A 200 person sales team with no outbound motion
- Client
- Lennox International
- Industry
- HVAC manufacturing
- Engagement
- In house, senior manager
- Duration
- 2020 to 2023
- Stack
- Salesforce
What Lennox International was facing
Covid supply chain disruption was pulling HVAC contractors toward Trane and Carrier, who could deliver when Lennox could not. Lennox had more than 200 salespeople across North America and Canada, and in 125 years of trading the company had never run a formal outbound motion. Every account came inbound or through an existing relationship, which works until a competitor gives your customers a reason to answer their calls.
The problem
There was no argument to be had about whether outbound would work, because there was nothing to point at. No playbook, no defined addressable market, no cadence, no battle cards, and no way to tell a territory manager which accounts were worth their time. Proposing an SDR function to a 125 year old manufacturer means asking for headcount against a motion nobody in the building has seen succeed.
What I did
-
Defined the addressable market before asking for headcount
I mapped which accounts were worth working and why, so the pitch to leadership was a specific opportunity rather than a general argument for outbound. That framing is what made a pilot approvable. -
Wrote the first outbound playbook in the company's history
Market definitions, competitor battle cards against Trane and Carrier, and a documented outreach cadence. Every step written down so it could be handed to someone new rather than living in one person's head. -
Staffed it through a university co-op model
Rather than requesting permanent headcount for an unproven motion, I sourced SDRs through a UT Dallas co-op partnership. Lower cost to trial, and a talent pipeline if it worked. -
Scoped the pilot to three jobs, not everything
Inbound follow up within 24 hours across learnlennox.com, lennoxpros.com and events, pre qualification for territory managers and stores, and appointment setting for market strikes. Narrow enough to measure. -
Ran it for 12 weeks against defined metrics
Accounts worked, appointments set, and conversion by market, reported in Salesforce so the results were auditable rather than anecdotal.
Results
-
53
Qualified appointments generated for the sales team in the first six weeks of the pilot.
-
23%
Average conversion from leads worked to appointments set, across markets. Minneapolis reached 47%, which told us the model worked and the variance was market specific rather than process specific.
-
4x
Leadership approved the program after the 12 week pilot and scaled the team to four times its pilot size.
Working with Elliot at Lennox was a game-changer for me and the other SDRs. From the ground up, Elliot helped create an outbound sales playbook that significantly boosted our ability to generate meetings. The sales coaching he provided was top-notch, empowering the team with the skills and confidence we needed to excel.