In today’s issue, I’ll take you behind the scenes of my remote work setup. I’ve been working remotely since March 2020, and for the past 5 years, I’ve been doing so from Germany, Switzerland, France, Mexico, and the USA.

Working remotely is something I cherish every day, but it comes with its set of difficulties. I’ve worked from formal offices, my holiday house, my kitchen countertop, or even from a car while my wife was driving from Cancun to Holbox. And I learned a lot about what to do and what to avoid in your remote setup.

Let’s dive in:

Part 1: The place

You’ve seen it everywhere. People posting pictures of themselves on the beach or in front of a swimming pool, with their computer open, pretending to enjoy working remotely.

It’s a lie.

We have a swimming pool at our holiday house (you can rent it btw), and I’ve tried working from there a few times. It’s impossible. It’s too hot, too much sun, bugs bothering you. It’s a big no for me.

To me, a good remote setup is a place where I can be focused, take calls, and have as little distractions as possible. Back in September 2024, we moved from France to Mexico, and since then, I’ve experimented with different places to work from:

The kitchen → too busy, impossible to have a call without getting distracted

In today’s issue, I’ll share how I booked 5 outbound meetings in a week. A few years ago, this wouldn’t have been worthy of a newsletter, but outbound has become so crowded and so tough that I thought it would be a good idea to break down my process.

As you know, my second son was born a month ago, and I’ve had a lot less time to focus on prospecting. But two weeks ago, I looked at my bank account and I started to freak out. I checked my pipeline and I freaked out even more!

So I decided to get back to prospecting, and I booked 5 outbound meetings.

Here’s how, step-by-step:

Step 1: Find a problem

I’m lucky to be working for myself. This means I have total freedom over the kind of problems I want to solve, and how to solve them. Lately, I’ve been seeing a massive drop in reach from LinkedIn. And if you’ve been following me there, you know I’m getting at least one sponsored post per week.

This drop in reach has multiple causes. But in my opinion, it is mainly due to:

• a massive increase in people wanting to become creators on LinkedIn
• a flood of AI-generated LinkedIn posts
• a general artificialization of content (when most posts and comments are AI-generated, real humans stop paying attention)

This new reality is a direct threat to my revenues (as a sales creator), and a threat to brands wanting to work with creators to gain new customers. To solve that problem for brands and marketing teams, I’m working on a Sales Creator Content Party.

My idea is to bring creators in amazing locations around the world, create video collaborations, and have brands sponsor the creators. It creates authentic and original content, which (in my opinion) will make a dent in the problem of AI interacting with AI on LinkedIn.

Step 2: Make a list

Now that I have a problem and a solution, I can start building a list of prospects I want to reach out to. And instead of trying to shoot for fancy brands with a massive budget, I’m focusing on two types of prospects:

• brands I’ve already been working with
• people who could help me find new brands to work with

As you can see, I’m mostly focusing on people I already know. The reason is that reaching out to strangers out of the blue to get them to sponsor a party isn’t exactly compelling. It’s going to get really hard to start conversations with strangers, so I focus on people I know.

Step 3: Reach out to people where they hang out

Final step is to reach out to people in my list. For this specific outbound campaign, I’m not spending time planning a long sequence, using templates, or trying to create a list of detailed symptoms of the problem I’m trying to solve.

I want to go fast, so I look for the last channel we used for our past conversation, and I send a message like “What’s up?” or “How’s business?”.

Here’s an example:

In today’s issue, I’ll tell you everything about my Sales Creator Content Party this summer. I’ve closed over $80,000 in sponsored content in the last 2,5 years, and I’ve decided to give myself the goal to close $100,000 in sponsored content in 2025 only.

And one of the fastest way to reach that target is to close bigger deals. That’s why I’m working on setting my first sales creator content party, so I can give more exposure to the brands, close bigger deals, and have a ton of fun in the process.

Here’s how I’m planning on doing that:

Part 1: The concept

I’m now 34. Not super young, not super old. I’ve been working for myself since September 2018, and I’ve learned a lot about what motivates me. There are two things I absolutely love doing in life: closing deals and celebrating life with people I love.

That’s why I came up with the idea of a sales creator content party. I personally know dozens of sales creators, and I’ve been asking myself how to collaborate with them in a meaningful way.

Similar to this concept, I’m hosting a party in a private location in Berlin, on the 25th of July 2025. I’ll gather about 10 sales creators with over 10,000 followers on LinkedIn, and we’ll spend the day collaborating on various video content and fun concepts, all while speaking about B2B sales, prospecting, and everything relevant to our audiences.

When the content creation is done, we’ll throw a wine tasting with my friend Vino Vik, have some finger food, and celebrate life with 50 attendees and a DJ set. A typical evening in Berlin, but for people who are too old to stay awake for 48 hours straight.

Part 2: The deliverables

Now we won’t just gather influencers and get them to post random thoughts about B2B sales. We’ll work with 3 formats:

Format 1: Cooking Show

I’ll host a cooking show, where another creator and I will discuss about a specific sales topic, while cooking dishes for the rest of the creators. Think about a food influencer collaboration, but with cooking as a background for a conversation on B2B sales. This cooking show will create the following deliverables:

• 1 long form video (10 – 15 min max), ideal for YouTube
• 10 short form videos (less than 60 seconds), ideal for LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok
• 4 LinkedIn posts from the interviewed creator, 4 LinkedIn posts from me
• 1 long-form blog post hosted on saleslabs.io (like this one) and sent to The Remote Sales Playbook mailing list (5.300+ subs, 39%+ open rate, 3.52% click rate)
• 1 CTA chosen by the sponsor in the long form post and in the LinkedIn posts
• Example

Format 2: Tactical Interviews

I’ll host 5 creator interviews, either seated on a couch or at a desk, and we’ll discuss concrete, tactical ways salespeople can get better at prospecting, closing deals, or any other relevant topic. This format will create the following deliverables for each of the 5 slots:

• 1 long form video (10 – 15 min max), ideal for YouTube
• 10 short form videos (less than 60 seconds), ideal for LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok
• 1 LinkedIn post from the interviewed creator, 1 LinkedIn posts from me
• 1 long-form blog post hosted on saleslabs.io (like this one) and sent to The Remote Sales Playbook mailing list (5.300+ subs, 39%+ open rate, 3.52% click rate)
• 1 CTA chosen by the sponsor in the long form post and in the LinkedIn posts
• Example

Format 3: Wine Tasting Interviews

Finally, 4 creators will go around during the Wine Tasting and ask questions to the attendees about B2B sales. We’ll combine the answers into a 60 seconds or less video, and this format will create the following deliverables:

• 1 short-form video with an edit of the interviews per creator (60 seconds or less)
• Creator who hosted the wine tasting questions does 1 LinkedIn posts with the video
• I’ll do 1 LinkedIn post with the video per slot
• Each slot is sponsored by one brand only
• 1 CTA chosen by the sponsor in the LinkedIn posts
• Example

Part 3: Monetizing the party

Now this sounds fun but this kind of event has a cost. Between the location, the wine tasting, the food, the DJ, and the creator payouts, the bills will rack up fast. Plus I’m not organizing an event to lose money, it’s a business after all.

That’s why I have created 3 packages to work with sponsors:

Package 1: Cooking Show sponsoring

• 1 slot
• Price: $5,500

Package 2: Tactical Interviews Sponsoring

• 5 slots
• Price per slot: $3,500

Package 3: Wine Tasting Interviews

• 4 slots
• Price per slot: $1,500

I’ll also sell tickets for $50 per attendee (except creators and sponsors), so we can all enjoy the wine and the food and have quality time together.

And this is how I’m planning to organize and monetize this sales creator content party. I’ve been speaking to a few potential sponsors and everyone is super excited. This kind of concept fires them up because it’s different, and it’s a great way to stand out in a sea of AI-generated LinkedIn content.

If this party is a success, I’m planning to organize many different concepts all around the world. I already have spots in South of France, central Mexico, and in the US.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. I’m still looking for:

• creators (with audiences mainly in the US)
• sponsors for the event

If that’s you (or if you know someone who would be a fit), please DM me on LinkedIn or send an email to [email protected].

In today’s issue, I’ll share how you can create a dynamic LinkedIn cover to attract prospects on your LinkedIn profile. I’ll show how you can create a carousel by adding up to 5 images that will automatically slide (feature only available to Premium users).

Most salespeople who use LinkedIn for prospecting don’t optimize their covers. They either use the basic templates provided by LinkedIn, or whatever cookie-cutter banner their employer provides for them.

And this has real consequences. Think of your LinkedIn banner as a highway billboard. If you don’t use that precious space, you’re potentially losing opportunities.

Here’s how to fix this, step-by-step:

Step 1: Plan your written content

Before heading out without a plan to Canva, you need to know exactly what message your banner will display. In the recent revamp I did, I knew I wanted to have a carousel banner that would display a few elements:

• a main cover where I’ll repeat my headline
• 3 secondary covers where I’ll highlight 3 concrete problems my prospects have
• 1 free resource mentions for each individual cover

Note that you can add whatever makes the most sense to you. Ideally the main cover has to show how you’re helping your prospects, which I described here. If you choose to add secondary covers, make them about your prospects (mention their problems), or your customers (share testimonials).

Step 2: Create an initial mockup

Now that you have the content of your banner ready, I recommend creating a quick mockup (can be a hand drawing or a Canva) to help you visualize where the elements of the cover need to go. Don’t worry about aligning the text and the visual elements, you’re only doing prep work.

I knew I wanted to have some visual elements in the secondary covers (computer mockups), as well as quotes from the problems my prospects have, and a call-to-action.

Here’s an example of an initial mockup:

In today’s issue, I’ll share how you can create a simple HTML calculator to share with your prospects, without having to know anything about coding or design.

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know I love teasing resources to prospects in my prospecting messages. Instead of pitching a solution, I shine a light on a problem they have, and I tease a partial solution to this problem, asking them to reply so I can send it over.

But for most salespeople, the resources available are limited. They have access to random whitepapers, useless case studies, and boring webinars. That’s why building a quick calculator is a good way to help your prospects identify a missed opportunity, and start a conversation with you.

Here’s how, step-by-step:

Step 1: Brainstorm with Claude AI

Building an HTML calculator is something that sounds scary to most non-technical people. But with Claude AI, you can ask an AI to do it for you. Use the following structure:

• Context: Give context about your situation, and what’s your problem
• Role: Give the AI a specific role
• Task: Give a task to the AI
• Format: Format the way the AI will ask you questions

Here’s the prompt I used to create this calculator.

In today’s issue, I’ll share how I used Claude AI and Fathom Notetaker to create a customer knowledge swipe file.

Most salespeople don’t understand how the product they sell helps their customers, and they keep pitching benefits and features prospects couldn’t care less about.

That’s why customer research is so important. If you don’t know the problems of your customers, your prospecting messages will fall flat, and you won’t generate the pipeline you need to reach your targets.

Here’s how to change that, with AI:

Step 1: Set your tools

You’ll need two (free) tools to create that swipe file. The first one is Claude AI (you can also use ChatGPT if you prefer), and the second one is a call recorder. I personally went for Fathom Notetaker as it’s free, and it does the job. You can use whatever tool your company is providing, like Gong. The call recorder has to have a built in transcript function, otherwise it will be useless.

Disclaimer: You’ll be feeding data from conversations with your customer to an AI, so make sure you have the permission to do so, or you may get in trouble.

Now that both of your tools are ready to use, you need to create a structure to

Step 2: Ask Claude AI to help you structure your swipe file

You need to create a system to help Claude AI go through the data you’re going to feed it. You can give it clear instructions, or ask its help to structure the swipe file.

Here’s the prompt I used:

In today’s issue, I’ll share how you can turn a no into one (or more) meetings. When prospects reply negatively to a prospecting message, most salespeople stop and move on. It’s quite understandable. We don’t want to annoy our prospect, so we focus on the next one, until we get a yes.

In fact, this is what I’ve always suggested to do. I hate when I tell a salesperson I’m not interested, and they keep trying to convince me I’m wrong. But in 2025, outbound prospecting has become so hard, that you can’t afford to give up when you get a no. You’ve worked so hard to get a reply, you need to turn it into something positive.

Last week, I was running a 1:1 coaching call with one of my students, and we developed a simple tactic to turn negative answers into meetings.

Here’s that tactic, step-by-step:

Step 1: Accept the answer and ask for a favor

As humans, we tend to become tensed when people reject us. By acknowledging that and writing a short softening statement, you’ll dial the tension down.

Here’s a softening statement I love using: “Got it, Leslie, no problem with that, I understand that it’s not something you’re focused on right now.”

Now that the tension is gone, you can ask for a quick favor. I love using: “Do you mind if I ask you a quick favor? I won’t take it bad if you refuse 😊 ”

If the prospect isn’t too annoyed about your message, they’ll typically answer.

Step 2: Ask for intros to people from their network

Now that you turned a no into a yes comes the tough part. You need to ask if the prospect would be opposed to checking a list of people they are connected with, and telling you if they’d be comfortable doing an intro. Here’s the message I typically use:

“I’ve been checking who you’re connected with on LinkedIn and I think there are 5 people who could potentially need help with the problem I’m solving with my offering. Would you mind looking at that list and telling me if you’d be opposed to doing a short intro?”

Most people won’t have a problem going through the list and telling you who they are comfortable introducing you to. This switches the focus of your prospecting to other people, and it’s reassuring for your prospects because they know you’re not trying to book a meeting with them anymore.

Step 3: Make it easy for them to say yes

When the prospect comes back with the list of people they are comfortable doing an intro to (some won’t be comfortable doing so), you know you’re on the right path. This is where most salespeople drop the ball. They ask the prospect to send an intro message, and most people are too lazy, so they don’t do it.

Instead, propose to write the introduction message on behalf of the prospect. Here’s how I typically play it:

“Thanks for the list Leslie. Do you mind if I write the introduction message on your behalf and share it with you, so you just have to quickly check it and send it?”

Most people won’t object to that. You’re making their lives simpler. If they accept, use a message like this one:

“John, Thibaut (in cc) reached out me a few days ago to share a few ideas on how I could prevent my reps from getting dispersed when running outbound sequences. It’s not a problem we have, but Thibaut asked my if you’d have this problem. I figured I’d do a quick intro and let you two take it from there.”

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t have any issue sending this to people I know. It’s short, it’s direct, and it’s honest. If I received this email from someone I know, I wouldn’t have any problem taking a call from the salesperson (if I was interested in solving the problem they can help with).

And this is the way you can turn a no into one or more meetings. It takes a bit of practice to get it right, but I can’t encourage you enough to give it a try. If you got a no from an outbound prospecting message, you started a conversation, and you can’t afford not to use this relationship to start more conversations. It’s going to be 100x simpler than trying to contact total strangers.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In today’s issue, I’ll tell you why writing perfectly good prospecting emails and LinkedIn messages is far from enough in 2025 and beyond. We’ve all been in that situation. You found the perfect prospect, they’ve been posting regularly, and you worked extra-hard to write that perfect email.

You hit send, expecting to get an answer, but you get nothing. You follow-up regularly, you add new personalization elements, but nothing seems to work.

Well, you’re not alone. Millions of salespeople are facing the same struggle.

Let’s me show you how you can fix that, step-by-step:

Good copy has become commoditized

I remember when I started outbound prospecting in 2015. I was writing mediocre emails, sent with minimal personalization, to prospects that weren’t always a fit. I was able to book 12 to 17 meetings, with less than 2 hours of daily prospecting. In 2025, this tactic would generate nothing. Not even a reply.

The main reason is that good copy has been commoditized. Open your LinkedIn feed and you’ll see prospecting tips and tactics all over your feed. Every sales rep is using AI to find and duplicate the best-performing copy. As a result, prospects are inundated with tons of outbound messages, most of them being pretty good.

So, what can you do about it?

Step 1: Contact the right people

The best thing you can do to get more replies and book meetings is to contact the right people. Sure, you need to make sure you’re contacting people in your ICP. But you need to contact people who won’t ignore you.

And people who won’t ignore you are people who have already heard about you. For example, I like to contact prospects who have replied to my previous messages, old opportunities that didn’t close, or active customers so I can ask for referrals. If you contact prospects who have already hear about you, you’ll get more replies, and your messages won’t have to be that good.

Obviously, this is more challenging if you’re just getting started in a new job, but it’s a tactic you should not ignore if you’ve been working for a few months in your current company.

Step 2: Use more than one channel

Now that you’re contacting the right people, you need to do it on more than one channel. I see too many salespeople focus on email only, and get no replies. When you use one channel, you reduce your chances of getting replies.

For example, I’m really active on LinkedIn. Most of the conversations people start with me are on LinkedIn. If you contact me by email only, you’ll most likely end up in my spam folder. You won’t even get to me by phone because I have a French phone number that is only active when I’m in Europe (2 months a year max).

Always use at least 2 channels in your prospecting sequences. I’m personally a fan of using LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and email.

Step 3: Stay consistent

Finally, consistency will make or break your whole prospecting strategy. You can write the best messages, contact the right people, and use 4 channels, but you won’t get any results if you don’t stay consistent.

And that’s the hardest part in sales (and life in general).

Consistency (or the lack of it) is the reason most people are not as healthy as they’d like to be, not as successful as they’d like to be, or why they can’t seem to finish what they start.

That’s why you need to build a prospecting routine. This routine will help you focus on your inputs, without worrying too much about your result.

And these are 3 steps you can follow today to start seeing results when prospecting. Contact the right people, use more than one channel, and stick to a consistent prospecting routine. Prospecting isn’t rocket science, it’s all about repeating simple, seemingly unimportant tasks in a systematic way.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In today’s issue, I’ll share what I see as the true price of working remotely. I’m writing this newsletter from a co-working space in Berlin (I live in Mexico normally), and I could be writing it from anywhere, thanks to my remote work setup.

This is one of the many benefits of working remotely. You get to choose how you organize your time, where you work from, and you have more control over your workday.

But all this freedom comes at a price. And you need to know about it if you want to keep living the dream life.

Let’s dive in:

Why working remotely is so interesting

Working remotely sounds like the perfect setup. You avoid rush hours, you save on gas, restaurants, and you can organize your work as you wish. Some companies even reimburse remote office setups. It’s a fantastic work situation if you’re already experienced, and you want to organize your work around life, not the way around.

It’s also liberating to avoid forced social interactions with your colleagues. If you’re an introvert, it drains less of your energy, and it’s a great way to stay focused on the task at hand. There are mostly benefits to working remotely if it’s something you choose (vs being forced to work remotely when you need an office environment to stay focused).

But working remotely comes with a set of problems that you can’t ignore:

Problem 1: You’re giving up job security

Working remotely means working from home for most people. You’re not allowed to work from abroad (or for a very limited time), and your employer is constantly tracking when you log in, and trying to control your work environment.

Real remote work implies working from where you want, when you want. In a lot of cases, this type of setup means you have to give up your employee status (and all the benefits that come with it) to become a contractor. Concretely, you’re giving up job security and you’re employer becomes a customer.

To me, this is the definition of freedom, but it’s a stressful situation to be in for most people.

Problem 2: You’re on your own

Working remotely means being physically alone. No water cooler discussion, no office gossip, no lunch with your colleagues. If you ask me, that’s paradise. But it’s hell for a lot of people. Humans need social interactions, and Slack messages or Zoom meetings don’t replace the physical need we have to be around other people.

Career progression also suffers when working remotely. Being in an office with your colleagues helps create political soft power. You get to spend time with people who can impact your career, and a lot of this soft power is built unconsciously, through daily interactions with your colleagues.

Problem 3: You can never really go back to working in office

The last big problem I see with working remotely is that you can’t really go back into working in an office every day if you’ve been used to a remote role. I’ve met a lot of salespeople who worked fully remotely for years, before being laid-off and having to accept roles that were a 100% in office.

All of them are miserable. They had built a life in their own terms, but were forced back into a way of working that completely clashed with their view of life.

All of them are in existential crisis.

They need the job because they have to pay the bills, but they hate their lives. A lot of my friends live in Germany, and they work for a year, reload their unemployment benefits, and stop working for a year, before starting the cycle again.

And they are DEPRESSED.

That’s why I came up with an idea. I’m planning a retreat in Mexico for remote salespeople who are in an existential crisis. If that’s you, please join the waitlist and reply to the follow-up email, I want to talk to you.

And this is the true price of working remotely. You get to live the dream life, but it can get taken away at any time, and you have no control over it. One day you’re making 6-figures working from wherever you want, the day after you get laid off, with two weeks severance.

There has to be a better way.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In today’s issue, I’ll share why I think AI can (almost) entirely replace working in an office environment for remote salespeople.

I remember when I started my tech sales career, I was 24 and I had just moved to Berlin. It was back in 2015, and we were working 100% in an office. At the time, I loved it because I barely knew anything about sales, and being around my colleagues was the best way for me to learn. From running discovery calls, to listening to my colleagues close Enterprise deals, I was able to enjoy the Collective Brain of the office.

Now, imagine working remotely. You’re by yourself in your home office, Slack notifications going off every 10 seconds, and when you join your team meetings on Zoom, almost all cameras are off, and all of your colleagues are muted. You have no chance to learn from the Collective Brain of the office.

Let me show you how to solve that with AI:

The big problem with remote sales

Here’s a story for you.

My big brother used to work in the hospitality sector for 10 years before becoming an SDR for a remote tech company. He’s one of the hardest working person I know. He’s organized, he knows how to structure his day, and he is self-motivated. But he stayed in tech sales for 9 months only.

The main reason?

He felt lonely. He wasn’t able to feed of the energy of his colleagues, and he failed because he didn’t have access to the Collective Brain.

And that’s the main problem with working remotely. You don’t have any real human interaction, and it’s hard to learn anything from your colleagues when their cameras are off and their mics are on mute.

But you can solve a part of this problem with AI, here’s how:

Step 1: Explain your problem

I refer to the Collective Brain as the spontaneous knowledge that is created when groups of people work together in the same physical environment. Think about the last time you were at a team meeting, a party with friends, or simply with your family. There’s something special, some kind of energy and knowledge that is created, spontaneously.

You can use AI (ChatGPT or Claude) to emulate that knowledge, and solve problems. A good way to explain a problem is to follow this 4-step framework:

• Context: Give context about your situation, and what’s your problem
• Role: Give the AI a specific role
• Task: Give a task to the AI
• Format: Format the way the AI will ask you questions

Here’s an example I used, to help me close and important Enterprise deal at the end of the quarter: