If you’re trying to grow a B2B business in Africa, you’ve probably already seen how hard it is to just “get customers.” You’ve built something useful. Maybe you even have a few people using it. But when it comes to getting more customers — the real, structured way — it feels like you’re guessing.

That’s where outbound sales comes in.

Outbound sales is about being proactive. You don’t wait for people to discover you. You go out and start the conversations. It’s not spam. It’s not begging. It’s a repeatable process for reaching the right people, understanding their problems, and showing them why your solution matters.

This guide is for you if:

• You’re a founder or operator figuring out how to grow your B2B business
• You’re starting outbound sales for the first time
• You already have a sales motion, but it’s not consistent or structured
• You want to stop guessing and follow a clear process

We’ll break down everything — from understanding your customer, to building a multichannel outreach strategy, to tracking what’s working.

This is not theory. This is real-world, African-market-tested thinking. You’ll walk away knowing:

• Where to start
• How to structure your outbound motion
• What tools to use
• And how to scale it with clarity

Understanding Your Customer

(How to define your ICP, buyer & user personas, and real-world use cases)

Before you start sending emails or making calls, you need to be clear on who you’re selling to. If you skip this step, you’ll waste time talking to the wrong people, sending the wrong message, or trying to solve problems your prospect doesn’t have.

Understanding your customer means breaking it down into three things:

• Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
• The Buyer and User Personas
• The Use Cases your product solves

Let’s go through each one.

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Your ICP is a description of the type of company that’s most likely to buy from you. It’s not about individual people — it’s about companies.

Here’s what to define:

• Industry – What sector are they in?
• Company size – Headcount, revenue, or sales team size.
• Location – Where do they operate?
• Current state – What are they likely doing right now? (e.g. managing sales in spreadsheets)
• Urgency – Do they feel the pain today, or are they just curious?

Example:

B2B companies in Nigeria with 3–10 sales reps, currently using spreadsheets or WhatsApp groups to manage leads, and struggling to follow up consistently.

Your ICP helps you narrow your focus and filter out noise. It also shapes how you prioritise leads when you’re prospecting.

Personas

Once you know the kind of company you’re targeting, you need to understand the people inside that company. These are your personas.

There are usually two main personas you should pay attention to:

User Persona

• This is the person who uses your product every day.
• Their pain is operational — their work is hard, slow, or messy.
• They care about saving time, getting results, and making their job easier.

User example: A Sales Rep or SDR using your CRM to track deals.

• Rational needs: Simple interface, reminders, better follow-up
• Emotional drivers: Less stress, more control, feel like a pro

Buyer Persona

• This is the decision-maker. The one who can say “yes” to buying.
• Their pain is strategic — they care about results, team productivity, and hitting goals.

Buyer example: A Head of Sales or Founder.

• Rational needs: Pipeline visibility, team performance, faster closing
• Emotional drivers: Confidence, control, ability to report to the CEO/investors

Common Mistake: Going Straight to Buyers Without Context

Many founders go straight to buyer personas and “pitch-slap” them. They send a product pitch without really understanding what’s happening inside the team.

That’s the wrong move.

Better Approach: Start With Users, Then Climb Up

When you talk to users first (sales reps, SDRs, etc.), you’ll learn:

• What tools they use today
• What frustrates them
• How decisions are made internally

This helps you write more relevant, honest messaging when reaching out to buyers. You’re not guessing — you’re showing that you understand their team and their reality.

Use Cases

Now that you understand the company and the people, map out the use cases.

A use case is simply:

What problem are they solving by using your product?

Don’t write it from your point of view. Write it from theirs.

Bad use case:

We help companies manage pipelines better.

Better use case:

We help sales teams stop losing leads by making it easy to follow up on time.

List 2–3 core use cases per persona. Keep it short and practical. These use cases will shape your email copy, call scripts, demo examples, and more.

Understanding How Your Customers Buy

(Use the customer journey to design your sales process and messaging)

When you do outbound sales, you are starting the conversation. Most of the time, you don’t know exactly where the person is in their buying journey. That’s why your job is not to sell immediately — your job is to diagnose.

But to diagnose properly, you need a map. That map is the customer journey.

What is the Customer Journey?

The customer journey is the path your ideal customer takes from having a problem to making a buying decision — and beyond.

Understanding this journey helps you:

• Ask better questions during sales conversations
• Create the right sales process
• Build assets that guide the buyer at each stage

This doesn’t mean every buyer moves in the same way or speed. But it gives you a framework to work from.

The 5 Stages of a Typical B2B Customer Journey

1. Unaware → They don’t know they have a problem (or don’t think it’s urgent)
2. Problem-aware → They know something is not working but haven’t explored solutions
3. Solution-aware → They’re looking at ways to solve the problem
4. Decision → They’re comparing tools, checking fit, and thinking about cost
5. Committed → They’ve chosen a solution and are preparing to buy or already bought

Since outbound is cold, assume nothing.

Your message should start a conversation, not assume the buyer’s stage. Use your discovery call to ask questions that help you figure out:

• Are they aware of the problem?
• What have they tried so far?
• Are they actively looking for a solution?
• Who is involved in the decision?

This is where your sales process should mirror the customer’s journey — not the other way around.

How the Customer Journey Helps You in Practice

• Shape your sales process: Don’t treat every deal the same. Build steps that help the customer move naturally from problem to decision.
• Create the right sales assets: Each stage needs different tools:
  • Problem-aware: blogs, insights, use cases
  • Solution-aware: product walkthroughs, case studies
  • Decision: pricing guides, ROI calculators, proposal templates
• Build better messaging: You can structure your cold emails and follow-ups to align with how buyers actually think.

A good outbound motion doesn’t force people to buy. It helps people make a decision with clarity and confidence. Understanding the journey helps you do that.

Setting Up Your Outbound Sales Tech Stack

(The tools you need for email deliverability, lead sourcing, deal tracking, and closing)

Keep it simple, but make it work for you

Your tech stack is the set of tools that helps you run outbound consistently — without getting lost in admin work.

You don’t need fancy tools to start. You just need the right ones to:

• Reach people
• Stay organised
• Move deals forward

Let’s break it down.

Email Deliverability

If your emails are not landing in inboxes, nothing else matters. Before you start sending outreach, fix your deliverability. What you need to do:

• Set up a custom domain (e.g. hello@yourcompany.co)
• Configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records — your domain host or IT person can help
• Warm up your email account using tools like:
  • Mailwarm
  • Warmbox
• Start slow — send 5–10 emails/day while warming up. Ramp up over 2–3 weeks.

Tools to Find Leads

You need tools to discover and gather contact data for your ICP. Examples:

• Apollo – B2B database with email/contact info
• Clay – Combine multiple data sources and enrich contacts
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator – Great for researching and filtering prospects manually

You don’t need all of them. Pick one or two that match your ICP, technical level and budget.

Tools to Manage Your Sales Process

Once you start reaching out and getting replies, you need to stay organised. You’ll need a tool like Revwit to:

• Organise your leads
• Track conversations
• Log discovery calls and notes
• Manage the deals in your sales process
• Set follow-up reminders

No need to over-engineer. Just make it easy for the buyer to say “yes.”

Don’t Add Tools Too Early. Every tool you add creates more setup and more decisions. Only add tools when:

• You’re repeating a manual task over and over
• You feel disorganised an it’s affecting your output
• You want to scale what’s already working

Start simple. Scale later.

Findind B2B Leads in Africa

(Referrals, events, communities, LinkedIn, and scalable lead sources)

You’ve defined your ICP. You know what types of companies and people you want to reach. The next step is knowing where to find them.

The truth is, leads don’t appear out of nowhere. You have to go looking — and you have to know where to look.

In Africa, referrals are often your first and best source of leads. Someone who knows someone. A friend who connects you to a founder. A happy customer who brings in two more.

And that’s great — you should absolutely use referrals to kickstart your pipeline. But referrals get exhausted quickly. You can’t build a scalable outbound motion on referrals alone.

At some point, you need to know how to go out into the world, find your ideal customers, and start new conversations — at scale.

Here are some of the most effective ways to find potential customers, especially in the African B2B market.

Lead Databases

These tools give you access to large lists of companies and contacts, often with email addresses, roles, phone numbers, and more.

Examples:

• Apollo – One of the most popular tools with African and global data
• Lusha, Hunter, Uplead – Focused on verified contact info
• Clay – Combines multiple sources, filters, and enriches data

Don’t just download 1,000 leads and spray them with cold emails. Use filters to match your ICP, then personalise your outreach.

LinkedIn Search (Manual or Sales Navigator)

LinkedIn is one of the best tools for outbound in Africa, especially for B2B founders and salespeople.

Use filters to search by:

• Industry
• Role/title
• Company size
• Location

Even the free version works if you’re patient. Sales Navigator gives more powerful filters and saves time.

Industry Events and Webinars

Find people and companies who are already interested in what you care about. Look for:

• Industry conferences (virtual or physical)
• Webinars related to your product’s use case
• Niche meetups (tech, HR, agency, finance, etc.)

You can:

• Attend and connect with attendees
• Sponsor to get access to attendee lists
• Speak to show authority and attract leads

Even small events can lead to big deals if the right people are in the room.

Communities and Groups

Niche WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, and Facebook groups are gold mines — especially in Africa.

Look for groups where your ICP hangs out:

• Startup communities
• Professional associations (HR, sales, finance)
• Tool-specific user groups

Don’t pitch immediately. Join, contribute, and offer value first. Then build trust and reach out 1-on-1.

Partnerships and Referrals

Sometimes the fastest way to leads is through someone else’s network.

Look for:

• Agencies who serve the same audience
• Freelancers or consultants who solve related problems
• Past customers who can introduce you to others

You can offer:

• Rev-share deals
• Warm intros in return
• Discounts or perks for their customers

Partnerships help you grow faster without always doing the hard work of cold outreach.

You don’t need a thousand leads. You need 50–100 that actually fit your ICP.

Start small. Focus on relevance. Personalise your outreach.

Engaging Your Leads the Right Way

(Sales methodology, process, prioritisation, research, and outreach strategy)

Outbound works when you follow a process, not just vibes

You’ve found your ideal leads. Now it’s time to engage them — meaning: you need to turn cold contacts into warm conversations, and eventually into paying customers.

This part of outbound is where many people lose steam. They either:

• Spam everyone with the same message
• Wait too long to reach out
• Or don’t follow a clear process

To do outbound well, you need structure. You need to know how to qualify, research, prioritize, and reach out across channels — in a way that’s thoughtful and consistent.

Let’s break it down.

Why You Need a Sales Methodology (SPICED, MEDDIC, etc.)

A sales methodology gives your team a shared way of thinking about deals.

It helps you:

• Ask the right questions
• Know when to move forward or stop
• Coach reps and review deals more clearly
• Keep your process consistent even as your team grows

There are many options:

• BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) — simple but outdated
• MEDDIC — great for enterprise sales, but heavy for early-stage teams
• CHAMP — focuses on pain, budget, authority
• SPICED — flexible and works across qualification, discovery, and customer success

At Revwit, we prefer SPICED because it:

• Works well in African markets
• Gives you a full view of the deal — not just the budget or timeline
• Helps you stay customer-focused

SPICED stands for:

• Situation – What is their current setup?
• Pain – What’s not working or slowing them down?
• Impact – Why does it matter? What’s at risk?
• Critical Event – What’s creating urgency?
• Expectation – What outcome are they hoping for?
• Decision – How will they decide and who is involved?

This structure works across:

• Qualification – Should we pursue this lead?
• Discovery – What does the customer really need?
• Customer Success – Are we delivering on the outcome?

Use any methodology — just make sure you’re using one. Guessing doesn’t scale.

Building a Step-by-Step B2B Sales Process

Your sales process is the step-by-step path you follow to move a deal from “cold” to “closed.” Without a clear process, you’ll chase leads with no structure, waste time on bad fits, and miss follow-ups.

Here’s a simple sales process for outbound-led B2B teams:

• Prospecting: Identify and research leads that match your ICP
• Outreach: Send personalized messages across email, LinkedIn, or phone
• Qualification: Is this a good-fit opportunity worth pursuing?
• Discovery: Deep dive into pain, context, goals, blockers, timeline
• Demo or Solution Mapping: Show how your product solves their specific problem
• Proposal or Pricing: Send a simple, clear offer based on what you’ve learned
• Negotiation & Objection Handling: Address concerns and help stakeholders feel confident
• Decision & Close: Align on next steps, handle sign-off, and close
• Handoff to Onboarding/CS: Make sure they get value after signing

You can customise this by deal size, type of customer, or industry. But the key is: define it, write it down, and iterate with it.

Prioritising Leads with Lead Scoring

You’ll never have time to follow up with everyone. That’s why you need to focus on your best-fit leads first — and disqualify low-fit ones quickly.

A lead scoring system helps you do that. You can score leads based on:

• ICP fit (company size, industry, etc.)
• Persona (job title, buying power)
• Activity (opens emails, replies, visits site)
• Signals (recent funding, hiring, tech stack, urgency)

Example scoring system (0–10):

• ICP Fit = 4 pts
• Right Persona = 3 pts
• Shows Intent = 3 pts
• Total = 10

Decide what score makes a lead worth pursuing — maybe 6 and above. Leads below that? Don’t waste time. Disqualify politely or put them in a nurture list.

Use your sales methodology here. For example, if they have no pain (SPICED) or no decision process in place, mark them low priority or disqualify.

How to Research Prospects Like a Pro

Outbound is noisy. There are millions of other sales people and sales AI agents sending messages to your prospect. Why should they take yours seriously? If you want to stand out, you need to do your homework.

When a prospect sees that you actually understand their business, they’re more likely to:

• Reply
• Respect your message
• Book time with you

How to research smarter:

• LinkedIn – Look at the person’s role, posts, summary, experience, company page
• Company website – Check what they do, who they serve, what they’re hiring for
• Google Boolean Search – Use queries like site:[companydomain.com] AND "sales team" to find hidden insights
• Google Alerts – Set alerts for ICP companies or categories
• AI research tools – Use tools like ChatGPT or Clay to summarise company news or extract insights fast
• Annual reports, press releases, blog posts – Especially for larger companies

You don’t need a full report. One or two insights is enough to show you care.

🎯 What to look for:

• A trigger or change (e.g. funding, hiring, new product launch)
• A potential pain or gap you can solve
• Language you can mirror in your message

Good research = relevant message = better results.

Use Multichannel Outreach to Increase Your Chances

Most people don’t respond to the first message. Or the second. Or the third. That’s normal.

That’s why smart outbound teams don’t rely on just one channel. They combine email, calls, social selling, and light automation to increase reply rates and keep things human.

Cold outreach is not a numbers game — it’s a relevance game. This is where the hard work of research pays off: your message (email or call) should make the prospect feel like, “Damn, they actually get me.”

The strongest outbound reps and founders don’t just “send messages” — they craft reasons to pay attention. They use their research to show:

• I know who you are
• I know what you’re likely dealing with
• I have something that can help

Here’s how to approach it:

Cold Email: Lead With Insight, Not a Pitch

Your cold email should feel like it was written just for that person — because it was. You’re not here to sell features. You’re here to show you understand their situation and why it matters now.

Use your research to find:

• A signal or change (e.g. team is hiring, recent funding, tech change)
• A likely pain based on role or stage (e.g. “2 reps managing deals in WhatsApp?”)
• A gap between where they are and where they want to be

Your email should answer these 3 silent questions:

1. Why are you reaching out to me specifically?
2. What do you understand about my problem?
3. Why should I care right now?

Structure (no fluff):

• Personal opener that proves you did your homework
• A clear pain or pattern you’ve observed in similar companies
• A short value hook (not a pitch)
• Soft CTA (e.g. “Is this worth a quick chat?”)

This is where your research strategy pays off. Use:

• LinkedIn activity
• Google alerts
• Job descriptions
• Recent announcements
• Blog posts
• Public complaints
• Customer reviews
• Anything that shows context

Your goal is for the prospect to say:

“This person knows what we’re going through.”

Cold Calling: Personalised, Insight-Driven Openers That Work

Cold calls are not dead. But bad ones should be.

In Africa, a thoughtful cold call can still work well — especially when people don’t respond to email or LinkedIn. But you only have 15–30 seconds to earn attention. That means your opener must show insight, not script.

Don’t say:

“Hi, I’m [name] from [company]. Do you have a few minutes?”

Instead, say something like:

“Hi [Name], I’ve been following your team’s recent work at [Company] — especially the push to hire more sales reps. I wanted to quickly share something we’ve seen helping similar teams who are scaling fast but still managing deals manually. Can I share in 30 seconds?”

If they say yes, keep going with a short story about:

• What others like them were struggling with
• How you helped
• What kind of result they saw

Then ask:

“Is that something your team’s thinking about right now?”

or

“Happy to send you something short if it’s useful — what’s best?”

Cold calls work best when they feel natural, researched, and human — not robotic or salesy.

Social Selling on LinkedIn and X

Use social platforms to build visibility and warm up your leads before outreach.

What to do:

• Engage with their posts
• Comment meaningfully, not just “Nice!”
• Share helpful content of your own
• Send a personalised DM after 1–2 touches

This works well when layered with email or as a follow-up after no response.

Sequencing Across Channels (Without Being Spammy)

Create sequences that mix channels over time. A simple 5-step sequence could look like:

1. Day 1: Cold email
2. Day 3: LinkedIn connect + like a post
3. Day 5: Email reply or bump
4. Day 7: Cold call
5. Day 10: LinkedIn DM or final email

Tools like Lemlist or your outreach platform can help you set and track these steps.

The key is consistency — not spamming.

Apply Strategies That Help You Win Bigger

As your outbound motion grows, add strategic moves that help you close more deals — especially in companies with multiple stakeholders.

Multithreading and Navigating Stakeholders

Talk to more than one person in the company.

• Reach out to the user (e.g. sales rep) and the buyer (e.g. sales manager)
• Include influencers — like operations or marketing if they’re involved
• Use different messaging for each role

This reduces risk: if one person goes quiet, someone else can keep the deal alive.

Selling Above and Below the Power Line

Think of the company as split in two:

• Below the power line → Users who feel the pain
• Above the power line → Executives who own the budget and strategy

Engage both:

• Below helps you understand the real problem
• Above helps you get buy-in and budget

This is critical in Africa where decision-making is often informal or layered.

Champion Building and Internal Influence

Find someone inside or outside the company with influence who:

• Believes in your product
• Can push the deal internally
• Wants to look good by bringing in something valuable

Support them with:

• Clear messaging they can share internally
• Custom decks or short Loom videos
• WhatsApp-ready summaries they can forward

Your champion sells when you’re not in the room. Make their job easy.

Outbound is not about sending 100 messages a day. It’s about sending 10 that truly land.

Outbound is not about:

• Who can send the most messages
• Who has the best tools
• Who copies the best template

Outbound is about:

• Who knows their customer best
• Who did their homework
• Who leads with relevance and respect

That’s how you win.

Tracking and Improving Your Outbound Sales Process

(Measure effort, effectiveness, and efficiency — weekly)

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

Outbound sales is not just about activity. It’s about results — and the only way to get better results is to track what’s happening, review it, and make smart adjustments.

Too many teams do outbound in the dark. They send emails, book a few calls, and move on. But they don’t know:

• Which messages are landing
• Which reps are consistent
• Where deals are falling off
• Which leads are worth the effort

Measure Effort (Are You Doing Enough?)

Effort is about input — the activities you or your team are doing each day or week.

Track things like:

• Number of new leads added
• Number of emails sent
• Number of calls made
• Number of LinkedIn touches or DMs
• Number of follow-ups sent

This tells you if your pipeline is being fed. If your effort is low, your results will always be low — no matter how good your product is.

Use this to spot who’s showing up consistently and who’s not.

Measure Effectiveness (Is It Resonating?)

Effectiveness is about quality — how well your outreach is landing.

Track:

• Reply rate – Are people responding to your cold emails?
• Positive response rate – Are the replies turning into booked meetings?
• Connection rate on calls – Are you reaching the right people, or just getting voicemail?
• Conversion rate from first meeting to qualified opportunity

If your effectiveness is low, it usually means:

• Your message isn’t relevant
• You’re not targeting the right people
• Your research is shallow
• You’re pushing too hard, too early

Go back and review the messages that did work. What did they have in common?

Measure Efficiency (Are You Converting at a Reasonable Pace?)

Efficiency is about how well you’re turning effort into revenue.

Key metrics:

• Lead-to-meeting ratio – How many leads does it take to get 1 meeting?
• Meeting-to-close ratio – How many meetings turn into closed deals?
• Average deal cycle – How many days from first touch to close?
• Time spent per closed deal – Are you overworking small deals?

These metrics help you know if:

• You’re focused on the right leads
• Your sales process is too long or unclear
• Your close rate is healthy or needs work

Weekly Review = Better Decisions

You don’t need dashboards with 20 metrics. Just build a habit:

• Every week, review effort, effectiveness, and efficiency
• Spot what’s working and what’s not
• Make 1–2 improvements per week — not 10

Use tools like Revwit to track your pipeline and see stage-by-stage movement

Outbound works when you:

• Show up consistently (effort)
• Stay relevant and thoughtful (effectiveness)
• Optimize what’s working (efficiency)

Most teams don’t fail from a lack of talent. They fail from a lack of review. Fix that, and you’ll grow faster than 90% of people doing outbound today.

Outbound Sales is a Process, Not a Hack

If you’ve made it this far, here’s the most important thing to remember:

Outbound sales is not about hacks. It’s about process.

You don’t have to be a genius. You just need to:

• Know who you’re selling to
• Understand how they buy
• Build a clear process to reach and engage them
• Use the right tools
• Track what’s working and improve as you go

It’s hard work — but it’s work that compounds.

Start with referrals if you have them. But don’t stop there. Build a system. Build a team that understands the customer. Build a sales motion that respects people’s time and attention.

That’s how you go from “trying to sell” to actually closing deals.

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