The B2B Playbook #201: Outbound Is Breaking – Here’s the Network-Led Playbook for 2026 (Scott Leese)
Outbound is breaking — and most teams don’t even realise it yet.
In this episode, Scott Leese joins George Coudounaris and Adem Manderovic to unpack why the Predictable Revenue model is collapsing — and how to rebuild outbound around networks, trust, and real timing.
We break down how the SDR→AE split eroded skills and alignment, how “meetings booked” became the wrong KPI, and what today’s best sellers are doing differently: validating markets, leveraging relationships, and comping on actual revenue.
Scott shares what he’s seeing across 160 + companies and 12 unicorns, from collapsing cold-call pickup rates to the rebirth of in-person plays. We tie it back to CRO School’s Closed Circuit Selling™ — a system that gets sales, marketing, and product working in sync again.
Tune in and learn:
+ Why outbound is breaking — and what replaces it
+ How to comp on held meetings or revenue, not vanity KPIs
+ How to validate and catalogue your market for smarter timing
+ The new edge: AI + network + unscalable plays
If you’re a small-team B2B marketer or sales leader sick of empty pipelines and spam tactics, this episode gives you the modern framework to fix it.
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🔗 Links + CTAs
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00:00 The Volume Game Is Dead
01:00 Why Scott Leese Ditched Outdated Playbooks
02:20 “Hobbyists with Pitch Decks”
04:40 Funding ≠ Success
07:18 Founders Must Sell First
10:50 What Great Sellers Do Differently
13:40 Validate the Market Before You Sell
16:04 How Predictable Revenue Broke Sales
19:40 Lost Coaching & Skill Decay
23:58 AI + Network + Unscalable Grit
26:50 Fix Your Sales Technical Debt
29:21 Stop Paying for Meetings Booked
32:00 The MQL Hamster Wheel
35:00 Rebuilding Sales–Marketing Handoffs
41:10 Cold Calls Are Dying
45:10 Referral Math That Opens Doors
46:20 In-Person Plays That Win
49:20 Deepfakes & IRL Trust
55:10 Scott’s 3 Bets for the Future
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S07 E201 - The B2B Playbook
#b2b #b2bmarketing #digitalmarketing #demandgeneration #outboundsales