How to sell to Heads of Sales at Professional services companies
Heads of Sales in professional services are primarily measured on revenue growth year-over-year. They respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their unique sales cycles, such as the challenges of managing a diverse client base and the need for tailored solutions that drive client retention and satisfaction.
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 client turnover
- lengthy sales cycles
- inefficient lead conversion
- underperforming sales teams
The playbook
- 01
Identify firms with declining client retention
Use industry reports or CRM data to find professional services firms reporting a drop in client retention rates. Focus on those that have experienced a significant client turnover in the past year, as this indicates a need for improved sales strategies.
- 02
Highlight case studies on client engagement
Craft your outreach to include specific examples of how your solution has improved client engagement for similar firms. Use case studies that showcase measurable outcomes, such as increased repeat business or enhanced client satisfaction scores.
- 03
Address objections about budget constraints
Prepare to counter common budget objections by providing insights on cost savings achieved by clients who adopted your solution. Be ready with data on ROI that demonstrates how your service can ultimately lead to revenue growth.
- 04
Leverage recent industry awards
Monitor industry news for firms that have recently received awards for innovation or excellence in service delivery. Use this information to frame your outreach, showing that you understand their achievements and can help them build on this success.
- 05
Follow up after major industry events
Schedule follow-ups with contacts after key industry conferences or webinars. Mention specific sessions they attended and relate them to your offering, emphasizing how your solution can address the topics discussed.
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 client retention rates
- Insights on sales cycle efficiency
- Boosting revenue through engagement
Questions
- Why do Heads of Sales in professional services ignore cold outreach?
- They often receive numerous pitches that lack relevance to their specific challenges. If the outreach does not demonstrate a clear understanding of the complexities of their service offerings or fails to address their immediate concerns, it is likely to be overlooked.
- What sales metrics are most important to Heads of Sales?
- Heads of Sales typically focus on metrics such as revenue growth, client retention rates, and lead conversion ratios. They are particularly interested in understanding how these metrics can be improved through targeted sales strategies and effective client engagement.
- How can I effectively reach out to Heads of Sales?
- To effectively reach Heads of Sales, tailor your messaging to reflect an understanding of their unique sales processes and challenges. Highlight relevant case studies and demonstrate how your solution can address specific pain points they face in client management and sales efficiency.
- What common challenges do Heads of Sales face?
- Common challenges include managing lengthy sales cycles, ensuring effective lead conversion, and dealing with high client turnover. They often seek solutions that can streamline their processes and improve overall team performance to drive revenue growth.
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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