Hi there, it’s Thibaut.

Welcome to the Remote Sales Playbook.

In this newsletter, I primarily cover:

• How to create solid prospecting systems and routines (that get your 30%+ reply rates)
• Concrete tactics to qualify deals, close them faster, while wasting less time with unqualified prospects
• Tips, tactics, and strategies to help you work when, where, and how you want (as a remote salesperson)

But I’ve been writing this newsletter for a while now, over 3 years!

And I want to make it as easy as possible for you to find issues that are most relevant to you.

So, here are some of my favorite issues… organized by topic.

How to create solid prospecting systems and routines (that get your 30%+ reply rates)

The topic I probably write about this most is prospecting.

So, if you’re looking to finally get prospects to pay attention to your messages and/or reach your prospecting targets I’d start here:

• How many prospects you should contact every day: A simple formula to find out how many prospects to contact daily if you want to reach your targets.
• How I booked 12 meetings with this simple LinkedIn connection request: A killer connection request template for LinkedIn.
• 5 steps to building your prospecting routine: A playbook to make sure you prospect the right way.

Concrete tactics to qualify deals, close them faster, while wasting less time with unqualified prospects

Another topic I write about frequently is closing. How to turn a stranger into a customer.

So, if you’re looking to stop wasting time on tire kickers and/or reach your sales targets, I’d start here:

• 3 simple questions to ask to close a deal: A qualification framework I love using to know if I’m talking to people who are serious about a deal.
• 3 steps to close a deal today: A tactic I use all the time to get people to commit to a deal and sign it on the same day.
• 3 steps to fix your pipeline: A methodology I use to clean up my pipeline and make sure I’m investing my efforts with the right prospects.

Tips, tactics, and strategies to help you work when, where, and how you want (as a remote salesperson)

Finally, a personal favorite topic of mine is independence. I love sharing tips to help salespeople diversify their income streams, and get more freedom.

So, if you’re looking to start building a life in your own terms and/or diversify your income, I’d start here:

• If you’re a remote salesperson, you need to read this: A must-read if you’re working remotely and got used to setting your own rules.
• 5 side gigs you can land right now: 5 concrete ideas to start working for yourself on the side.
• How to avoid burning out as a remote salesperson: A simple resource to help you organize your time (and set boundaries) when working remotely.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share my updated LinkedIn Connection Request Guide. LinkedIn connection requests are incredibly powerful for salespeople when used the right way. But most are using them to pitch slap their prospects, and they miss an opportunity to start real conversations.

Here’s how you can solve that, step-by-step:

Step 1: Optimize your LinkedIn profile

Before sending a connection request, you need to make sure your LinkedIn profile is optimized for prospecting. A lot of profiles look like trophy shelves, or provide zero information on how they can help prospects solve important problems.

Here’s what you need:

• A professional profile picture (use Secta to create one with AI)
• A clear headline (what you do, who you help, what’s the outcome of working with you)
• A catchy LinkedIn banner (this guy did mine)
• An optimized featured section (a free resource to help prospects + link to your calendar link)

Don’t miss this detailed guide to optimizing your LinkedIn profile.

Step 2: Understand the connection request process

Most people use LinkedIn on their mobile phones. There’s just one problem; 99% of salespeople prospect with their computers. Here’s what your connection requests look like on both formats:

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share what you should be focusing on as you restart your prospecting in 2025. If you took some time off (I did), you most likely stopped sending prospecting messages to your prospects, and restarting can be a struggle.

The struggle is even harder in 2025, as outbound results have massively dropped in 2024. Here are 3 steps to help you restart and focus on what you can.

Step 1: Optimize for open rate and connection requests

Most salespeople have the wrong expectations when it comes to prospecting. They think they can send a few emails here and there, and they’ll be able to book meetings quickly. That cannot be farther from the truth, especially when you stopped reaching out for a few weeks.

When restarting your prospecting, the most important is to focus on leading indicators of success. Here are two you can’t ignore:

• Email Open Rate: This indicator shows how your domain is performing, and the quality of your subject line. If it’s low, you may have an issue with your domain (check Maildoso to fix it), or your subject lines suck (fix it here).
• Connection Requests Acceptance Rate: When working with LinkedIn, the first thing to focus on is your connection requests. If your requests aren’t accepted, you won’t be able to keep prospecting that person on LinkedIn. You can fix your connection requests here.

Run your sequence for 2 weeks to get enough data before moving on to step 2.

Step 2: Optimize for replies

When your email open rates and LinkedIn connection requests acceptance rate are at an acceptable level, you know your prospecting does its first job: get the attention of your prospects.

But attention isn’t enough to book meetings, you need to get replies. Most salespeople write their prospecting messages with the goal of booking a meeting, or closing a deal. That’s the biggest mistake I keep seeing, customer after customer.

You can fix this by working on your messaging, and making it intriguing so people reply to learn more. I call that The Netflix Effect, and your goal is to get prospects to reply to solve a specific problem, with a specific solution. Go check my Prospecting Template Swipe File if you want concrete examples.

Run your updated sequence for 2 weeks to get enough data before moving on to step 3.

Step 3: Optimize for meetings

When your sequence generates replies, you’ve done the hardest part. Now you can start working on turning these replies into meetings. Unlike what most people think, meetings aren’t booked in your prospecting messages, but in the conversations you’re running.

You need to navigate the conversation to turn it into a meeting. Here’s how it’s done:

• Step 1: Use a problem question
• Step 2: Tease a reciprocity resource
• Step 3: Ask for feedback
• Step 4: Use a negative-reversing question
• Step 5: Drop a meeting link

You can check my detailed guide to get more details on turning replies into meetings.

And these are the 3 steps I recommend you follow as you’re restarting your prospecting in 2025. Keep in mind that your month of January won’t be representative of the rest of 2025, as you’re ramping up your prospecting.

And if you need a concrete system to help you do just that, go check my Prospecting Engine (it’s 25% off until Friday the 10th of January).

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share my retrospective on 2024, what worked, and what didn’t. This will be more personal than other newsletters, but I promise I’ll get back to more sales-oriented newsletter after this one.

Let’s dive in:

Q1: Business as usual

Q1 2024 was quite similar to most Q1s since I started working for myself. I launched The Prospecting Engine. With 65 customers and around $20,000 in sales, I was pretty happy about the results.

I also ran a few sponsored posts, and trained a few sales teams with the content of The Prospecting Engine. In terms of revenues, the first quarter was pretty similar to most other first quarters.

Q2: Darkness

At the beginning of Q2, we went back to France after spending 3 months in Mexico. My wife was pregnant of 6 months, and everything was all right. That was until we went for the third trimester echography, right before our flight back to France.

We discovered that our daughter had a life-threatening malformation, which made it impossible for her to live.

We lost our baby.

This was the worst time of my life. From April to June, my wife and I fell into a dark hole, and our lives were completely turned upside down. We kept working to numb the pain, but it was impossible to function normally in these few weeks after loosing our baby.

If you’re ever in this situation (or was), and you need to talk to someone, please reach out, you’re not alone.

Q3: Doubt

As a result of these tough 3 months, I wasn’t able to create quality content like I used to. Couple that with the summer, an algorithm change, and my LinkedIn performance tanked. I went from having 50+ reactions on my posts to 2, 3 reactions.

It was hard.

But I started recording videos for LinkedIn, worked on my copywriting, and my post engagement came back to a normal level. I also noticed that my engagement fell, but I was still able to turn conversations into revenues (coaching, online courses, sponsoring, etc.).

I also worked really hard on a course called Close Your First Side Gig. I set up a segmentation survey on my website, I ran interviews with salespeople who wanted to work for themselves, and I created a waitlist.

This launch was a flop. I made less than $600.

Q4: Rebuilding

Q4 was much better than the rest of the year. My wife became pregnant again (we’re having a boy in May 2025), and we moved to Mexico. We decided to leave France because our life there wasn’t nearly as fun an interesting as what we’re building in Mexico. We’ve been there for 3 months and we’ve experienced more than in two years in France.

I have also launched a 1:1 coaching subscription where my customers and I work together for 1 hour per week, while having unlimited WhatsApp access to me.

Another great success of 2024 has been the revenue I was able to generate for affiliate partners. In total I generated over $96,000 of revenues for my partners in less than a year. If you want to discuss how we can do this together, go check my sponsor page. I’m looking for long term sponsors for my newsletter and a new show I’m launching next year.

In conclusion, 2024 was the worst year of my life. My wife and I have been through hell, and our professional lives have suffered immensely. 2024 has also been the worst year in terms of revenues since I started my business in 2018. But in all that darkness, it was a year of learnings, transition, and resilience.

I have learned that nothing is constant, and you need to keep reinventing yourself if you want to keep paying your bills. I’m now more grateful for what I have, and I cherish every moment I get to spend with people I love, while building my business.

Happy New Year to you and your family!

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share the exact system I’m using to restart my prospecting as I’m back from the holiday break. If you can replicate these steps, you’ll already be ahead of your fellow sales reps, as they are emerging from the holiday season without a plan.

Here’s how, step-by-step:

Step 1: Define your ICP and their problems

Start by building your ICP matrix. The ICP matrix is composed of your Ideal Customer Company (ICC) in columns, and your Ideal Customer Title (ICT) in rows. Your ICC is the type of company you’d like to go after, and the ICT is the type of job title you’d like to go for.

When your ICP matrix is done, focus on understanding the problems of your prospects. If you need to go further, I recommend checking the Cold Message System.

Step 2: Find where they hang out

Humans are social creatures, and they typically hang out with other humans who have the same interests. Nowadays, they mostly do it online, on social networks.

For most salespeople, LinkedIn is a great place to find prospects, and identify triggers to help them start conversations.

I recommend following these 4 steps to identify where your prospects hang out, and create personalized messages at scale.

Step 3: Enrich data

Now that you know where to find your prospects, you need to find the correct emails and phone numbers of your prospects, on top of their LinkedIn profiles. You can use the Kaspr extension to do so (+ you’ll get 25 free mobile credits when you sign up with my link).

Step 4: Build a problem centric sequence

You now have all the information you need to start reaching out to your prospects. Before doing so, you need to build a sequence to maximize your reply rate. I did a quick video to help you create a sequence from scratch, with ChatGPT.

When the sequence is ready, you’ll need to use messages that stand out from the hundreds of outbound touchpoints your prospects have to deal with. Here’s a collection of top-performing templates.

Step 5: Restart your daily prospecting routine

All these steps will result in nothing if you don’t create a daily prospecting habit. This step is by far the most challenging, since humans have a hard time building and keeping healthy habits.

I recommend doing the following:

• Step 1: Identify the time when you’re the most productive
• Step 2: Put a recurring blocker of 60 minutes
• Step 3: Follow the steps in this short guide
• Step 4: Repeat until it becomes a habit (at least 21 consecutive days)

You can also try my Prospecting Engine if you need a more in-depth guide.

And these are the 5 steps I am currently following to restart my prospecting for 2025. Here’s a quick video example I did last year if you want to learn more.

 If you follow these 5 steps, you’ll be in good position to grab your prospects’ attention, engage them in conversations, and book meetings with people who are trying to solve a problem you can help with.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut

Today’s newsletter is a bit different. It’s almost the end of the year and I thought I’d share a quick update I’m really excited about. A few weeks ago, I stumbled on a post from Justin Welsh, where he shared his Intro link.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share a simple tool to help reduce the risk of burning out when working as a remote salesperson. 2024 hasn’t been easy, especially for remote salespeople. Around 2/3 of salespeople are expected to miss their sales targets this year, adding a lot of pressure to their lives.

We’ve all been there. You wake up one day, and you instantly start getting anxious. You know you have a ton of things to do, but you have no clue how you’re going to do them when there are so few hours in the day. Even worse, you know that your to-do list is growing bigger every day.

You start your day with this dark cloud over your head. You can’t stop thinking of what have to do, which makes you less present and more anxious. I know about it because I experienced it when we moved to Mexico in September.

This is where a Mind Sweep will help. A Mind Sweep is a simple exercise I discovered when I purchased Notion Mastery, a few years ago.

Here’s how it’s done, step-by-step:

Step 1: Capture your thoughts

Start by writing down all of your thoughts. You don’t need to get them structured, or prioritized. Just list everything you have on your mind. It can be professional or personal. It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re capturing it.

I don’t know about you, but I often get stressed or anxious because I know I need to do something, but I’m afraid I’ll forget to do it. Something simple like paying the electric bill, or following up with a customer. I know I need to do it, but if I don’t write it down, or act on it, I start worrying.

As the day goes by, I feel anxious, but I forget why I’m anxious. I spend more time thinking of why I’m anxious, and I can’t remember why. Then I become angry, stressed, and soon enough, I’m unbearable.

By capturing your thoughts, you go from worrying about what you have to do, to knowing that your thoughts are captured, and you just need to go back to your mind sweep to see what you have to do.

Here’s an example from my Mind Sweep for Sales:

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share a useful prioritization framework if you have to deal with inbound leads. It comes from a 1:1 coaching session we did with a customer who is dealing with an important flow of inbound leads.

It may come as a surprise, but inbound leads aren’t always worth pursuing. This framework will help you understand where to put your effort.

Here’s how, step-by-step:

Step 1: Score your leads

Before contacting a lead, you need to give it a score. A score is related to the behavior of your lead. Everything from website visits, webinar signup, demo request, and so on.

There are countless intent-signals and triggers you can use to score a lead. For example, your marketing team may send you unprioritized leads lists with details about their activity. A lead who signed up for a webinar 3 months ago has a low score. They most likely aren’t in the market for your solution.

On the contrary, a lead who visited your website 10 times in the last week, downloaded more than 3 resources, and has been viewing the pricing page a few times has a high score.

Step 2: Grade your leads

Second dimension of our matrix is the grade of a lead. The grade has to do with the profile of the lead. Look at the firmographic and demographic data about the lead. What company are they working for, what’s their job title, have they recently switched jobs?

All this data will give you a good understanding of the quality of the lead. For example, an intern at a shady company on the other side of the world has a low grade. On the contrary, the CRO of a multi-million dollar tech company has an excellent grade (if you’re selling to this type of people).

You can build an ICP Matrix if you want to have a benchmark to help you grade leads.

Step 3: Prioritize your leads

Meet the Inbound Lead Prioritization Matrix

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share a simple tactic you can use if you want to book meetings at in-person events. Q4 is usually jam-packed with trade shows and events. Marketing teams spend a ton of money to get a booth, yet most sales reps don’t maximize these events for pipeline.

The system I’m about to share is one that a sales rep I coach has been using successfully at Web Summit to book 8 meetings. He even managed to close two deals, while he was at the event.

Step 1: Build your profile in the event app

When you go to an event, there’s usually an app to help the attendees get to the location, understand the schedule, and communicate with other attendees. Most salespeople sleep on the opportunity to use this app to book meetings.

Instead of just using the app to plan your event, take some time to build your profile. It’s usually similar to a LinkedIn profile, with a picture, a headline, a bio, and a a few options to get in touch with you. Get all these elements right. You can apply the concepts in this free guide to help you.

Step 2: Build your list of prospects

Now that your profile is ready, you can start building a list of prospects to contact. Just like any other list, start by updating your Ideal Customer Profile. Find the types of companies you’d like to contact, and find the ATL and the BTL you’d like to start conversations with.

When this is done, you don’t have any excuse to start prospecting. You have a list of people who will be in the same room as you (even if it’s a big one), so you can get to work.

Step 3: Send a short, direct message

This is where most people who use the event app make a mistake. They craft a cookie-cutter message and they send it to everyone. They pitch their company, and ask for a meeting at the event.

Stop that immediately.

Instead, write a short, direct message. Something like: “FirstName, when can I come to see you at your booth?”.

You’d be surprised. The rep I’ve been coaching for that event was able to book 8 meetings. He did his homework, he built his profile in the app, he created a list of prospects, and he sent them this message.

As a result, he was able to get a 30%+ reply rate, he was able to start conversations, and he navigated them to book meetings.

Step 4: Meet at the event

I’ve been to a few trade shows myself, and I wasn’t prepared as I should be. I was wandering around, looking for people to approach, without meetings lined up. I ended up collecting a few business cards here and there, with almost no opportunities generated.

That was back when I was starting my career as a sales rep. Luckily, my coaching customer didn’t do the same.

With all the meetings lined up, he showed up to booths at Web Summit, had a ton of conversations, and he was even able to close two deals, while being at the event.

He didn’t approach people to pitch his product, instead he tried to understand their plans for the rest of the year and for 2025. Conversations flowed naturally, he was able to find problems, quantify them, and craft a solution with his customers.

And this is how you can book meetings at in-person events. Use the event app, build lead lists, send them a short, direct message, and have natural conversations with them at the event. This will help you maximize the opportunities from events, so try it next time you’re at one.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. If you’re interested in getting coached individually like my customer, I’m opening a few coaching slots. Right now, I’m working on a weekly 1:1 coaching, unlimited WhatsApp async conversations, and custom projects when necessary. I charge €600 per month or €1.500 for 3 months, cancel any time. If that’s interesting to you, you can book a quick chat so we can see if we’re a fit.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share how you can organize your day as a remote salesperson. When working remotely, self-discipline is critical. If you can’t stay organized, you’ll spend your day procrastinating, and your results will immediately suffer.

Good remote sales jobs are hard to come by, but they still exist. If you want to find or keep a good remote position, you need a system to understand what to focus on to be successful in your professional and personal life.

Here’s mine, step-by-step:

Step 1: List your projects and tasks

Selling remotely isn’t just about running discovery calls and sending Docusigns. There are tons of different projects and tasks you need to execute to make sure you perform. There are also tons of projects and tasks that won’t help you.

The first thing you need to do is to list the projects and the tasks related, so you can have an idea of the ones that are important.

Let me give you an example. We recently moved to Mexico with my wife and my son, and the first few weeks have been super hectic. Between the move, furnishing the house, and starting new businesses, I kept getting behind my work, so I decided to list the projects and tasks that were important to make sure I could keep selling. Here are 3 projects I worked on:

Restart prospecting routine

• Define daily ritual
• Catch up on follow-ups
• Add new daily prospecting blocker

Revamp content strategy

• Review top-performing content
• Build video recording studio
• Add new content planning and building blockers

Launch weekly mentoring offering – Send me “Mentoring” on WhatsApp if you’re interested

• Survey newsletter subscribers
• Prospect existing customers
• Build mentoring packages

Step 2: Do an audit of your day

Now that you know what projects you need to focus on, you can start auditing your day. It’s often the last thing you’ll want to do when you’re busy, but I guarantee it will help you get more clarity and reduce the stress related to your work.

To audit your day, write down everything you’re doing in a given day (you can do more than one day to get a better view of what you’re working on). Do include all the personal tasks that fill your day. If you’re working remotely, your personal and professional life will often blend. For example, here was a typical weekday for me, before reorganizing my day:

• Wake up and take calls, catch up on messages before my son wakes up (15 min max)
• Comment and catch up on my LinkedIn post while preparing breakfast for my son
• Bring my son to his kindergarten
• Clean up the kitchen, take a shower
• Go back to working (it’s already 10AM by the time I get started)
• Go down to grab a coffee
• Work a bit
• Eat lunch
• Try to work and realize I’m too tired
• Take a nap instead

When you do this, you start seeing patterns and realize how much time you’re wasting by switching tasks. In my case, I realized that:

• I was working 2 hours max, because I kept getting interrupted
• I was not present for my son when he was waking up
• I would do sport irregularly
• After 2PM, I’d be so drained by the constant task switching that I wouldn’t be able to get back to work

I was basically letting my work permeate into my personal life, making both less enjoyable.

Step 3: Reorganize your day

With this audit, I had a clear vision of what was wrong. I understood why I felt like there wasn’t enough hours in my day. That’s when I made a few changes that have drastically improved my efficiency and the pleasure I took from working from home.

Here’s how my day looks like now: