JumpLead
A JumpLead playbook · 2026
The New Business Playbook
By Joe Stone and Chris May, co-founders of JumpLead
ChaptersJump to a chapter
- Cold email: high volume, high relevance
- The cold call script, word for word
- LinkedIn DMs: peer to peer, never pitch
- Claude prompts: five first jobs worth doing
- The scoreboard, read honestly
- Three channels, each to its strengths
- Staying legal in the UK
- The week that keeps it running
- Where we disagree
- If you’d rather we ran it
Chapter 01Cold email
High volume, high relevance.
Unlike LinkedIn, where we keep to about 200 connection requests a week, with cold email you can go into the thousands if you want to. It’s a numbers game, but that doesn’t mean you can detach from quality.
We get our best return when we focus on a specific event or moment that’s coming up, like a webinar or a conference. It gives you somewhere to focus your attention, and a reason to reach out. One of our best campaigns was for a client with a conference coming up: we did lots of pre-work, then cold emailed the people we felt fitted his ICP.
Early on, longer emails outlining our full service got buried. Response rates jumped the moment we stripped the copy down to under 60 words. In a separate campaign in September 2026, that structure booked five new business meetings from cold email alone, in a single day, for one of our clients.
When an email reads like a sales deck, prospects delete it to protect their calendar. When it is three or four lines highlighting one specific operational headache and asking a simple question, they reply.
- To
- [first name]@[company]
- Subject
- [Three or four words about them]
Hi [first name],
[The pain: one operational headache people in their role keep telling you about.]
[A result you’ve had with your business, or for someone you’ve worked with.]
Is this something you’d be curious about?
[Your name]
Three sentences · under 60 words · one question
Ideally, three sentences:
- The pain.
- Maybe a result you’ve had with your business, or for someone you’ve worked with.
- A call to action that isn’t “book a meeting”. Just ask for their curiosity: is this something you’d be curious about?
That’s been our best return.
When it’s completely cold, keep the focus on the pain, and only use personalisation if it’s good personalisation. Go into your inbox now and you’ll probably see loads of emails that just don’t hit the mark. If you’re going to personalise, really think about it, and look at a tool like Claude to dig a bit deeper. We’ve also been testing Lavender, which helps us score our emails.
Chris’s takeUnderstand not just their industry, not just their pain, not just their function, but the size of the business and how it affects them in their role. How it might affect them individually and personally. Whatever you’re selling is a fix for a problem that exists for the business, but also for them personally.
The foundation
Your email
Relevance over forced personalisation
If the insight doesn’t tie directly to their headache, leave it out.
Clean, bounce-verified lists
Checked before anything sends.
Mailbox warm-up
New inboxes earn their volume slowly.
Secondary domains
To protect your core domain’s reputation.
One of the most important things in cold email, and one of the places we make a big difference for a client, is your lists. Make sure they don’t have high bounce rates. There’s a lot of admin and manual work in it. There’s some great software these days to help, but one small mistake can cost you.
The companion guideThe Cold Email PlaybookThe 2026 inbox rules, sending domains, UK law for B2B email, the list, the follow-ups and what to measure.Chapter 02Cold calling
The cold call script, word for word.
Credit where it’s due
I’ve done cold calling for years, but it’s always good to refresh. Talking through best practice with Sunny Raval, a cold-calling specialist who runs 27 Seconds Solutions, has shaped how I call today. What follows is how we do it, in our own words. If you want to get properly good on the phone, connect with Sunny on LinkedIn.
I had not cold called in nearly three years, due to a narrow ICP in my previous role. I picked the phone back up in August using a parallel dialler, and in the first three weeks it booked six new business meetings.
In August I was scared to pick up the phone. 15 years in B2B sales, and I was still scared of a phone. What got me moving again was not courage. It was a call sheet I keep open on my screen.
I believe it’s the most effective way to get meetings. It just takes practice, and you have to detach from the outcome. Rejection isn’t personal, even when it feels like it.
Chris taught me this years ago, when he was my manager. He stopped me chasing a daily dial count just to hit my KPIs, and got me focused on useful conversations. Which, ironically, led to more dials. Better ones.
My cold call script
The script I use on the phone, word for word: the open, the commercial, the questions, the close, the objections I hear most and the voicemail.
The open
[Their first name]?
Wait for them to answer.
Hi [their first name], it’s Joe Stone from JumpLead. We’ve not spoken before.
I’ll be straight with you, this is a sales call. You can hang up now, or give me thirty seconds and then decide. Your call.
Stop talking. Say nothing until they do.
If they say go on, or laugh, or sigh
Go to 2.
If they say not interested
Go to the objections.
Underlined: your bits, once you fill them in.
The commercial
So, reason for the call. I spend my time with founders running B2B software businesses, ten to fifty people, product’s landed, customers are happy.
The frustration I keep hearing is that sales still runs through them. They’re the best salesperson in the business, so every deal that matters ends up back on their desk, and the pipeline goes quiet the week they’re heads down on anything else.
Others tell me they’ve hired into it, a salesperson or two, but there was no system to hand over, so the new person’s out there improvising and it’s taking a lot longer to come good than anyone budgeted for.
And a few say they’ve had a go at outbound, or paid someone else to, and it either fizzled out after a month or went out so generic it did more harm than good.
But you might tell me none of that lands and everything’s running perfectly, in which case I’ll leave you alone.
Stop talking. Let them pick one.
If they pick one
Go to 3.
If they say none of that
Fair enough. Out of interest, what is the thing that’s actually in the way at the minute?
If they give you something real, go to 3. If they’ve got nothing, thank them and get off. That’s a win.
Underlined: your bits, once you fill them in.
The grinder
Ask all seven. In order. Do not rush. Do not fill silences.
Which of those is closest to the mark for you?
What does that actually look like week to week? When did it last bite you?
How long has it been like that?
Roughly what’s that worth? The deals that slipped this year, what would they have been?
I’m guessing you’ve had a go at fixing it. What have you tried?
And if it’s still like this in twelve months, what does that mean for the business?
So let me make sure I’ve got this. [X] has been going on for [Y]. It’s costing you somewhere around [Z]. You tried [A] and it didn’t hold. How does that sit with you?
Then the gate
Last one. Have you given up trying to fix it?
If yes, and they mean it
Honestly, that’s fair. Sounds like it’s not the fight worth having right now. I’ll leave you to it.
Do not book them.
If they push back or go vague on the numbers
Are you any good at what you do?
Tell me about your sales process. Of every five you get in front of, how many close?
Right. So what happens to the other four?
Why do they fall by the wayside? Should they not have had the same problem as the one who became a client?
What were they even doing in your pipeline?
Go hard here. It’s uncomfortable. Do it anyway.
The close
Right. On what you’ve just told me, does it make sense for us to put half an hour in and go through where your pipeline’s actually leaking? It’s not a pitch. You’d get the read whether you end up using us or not.
Wait for the yes. Then, and only then:
Good. I’ve got Thursday morning or Tuesday afternoon. Which is easier?
Confirm: day, time, thirty minutes.
What’s the best email? Let me read that back to you.
Invite’s coming over in the next five minutes. If it doesn’t land, ring me straight back on this number.
Send it while you’re still on the phone.
If they ask for a demo or a meeting too early
Happy to. Though I don’t book these in willy nilly when I’m not even sure we’re right for you. Can I ask you a couple of quick questions first, and if we’re not a fit we’ll just leave it there?
Back to 3.
Underlined: your bits, once you fill them in.
The objections
Rule: Never answer the question. Reverse it.
That’s a good question. You might have to help me out a bit before I answer it.
“Send me an email”
Say
I might be misreading this, but usually when someone asks me to send something over it’s a polite way of saying no, which is completely fine. Is that what’s happening here?
Or
So I don’t waste your time sending something irrelevant, can I ask you two quick questions first?
“Not interested”
Say
That’s fine. Before we hang up, is it because you’re happy with how things are, my timing’s off, or this just isn’t relevant to you?
Then: Take the answer at face value, then follow that thread.
“What do you do?” / “What’s this about?”
Say
Happy to get into it. Can I ask you one thing first so I’m not describing something that’s got nothing to do with you?
“We already have someone” / “We do this already”
Say
Makes sense. Are they doing the building of it, or the running of it day to day?
Or
Out of curiosity, how are they handling the follow up when someone doesn’t reply?
“We’ve tried people like you before”
Say
Yeah, I hear that a lot. What went wrong last time?
Then: Shut up and listen properly. Their answer is the whole conversation.
“No budget”
Say
Understood. Is it that there’s genuinely nothing, or that this just isn’t top of the list right now?
“I’m busy” / “Bad time”
Say
No worries, I’ll be quick. Thirty seconds now, or is later today better?
The rule: Never offer to “call back another time”. Get a named time or nothing.
“I don’t take sales calls”
Say
Completely fair. I did tell you it was one, so at least I’m consistent. Give me the thirty seconds and if it’s nothing, you’ll never hear from me again.
“What’s it going to cost?”
Say
Happy to come to that. Can I ask what’s made price the first thing you want to know?
Then: Back to their problem. I don’t give a number on a cold call.
The voicemail
Max two ever, under 25 seconds.
[Their first name], it’s Joe Stone at JumpLead, [your number]. I work with founders running B2B software businesses where sales still runs through them. That’s the reason for the call. I’ll follow up by email so you’ve got it in writing. [Number] again if that’s easier.
Then email within minutes. Then look at their LinkedIn. No pitch in either.
Make it yoursMy cold call scriptSwap in your own product and pains, and keep a copy.Do not dial looking for a meeting. Dial to learn about their reality and start a relationship.
Cold calling is really important if you treat it the right way. Don’t treat it as a way of guaranteeing meetings. Treat it as market research, with the potential to book a meeting at the end.
The parallel dialler
The script handles the craft. The volume comes from a parallel dialler. I use Trellus and I’d recommend it. I prefer three lines at once rather than five. It syncs with our CRM and works through Chrome.
More dials only help if the first thirty seconds are good, which is why the script comes first.
Full disclosure: I get free access to Trellus on the basis that I share my usage once a month, whether I like it or not. I can say without doubt I love it, would highly recommend it and would definitely pay for it.
Three lines, one caller
- Line 1Stops ringing
- Line 2Answered: to Joe
- Line 3Stops ringing
A parallel dialler rings more than one number at a time, so Ofcom’s rules on abandoned and silent calls apply. They’re in the next chapter, with the rest of the UK rules.
When I call
My personal preference is Tuesdays and Thursdays, morning and afternoon. I see Mondays and Fridays as no-gos, though that could be an opportunity for someone else, as there might be lots of people who think the same.
One day in August I woke up and considered sacking it off. So I sat down and dialled. Some good conversations, no meeting booked. On paper, that looks like a bad day. In reality, it pulled me out of the slump. The act of doing the work changed how I felt about the work.
Further readingIs cold calling legal in the UK?The TPS and CTPS, sole traders, caller ID, and the 2026 fines, in full.Chapter 03LinkedIn DMs
Peer to peer, never pitch.
Before we ramped cold calls, this was our most consistent outbound channel. In five months, from April to September 2026, it booked us 20 or more meetings, and around 38% of our connection requests were accepted.
Most LinkedIn outreach fails because of the “pitch slap”: connecting and instantly dumping a calendar link. We take the opposite route.
No pitch in the connection request. No pitch in the first message. No pitch at all, really, unless someone asked. We’d ask questions that were useful to them, not to us. “How are you finding hiring for that role?” Not “Would you like help with your pipeline?” No playbook. No set sequence. Just showing up like a normal person.
How we run it now
We did start with a sequence of sorts, but we felt they just don’t work. Now we send a connection request, and within a few days we follow up with a quick hello that refers to our content. Chris and I both post most days of the week, and we’ve started our I Love Sales newsletter, so we’ll mention that, but we never try to pitch in a DM. We just use DMs as a way to say hello.
We average around 38% of connection requests accepted (April to September 2026), and that comes from personalising them. Some people prefer to send a blank request, but we’ve had good success with a personalised note. We take into account what type of person it is: the founder of a business of 1 to 10 people gets a very different connection request from someone at a company of 50 to 100. We don’t just target one type of person, and we keep track of it.
Joe Stone, Connection request, with a note
Hi [first name], noticed your work as [role] at [company]. I’ve spent 15 years in B2B sales and like comparing notes with people in roles like yours. Open to connecting?
- [First name] accepted your invitation
Joe Stone, A few days later
Good to connect, [first name]. Building [company] lean usually means new business gets squeezed in around everything else. Does that ring true? I share my love of sales on here, hope you find my content useful.
Voice note from the LinkedIn app: under 45 seconds, using their name
Chris May, His version of the same hello
Good to connect, [first name]. No pitch coming. Running [company] usually means the desk eats the week and client BD gets whatever is left, so I share the odd useful thing on that here.
The rule
Never pitch in a DM. Use it to say hello.
Voice notes
Once someone accepts, we often send a personalised one-to-one voice note. It takes 30 to 45 seconds, proves you are a real human who looked at their profile, and opens a relaxed dialogue.
We get really good traction from voice notes. We set a reminder to do them a few times a week, and they’re never longer than about 45 seconds. They touch on a pain we think might be relatable. It’s very soft: not an invitation for a coffee, just “does this relate?”, plus a mention that we post lots of content about sales. It’s been a really nice way to break the ice.
Chris’s takeThere’s a natural scepticism about automation and automated messages, and a voice note humanises that process. It’s a proof point: there’s an authenticity to it, a reality. The person who connected with you actually exists, with a real voice and personality. Use their name too, so it’s clear it was done for them.
You can even say it in the voice note: I just want to let you know I’m a real person. There’s so much AI out there now. Rather than see that as a challenge, use it as an advantage, and be the person who stands out with good-quality outreach.
So many people just aren’t doing this, so it can make you stand out. We’d highly recommend giving voice notes, or even videos, a go as part of your outreach. The best way to get good at them is to be consistent, so allocate time slots. We block out 9:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and each do 10 to 15 voice notes. It takes 10 to 15 minutes, and then we get on with our day.
Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30
10 to 15 each, about 10 to 15 minutes
- LinkedIn app only
- 1st-degree connections
- Under 45 seconds (LinkedIn allows a minute)
The bit nobody talks about is how long that takes. Weeks of conversations that go nowhere obvious. Months of being useful without any return. That’s where most people drop off. They do it for a fortnight, nothing happens, and they go back to blasting pitch decks into DMs.
The companion guideThe LinkedIn Outreach PlaybookLinkedIn’s 2026 rules, the profile they’ll click, the request for each type of buyer, and whether Premium or Sales Navigator is worth paying for.Chapter 04Claude prompts
Five first jobs worth doing with Claude.
Each one saves real time in a founder’s week. Copy one, change the parts in [square brackets], and paste it into the Code tab.
Research a prospect before a call
Five minutes of reading, done before you’ve made the coffee.
Read [company website address]. In five bullet points, tell me what they sell, who to, roughly how big they look, anything that’s changed recently, and one honest reason they might need [what you sell]. Mark anything you’re guessing.
Turn a call note into a follow-up
Your notes say what happened. This turns them into the email you’d have written if you’d had ten spare minutes.
Read [call-notes.md]. Tell me what [the prospect] said their problem is, in their words, what they asked about, and what I said I’d do next. Then draft a short follow-up email from me that only promises what I actually promised. Don’t send anything.
Clean a lead spreadsheet
The half hour of tidying before a list is any use.
In [leads.csv], remove duplicates, split full names into first and last name, fix the capitals, and flag every row with no email or a personal email address. Save the result as a new file, [leads-clean.csv], and tell me what you changed. Don’t touch the original.
Turn a messy list into a week
Everything in your head, sorted into what happens first.
Here’s everything on my mind this week, in no order: [paste your notes]. Turn it into a plan grouped by today, this week and later, with the one thing that matters most at the top. Ask me about anything you can’t place rather than guessing.
Write the weekly update
The update your co-founder, team or board actually reads.
Read the files in this folder from this week. Write a five-line update for [my co-founder]: what moved, what’s stuck, what I need from them, and one number that matters. Only use what’s in the files.
Three habits that keep you safe
- Keep it asking before it changes anything while you learn. The app calls this Manual. Plan mode goes one further: it shows you the plan before it touches a file.
- Never paste a password, a key or a client’s private data into it. If a job needs a login, connect the tool properly instead.
- Read everything before a client sees it. Claude drafts; you send.
The rule
Start with one boring job you do every week. Do it with Claude for a week before you try anything clever.
Start hereHow we use ClaudeFrom your first session to a shared company brain, at your level.Chapter 05Our numbers
The scoreboard, read honestly.
Four numbers from our own outbound, each with its dates. They’re small samples from a short stretch, so read them as what happened to us, not as a promise of what will happen to you.
38%
of connection requests accepted, on average
April to September 2026
20+
meetings booked from LinkedIn DMs, in five months
April to September 2026
Cold calling
6
meetings booked from cold calling, in three weeks
August to September 2026
Cold email
5
meetings booked from cold email in one day, for one client
September 2026
Chapter 06How it fits
Three channels, each to its strengths.
We run LinkedIn, cold email and cold calling separately, each to what it does best. They aren’t steps in one sequence that every prospect gets marched through.
We did start with a sequence of sorts, but we felt they just don’t work. So each channel now runs on its own rhythm, at its own volume, and a reply on any of them is what moves someone on.
LinkedIn
About 200 connection requests a week
Month 1, once you’ve signed off the messages
From your own profile. LinkedIn publishes no fixed weekly number.
Cold email
500 to 1,000 or more emails a week
Once the sending domains are warm
From separate sending domains, never your main one.
Cold calling
2 to 4 hours of calls a week
Month 2 or 3, once replies show who to call
Every number screened against the TPS and CTPS. Joe makes the calls himself.
Replies show who to call
Chris’s take: which channel first?There isn’t a particular answer as to which is first, second or third. In anything, it’s about understanding your market, your client, and where your ICP is most likely to be receptive. We’ve learned that founders and C-suite are less likely to be receptive to email, because they receive a lot about lots of different services. They’re more likely to respect a phone call, and the confidence and bravery in reaching out and making that conversation. If you’re selling into tech, they may be less likely to take a call, because it’s something they don’t do as confidently, but they will engage with you by email or another channel.
So understand your ICP, and appreciate that success doesn’t come from one channel. It comes from a combination. Keep considering what is working and what isn’t, not over a short space of time, but over long enough to make a sensible review.
One of the best things we’re doing at the moment is connecting our different tools, so we can monitor progress and score and track our leads. That tells us which channels are working best, and keeps us to a thorough process.
Chapter 07The rules
Staying legal in the UK, across all three.
Three channels, three sets of rules. This is the one page we’d hand a new starter before they send anything. It’s what we follow, not legal advice.
UK rules, October 2026
LinkedIn, cold email and cold calling
LinkedIn
User Agreement, section 8.2
LinkedIn’s User Agreement, in force since 3 November 2025, bans bots and other unauthorised automated methods to access the site, add or download contacts, or send messages. We write every message ourselves and send from real profiles, within LinkedIn’s limits.
Source: LinkedIn User Agreement
Cold email
PECR
You can email people at limited companies, LLPs and other corporate bodies without their prior consent, as long as you don’t hide who you are and you give them a valid way to opt out.
Sole traders and some partnerships count as individuals, so they need consent (or the soft opt-in) first. Check who’s on the list before it sends.
Cold calls
PECR · TPS and CTPS
Screen every number against the TPS and CTPS before you call, and keep checking: a new registration takes effect after 28 days. Sole traders go through the TPS.
Show your number and never withhold it. Keep your own do-not-call list, and anyone who objects goes on it straight away.
Sources: ICO: the rules on live direct marketing calls, ICO: how to comply
Diallers
Ofcom
Ofcom treats silent and abandoned calls as persistent misuse. When it looks at a campaign, it weighs how many calls were abandoned each day, whether a short recorded message played within two seconds of the call being answered, and whether anyone was rung again within 72 hours without a person ready to talk. The number you show has to be one people can call back.
If in doubt, start manual.
Sources: Ofcom: persistent misuse policy statement, Ofcom: silent and abandoned calls (January 2026)
Inbox providers
Gmail · Yahoo · Outlook
Since February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo want bulk senders (Gmail counts 5,000 or more emails a day) to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC, offer one-click unsubscribe and keep spam complaints under 0.3%.
Since 5 May 2025, Outlook has rejected mail from senders of more than 5,000 emails a day that fails SPF, DKIM or DMARC.
Sources: Google: email sender guidelines, Yahoo: sender best practices, Microsoft: Outlook’s requirements for high-volume senders
Fines
Data (Use and Access) Act 2025
Since 5 February 2026, the ICO can fine up to £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover, whichever is higher, for breaking these rules. An attempted call now counts as a call.
Sources: ICO: one year on, DUAA 2025, s.110, DPA 2018, s.157
The ICO became the Information Commission on 30 September 2026, and it still goes by the ICO. This is what we follow, not legal advice. ICO: governance changes confirmed for 30 September 2026
Chapter 08The week
The week that keeps it running, and where posting fits.
We know what works in outbound. We just weren’t doing it. We spent two weeks auditing our own outbound. The gap? We weren’t building the daily habit. No protected time. No consistency. Just outbound squeezed between everything else.
So we fixed it. First hour of the day is now pure prospecting:
- Personalised messages to Tier 1 prospects.
- Follow-ups where needed.
- Research into new people.
- Outreach that gives before it asks.
High-touch. High-effort. Human to human.
- Mon
- First hour: Prospecting
- 08:55: A post goes out
- Email sends, replies get answered
- No calling, by Joe’s choice
- Tue
- First hour: Prospecting
- 08:55: A post goes out
- 09:30: Voice notes
- Morning: Calling block
- Afternoon: Calling block
- Email sends, replies get answered
- Wed
- First hour: Prospecting
- 08:55: A post goes out
- Email sends, replies get answered
- Thu
- First hour: Prospecting
- 08:55: A post goes out
- 09:30: Voice notes
- Morning: Calling block
- Afternoon: Calling block
- Email sends, replies get answered
- Fri
- First hour: Prospecting
- 08:55: A post goes out
- Email sends, replies get answered
- No calling, by Joe’s choice
Where posting fits
Posting is a vital part of the ecosystem. It builds trust, keeps you visible, and gives people a reason to pay attention. But the meetings in this playbook came from outreach, not from posts.
Posting daily forces you to stay sharp. It forces you to read, research and test ideas in public before bringing them to clients, and it works hand in hand with sending DMs.
The rule
Provide genuine value, share real lessons from the losses, and cut the generic corporate fluff. Be authentic and try new things. No one really cares, so don’t overthink it.
Chris’s takeI’m slightly more introverted, and that shows up at different times in different ways. I’ve never been a consistent commenter or poster on social media, while always being a consumer of it. The confidence you need to find is in your persona as a founder. It’s the same as a cold call or a cold email: you’re not trying to build a whole relationship in one go. You’re just making people aware that you exist, and that makes it easier to take the leap.
Get out there and you realise how little people actually take from what you post, and how much more time you spend in your own head, overthinking what other people think of you. It isn’t going to take away the anxieties of posting, but it shouldn’t hold you back from doing it anyway.
The companion guideThe LinkedIn Social Selling SystemHow Joe posts: the two kinds of post, the real numbers behind seven of them, and the week that keeps it going.The hardest part: consistency
You could book five meetings one week and none the next doing the exact same activity. Same calls. Same emails. Same effort. Completely different results. In both situations, you keep it in the day and keep going. You don’t wait for motivation. You don’t wait for the pipeline to warm up. You don’t wait for the fear to pass. You just keep moving, and eventually the results catch up.
Success isn’t linear. You’ve just got to stay consistent. I don’t panic now about a week where we get one lead, or none, because I know the consistency will pay off.
The thing that really stuck with me from working for Chris was consistency. Not with a saying or a framework. He just had me do the work, and trust the results would follow. They did. Slowly at first. Then properly.
Chapter 09Chris and Joe
Where we disagree: lived experience versus theory.
- Chris
I probably live a bit more in lived experience. Joe probably takes a bit more from theory and other people’s guidance. Neither one of those is correct on its own, but put the two together and you get the ideal.
- Joe
I always say it’s human psychology: everyone’s the same. Chris is a bit more nuanced to the sector.
- Chris
We’ve got a lot better over the months at making our messaging work: psychological triggers for individuals, coupled with lived experience. Those tools do get a response and trigger people’s interest. What I sometimes disagree with is that I can see that stuff from a mile away, because we’re not the only ones doing it. So use people’s methodologies, but personalise them to suit your ICP, your personality and your business, rather than taking them verbatim the way other people promote them. That’s where you see others doing it really obviously now.
- Joe
It’s all similar in vein, with slight nuances. Challenger, where you challenge someone, is quite different from MEDDIC, for example.
One thing each we got wrong this year
- Joe
I’m a bit more of a perfectionist, and it’s delayed us a little with some of our cold email, because I want to write the perfect email. Chris is happier to go and try some bits and bobs. Sometimes I’m in the theory a bit too much, when we just need to get some stuff out and learn from the mistakes. And these aren’t costly mistakes.
- Chris
I just go off and do it. Especially when you’re still in trial and error, sometimes it’s better to do something when you’re 80% there than nothing because it’s not 100%. You learn from both. We’ve learned from going off and doing it, then reviewing it and realising it probably could have been refined to be better.
- Chris
So when you’re trying this stuff out, if you do disagree, A/B test it. Fighting until one person feels they’ve won isn’t going to get you any further. Let both ideas trial themselves and see what works and what doesn’t. You’ll probably find the answer is a Venn diagram of two or three different theories and mindsets.
- Joe
We land in a positive place because we disagree in the right way.
The close
If you’d rather we ran it.
You can run all of this yourself. Most of the teams we work with could too. They just don’t have the hours, or the senior person to own it. So we run it for them: LinkedIn, cold email and cold calling, in their name, as part of their team, and nothing goes out without their OK. If that’s the version you want, book a call and we’ll show you what it would look like for your business.
Outbound Engine
From£4,000a month plus VAT
LinkedIn, cold email and cold calling, run for you in your name. We pay for and keep the tooling licences and the sending domains. You keep the conversations, the replies, the meetings and the numbers.
Fractional Sales Leadership
From£4,000a month plus VAT
Joe and Chris in your deals from month one, accountable for running your sales process and shaping the strategy. The Outbound Engine is included.
Month 1
We set up, and the first outreach goes out inside it. The set-up month costs the same as any other.
Months 2 to 4
Three months running, with a review every two weeks on replies, conversations and pipeline.
Then
Free to stop every three months, on 30 days' notice, with no exit fee.
Who wrote this
Joe Stone
Co-Founder, JumpLead
Fifteen years in UK B2B sales, every seat. In my last role at TopScore I closed £1m+ in new business across 20 clients in 2.5 years. I co-founded JumpLead with Chris May to run outbound for UK B2B companies, as part of their team. Chris and I write I Love Sales about what the numbers actually say.
Chris May
Co-Founder, JumpLead
Twenty-plus years in sales: ten of them leading sales teams and five leading a business, most recently as Managing Director of graduate-jobs.com. He has run straight new-business desks through to account-managed teams, and co-founded JumpLead with Joe.
Sources
Every outside fact in the guide, with its source. Our own figures are dated where they appear.
- LinkedIn Help: send voice messages in LinkedIn Messaginghttps://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a548233
- LinkedIn User Agreement, section 8.2 (in force 3 November 2025)https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement
- ICO: business-to-business marketinghttps://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/business-to-business-marketing/
- ICO: what are the rules on live direct marketing calls?https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/guidance-on-direct-marketing-using-live-calls/what-are-the-rules-on-live-direct-marketing-calls/
- ICO: how do we comply with the rules on live marketing calls?https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/guidance-on-direct-marketing-using-live-calls/how-do-we-comply-with-the-rules-on-live-marketing-calls/
- Ofcom: Persistent misuse, a statement of Ofcom’s general policy (December 2016, in force March 2017)https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/category-1-10-weeks/7837-review-of-how-we-use-persistent-misuse-powers/summary/persistent-misuse-policy-statement.pdf
- Ofcom: refresher messaging on silent and abandoned calls (22 January 2026)https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/unwanted-calls-and-messages/refresher-messaging-on-silent-and-abandoned-calls
- Google: email sender guidelineshttps://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126
- Yahoo: sender best practiceshttps://senders.yahooinc.com/best-practices/
- Microsoft: Outlook’s new requirements for high-volume senders (2 April 2025, updated 29 April 2025)https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoftdefenderforoffice365blog/strengthening-email-ecosystem-outlook%E2%80%99s-new-requirements-for-high%E2%80%90volume-senders/4399730
- ICO: one year on from the Data (Use and Access) Act (23 June 2026)https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2026/06/one-year-on-marking-the-12-month-commencement-of-the-data-use-and-access-act/
- Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, section 110: attempted calls count as callshttps://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/18/section/110
- Data Protection Act 2018, section 157: maximum penaltieshttps://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/section/157
- ICO: governance changes confirmed for 30 September 2026https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2026/09/ico-governance-changes-confirmed-for-30-september-2026/
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