Handbook
Marketing

Sales (inbound and outbound)

Our sales process combines inbound and outbound motions to convert high-fit prospects into paying customers. We use a structured pipeline in Close.com to track every opportunity from first contact through subscription.

Pipeline Summary

  • Leads automatically sync from the Ferndesk app to Close.com using the sync org to CRM job.

  • We work exclusively from opportunities in Close, not from the leads list directly.

  • Learn more about managing opportunities in Close.com's opportunity pipeline documentation.

Pipeline Stages

Each opportunity moves through six stages:

  • Prospect: Someone who fits our ICP but we haven't explicitly reached out to yet

  • Contacted: We've sent initial outreach

  • Onboarding: They've signed up for Ferndesk

  • Activated: They're actively using the product

  • Subscribed: They're paying (this is a win)

  • Lost: They didn't subscribe, usually because they're not a good fit or not ready

Step 1: Prospecting

We aim to add 20 new prospects per week from two sources:

Interesting Trials

Monitor two places for high-quality trial signups:

Manual Prospecting

We manually prospect around 20 people per week through cold outreach. Use the Add to CRM Chrome extension ($17/month, worth every penny) to quickly add prospects to Close.

Split-image contrasting manual CRM entry (left: browser with red 'X' pain points like copy-paste, hunting emails) vs. Add to CRM (right: clean contact card for 'Albert Flores' with verified checkmark and blue 'Add to CRM' button, green checkmarks for benefits).

The workflow:

  1. Check if they match our ICP

  2. Add them to Close using the Add to CRM extension

  3. Automatically create an opportunity with status "Prospect"

Only add prospects who clearly match our ICP criteria: ship-first SaaS founders with $20K-$150K MRR, technical teams, and visible documentation debt + crapy helpdesk software.

Step 2: Reaching Out

We use different outreach strategies for cold versus inbound leads.

Cold Outreach (Outbound)

For prospects we're reaching out to cold, we create their help center for them before sending the first email. This "show, don't tell" approach demonstrates immediate value.

Demo Account Credentials

Use the shared demo account to create prospect workspaces:

Cold Outreach Process

  1. Log into the demo account

  2. Create a new workspace for the prospect

  3. Ask Fern to bootstrap the help center using their existing documentation

  4. Send them an email using this "theme/template":

"Hey, we've migrated your help center for you. Now that it's migrated it will stay up-to-date automatically. All you need to do to claim it and get this beautiful help center is reply to this email and never update your documentation again."

The goal is to show them their future help center already working, not just talk about what we could do.

Inbound Outreach

For inbound leads who've already shown interest, use regular check-ins:

  • Send helpful tips and advice

  • Share feedback about their current help center

  • Point out specific issues we've noticed

  • Goal: Get them to reply and start a conversation

Pipeline Movement Goals

We try to walk the pipeline daily, but things happen. The key metrics are weekly movement:

  • 20 prospects added each week

  • 20 prospects contacted each week

  • 2 sales closed each week

Focus on getting at least 20 leads moving through the pipeline each week. Consistent movement matters more than perfection.

Close.com Resources

Helpful Close.com documentation:

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