A good outbound agency proposal names eight jobs: TAM sourcing, custom scrapers, list scoring, waterfall enrichment, deliverability, one email and LinkedIn sequence, reply handling, and meeting counting. If a job is missing, you or your team will do it. Blesso, a done-for-you B2B go-to-market service, runs all of them in its Outbound Engine.
Key takeaways
- Check a proposal against eight jobs between a market and a held meeting. A blank job is work left for you.
- Ask one question per job. The answer shows whether the agency owns it or hands it off.
- Sourcing, scrapers and enrichment decide who gets a message. Deliverability decides whether it arrives.
- Reply handling should trace each reply to the signal that triggered the send.
- HappierHire and Airbills are per-customer results with their own windows. They are not averages.
Why scope is where proposals hide gaps
Most proposals say "outbound" and list a price. The word covers many jobs, and an agency can sell it while doing four of them. The rest fall to the founder, an assistant or a contractor you hire later.
A scope check is cheap. You read the proposal against a fixed list, mark each job as owned, shared or missing, and ask about every mark that is not "owned". Blesso describes its Outbound Engine as thirteen jobs between a TAM and a booked call. The list below groups the jobs a buyer can check into eight.
The eight jobs at a glance
| Job | What it covers | Question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| 1. TAM sourcing | Who is in your market, found past the databases | Where do accounts come from besides a database export? |
| 2. Custom scrapers | Per-campaign collection of signals and data | Who writes the scraper for my campaign? |
| 3. List building and scoring | Dedupe, then rank accounts against your ICP | How are accounts scored, and who approves the list? |
| 4. Waterfall enrichment | Contact data found across several providers in order | How many providers, and in what order? |
| 5. Deliverability | Domains, inboxes, warm-up and sending limits | Is it in the price, and who watches it weekly? |
| 6. One sequence | Email and LinkedIn run as a single flow | Does a LinkedIn touch change the next email? |
| 7. Reply handling | Replies worked through to a booked meeting | Can you trace a reply to its signal? |
| 8. Meeting counting | What counts toward the target, and who counts it | Is a held meeting counted from my calendar? |
Job 1: TAM sourcing, past the databases
A TAM is the set of accounts that could buy from you. A database export gives every rival agency the same list. Your accounts then get the same emails from three vendors in the same week.
Look for a proposal that says how the agency finds accounts a database misses, and who defines the market with you. If the line reads "we pull a list from Apollo", sourcing is a tool setting, not a job.
Job 2: Custom scrapers written per campaign
A scraper collects data from public pages, such as job boards or company sites. A custom one is written for your campaign, so the signal fits your offer. A shared scraper gives you whatever the agency already collects for everyone.
This job matters because signals decide timing. Blesso triggered HappierHire's sequences on hiring signals. HappierHire is an AI hiring platform, and the work replaced a stalled SDR hire. A signal that fits the campaign needs data that someone had to go and get.
Ask who writes it, who maintains it when a page changes, and whether the cost is in the retainer.
Job 3: List building and scoring
Building the list means removing duplicates, then ranking accounts against your ideal customer profile. Order matters here. Dedupe before you enrich, or you pay for the same contact more than once.
The proposal should name an approval step. You should see the account list before the first send. Blesso counts a demo only if it comes from the approved account list, so the list is a contract term, not a draft.
Job 4: Waterfall enrichment
Enrichment finds the email, title and phone for each contact. A waterfall asks one provider, then the next if the first returns nothing. One provider leaves holes. A waterfall fills more of them for the same list.
Ask how many providers sit in the chain and who pays for the credits. Also ask how the agency checks addresses before sending. Bad addresses feed the next job's problem. For why data goes stale, read B2B data decay and bounce rate.
Job 5: Deliverability
Deliverability is whether your email reaches the inbox, not the spam folder. It includes sending domains, inbox setup, warm-up and daily sending limits. A perfect list fails if the mail never lands.
Proposals often leave it out or bill it as an extra. Ask for it in writing as an included job, with a named owner who checks it every week. The cold email deliverability guide lists what to check.
Job 6: One email and LinkedIn sequence
Many agencies run email in one tool and LinkedIn in another, with two people. The buyer then gets two unrelated messages. One sequence means the touches know about each other. A LinkedIn view or reply changes what the next email says, or stops it.
Ask for a sample sequence on one page that shows both channels on one timeline. If the proposal shows two separate plans, that is two programs under one price.
Job 7: Reply handling, traced to the signal
A reply is not the end. Someone must read it, answer it, handle the objection and book the meeting. Slow or generic answers waste the reply you paid to earn.
Tracing is the test. Each reply should link back to the signal that triggered the send. Then you learn which signal produces conversations, and which one only produces noise. For HappierHire, Blesso managed replies through to booking. For how to read what comes back, see sorting outbound replies into objections.
Job 8: Meeting counting and reporting
The last job is the scoreboard. A booked meeting is not a held meeting. A proposal that counts bookings can look healthy while no one attends.
Blesso counts only held meetings, from your calendar and not its dashboard. A no-show counts against the number. A counted demo is attended by a human, on a date that occurred, from the approved account list, with matching ICP titles and agreed next steps. See booked versus held meetings for contract wording.
What the jobs look like in published results
Two Blesso customers show the scope at work. Read each as one customer in one window, not as a typical outcome.
- HappierHire reported 3.1x pipeline in one quarter. The work was outbound plus reply handling, triggered on hiring signals.
- Airbills, an offshore staffing company, reported $1.4M pipeline in 90 days. The work was outbound that moved the founder out of prospecting.
Neither figure comes with a published baseline. We do not know what 3.1x is a multiple of, or what target $1.4M was set against. Do not use them to forecast your own result. Use them to see what a full scope produced for two companies in the same hiring and staffing field.
How to mark up a proposal
- Print the proposal and the eight-job table side by side.
- Mark each job as owned by the agency, shared, or missing.
- For every shared or missing job, write who does it and what it costs. Include your own hours.
- Ask the agency the table's question for any job where the text is vague.
- Add up the real scope. Compare proposals on jobs owned, not on price alone.
A related test, for whether the machinery behind these jobs is real, is how to check whether a GTM agency is AI-native.
Where Blesso fits
Blesso runs these jobs as a retainer, with the platform layer included. Engagements start at $2k a month with a three-month minimum. Targets are agreed before month one. Thirteen jobs, none of them yours.
FAQ
What should an outbound agency proposal include?
It should include TAM sourcing, custom scrapers, list scoring, waterfall enrichment, deliverability, one email and LinkedIn sequence, reply handling and meeting counting. Any job it leaves out becomes work for your team.
Is deliverability part of an outbound agency's scope?
It should be. Deliverability covers domains, inboxes, warm-up and sending limits. Ask for it in writing as an included job with a named owner, because a good list fails if the mail does not reach the inbox.
What is waterfall enrichment?
Waterfall enrichment asks one data provider for a contact's details and moves to the next provider if the first finds nothing. It fills more records than a single provider does, and it should run after you remove duplicates.
Can I use HappierHire's or Airbills' results as a forecast?
No. HappierHire's 3.1x pipeline in one quarter and Airbills' $1.4M pipeline in 90 days are per-customer results with their own windows and no published baselines. They show what full scope did for two companies, not what to expect.
Want your current proposal checked against the eight jobs? Book a call and bring it.