How to sell to Heads of People at Professional services companies
Heads of People in professional services are primarily measured on employee retention rates. They respond to outreach that demonstrates a deep understanding of their unique culture and the challenges of managing diverse talent pools. Highlighting solutions that enhance employee engagement or streamline onboarding processes will resonate with their daily priorities.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 565 professional services company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- high employee turnover
- inefficient onboarding processes
- lack of employee engagement
- cultural misalignment
The playbook
- 01
Identify firms with recent employee turnover
Use LinkedIn or industry news to find professional services firms that have recently experienced layoffs or high turnover. This indicates potential challenges in employee engagement or retention that your solution could address. Filter for companies with at least 50 employees to ensure you're targeting firms with the capacity to invest in people solutions.
- 02
Pinpoint decision-makers in HR
Search for the current Heads of People or similar titles within the identified firms. Use LinkedIn to find individuals who have been in their role for less than two years, as they may be more open to exploring new solutions. Ensure they have a strong background in HR or talent management to align with your outreach.
- 03
Craft a message around employee engagement initiatives
Compose your outreach email focusing on how your solution can enhance employee engagement and retention. Reference specific pain points such as onboarding inefficiencies or cultural misalignment. Mention recent trends in professional services that highlight the need for innovative HR practices to capture their attention.
- 04
Follow up after industry events
Monitor industry conferences or webinars where Heads of People are likely to attend. Send a follow-up email referencing a specific session or topic discussed at the event, connecting it to your solution. This shows you're engaged with their industry and understand their current challenges.
- 05
Address common objections proactively
Prepare to address objections related to budget constraints or existing vendor relationships. In your outreach, briefly acknowledge these concerns and offer insights on how your solution can provide a strong ROI or complement existing systems. Tailor your response to their specific context for better engagement.
Can professional services companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 565 professional services companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 18.3% of 1–10-person companies against 86.1% of the largest — 68 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Improving employee retention
- Streamlining your onboarding process
- Engaging your diverse talent
Questions
- Why do Heads of People in professional services ignore outreach about HR technology?
- Heads of People may ignore outreach if it doesn't immediately address their pressing challenges, such as high turnover or engagement issues. If the outreach seems generic or lacks a clear connection to their specific industry needs, it is likely to be overlooked.
- How can I demonstrate value to a Head of People in professional services?
- To demonstrate value, focus on providing insights or solutions that directly relate to their pain points, such as improving employee engagement or reducing turnover. Use case studies or examples from similar firms to illustrate your understanding of their unique challenges.
- What common challenges do Heads of People face in professional services?
- Common challenges include managing a diverse workforce, maintaining high employee engagement levels, and ensuring effective onboarding processes. Additionally, they often struggle with aligning company culture across different teams and departments.
- What types of solutions are Heads of People most interested in?
- Heads of People are typically interested in solutions that enhance employee experience, streamline HR processes, and provide data-driven insights for decision-making. They look for tools that can help them address retention issues and improve overall workplace culture.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
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