email sequence to remind the guest of the podcast and tell him what to expect.
  
  If you have a set list of questions, send them beforehand. If not, explain briefly what you’re going to talk about.
• Research the guest – it’s obvious, and yet so many people don’t do that. Find out who your guest is, what he does, and what intrigues him, and also listen to his previous podcast appearances. You don’t want your episode to look like just another episode with person X. It will also bore the guest as well.
• Address all issues with the guest beforehand.
• Have a great time and laugh—this is your first impression of the guest. Remember, everything is about them, not about you.
• Identify the guest’s problems—this is crucial because we’ll use this information to later sell our service or product.

How to identify their problems during the podcast interview?

This one is tricky because if not done well, it might put your guest in an unpleasant situation and potentially destroy all your hopes for a future relationship and deal.

However, identifying a guest’s problem is crucial because it will give you the exact angle you can use when selling your product.

It can also help you create a personalized offer to the guest.

If you ask them about the problems before the recording, it will seem awkward, and you will probably not get the correct answer.

So, you need to ask them during the recording since they’ll most likely answer that question.

But how do you do this without making the situation awkward?

Sometimes, the guest will mention the problems on his own, but if he doesn’t, there’s a subtle way to do this ourselves.

It’s all in following the conversation and asking unobvious questions.

Let’s see this in an example:

You have a lead generation agency that works with B2B SaaS companies, and you invite one SaaS founder to the show.

He constantly talks about how they used SEO and influencers to grow their revenue.

At a certain point in the conversation, you ask them, “Have you tried using cold outreach to generate new customers?”

If he says, “No, it didn’t work for us,” you can continue the conversation and ask some subquestions about what didn’t work. This will give you an idea of the problems, and you can think about the solution later on.

If he says No, we didn’t, then you’ll know it’s an untapped opportunity for them.

Either way, you’ll get his thoughts on the matter, which you can later address when sending personalized and casual offers.

How to nurture the relationship with Dream 100 after the podcast recording

So, we finished our content collaboration, and our final piece is live.

Now, it’s time to nurture our relationship with the guest, and later, when the time is right, we’ll reach out to them with our offer.

Here’s my usual process for nurturing the relationship with the guest:

1. 1 day after recording—Immediately after the recording is done, send a personalized gift. Gifts go a long way, especially because almost no one does them. However, the gift shouldn’t be branded about your company. It should be personalized to the guest. It doesn’t need to be expensive. It can be a set of personalized knives, or if you know they’re baseball fans, you can buy them two tickets for a baseball game nearby.
2. Immediately after the episode goes live, Send them the distribution material. They will have a lot of content to publish, while your podcast will have a lot of reach.
3. 4-5 Days after the publish date, send them the podcast’s results and the reach it had. It will make their ego go up!
4. Engage with the prospect on social media all the time. If you have something valuable to add to their posts, add it! If not, then please don’t comment with emojis, just like or share if it’s relevant to your audience. You can also casually touch with them (but not a lot of small talk, please – they probably don’t have time for that).
5. 10-20 days after the publish date – send the helpful email with the opportunities the prospect is missing and free advice/help (this is your offer).

How to engage with prospects on social media

There are two main parts of this:

• Automatic with Expandi
• Manual

I run an automatic Expandi campaign that occasionally visits prospect’s profiles and likes their posts.

This will save you a lot of time, and I will show you how to set it up in a minute.

On the other side, I also keep the LinkedIn profile URLs of all guests in a CRM.

I visit those profiles every 2-3 days to see if there’s some post they published where I can add additional information or potentially use them as another conversation starter.

How to set up automatic post engagement with Expandi

1. Log in to your Expandi account
2. Start a new campaign
3. Click on Create campaign from scratch

4. When asked about the type of campaign, choose Builder:

5. Click on Create Blank Campaign to start creating your campaign

6. Choose the If Connected condition on the left. Drag it to your screen, and connect it with the Start box:

7. On the left, choose the Visit Profile action, drag it to the screen, and connect it with the If Connected condition.
8. Now,, connect the Like a post action with the Visit Profile.
9. Stack those two actions as much as you want:

10. Click on the little Save button in the upper right corner, and our campaign is done.
11. Add people to your campaign by providing the list of the guests’ LinkedIn profile URLs.

And that’s it! You’re ready to run your campaign!

How to present an offer to your prospects

Here comes another tricky part (but fortunately the last step before they sign the deal!).

It’s important that our offer is friendly and does not sound salesy or pushy.

At the end of the day, we don’t want our prospects to think that we invited them to the pod solely to sell to them, right?

I usually do this 7-14 days after sending the results of the podcast distribution.

Here’s the email or LinkedIn message you can send (let’s say again that you run a lead generation agency):

Hey {firstName}

I was doing some list building for one of my clients, and I identified some leads that might also be a good fit for you:

• {prospect1} – {companyName1} – {companyDomain1} – {prospect1email} – {prospect1LinkedIn}
• {prospect2} – {companyName2} – {companyDomain2} – {prospect2email} – {prospect2LinkedIn}
• {prospect3} – {companyName3} – {companyDomain3} – {prospect3email} – {prospect3LinkedIn}

Let me know if they’re fit!

PS

We have a system in place to find 1000+ leads like this quickly. Let me know if you want me to send you a bigger list. There are no hard strings, of course. I want to help.

And that’s it.

If they don’t reply, don’t follow up with them. Continue engaging with them on social media until you feel there’s a better time for this.

If they accept your offer, complete the work in the best manner possible. They’ll see the value in it, and you can potentially upsell them your premium product/services.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, ABM Playbook will:

• Help you close $50k+/yr deals with big players in your field
• Get a lot of content as a byproduct of your content collaborations with Dream 100 to position yourself as the thought leader in the field.
• Potentially help you create great relationships with relevant partners in the field
• This will also generate a flood of inbound leads ready to work with you (since they follow and read your content).

Almost no cons at all, except perhaps time, right?

Every big deal in life is worth waiting for.

So, what should you do now?

You can create your Expandi account and start executing this ABM Playbook right away.

Or, if you’re looking for more unique insights, read framework for running demo calls and creating project propositions (for agencies).