Feras Khalbuss | Founder, Mirus digital
We changed everything!
Curiosity was a blind spot for the business. Not just outreach. So we changed everything.
Curiosity - a game changer
When we first met, Feras Khalbuss was convinced: People don’t engage unless they’re intrigued. Whether they’re an existing client on the phone or a new prospect opening an email.
No curiosity? No conversation.
“Especially in our saturated industry where the sales cycle is long and most clients already have a vendor,” he told me.
So persuading marketing chiefs to change was out. Sparking curiosity was a cool, new idea. But then it got interesting.
"Curiosity was a blind spot for us. Not just with outreach. So we changed everything," he said.
Feras took action. He made himself vulnerable in a collaborative zoom workshop with me and our members.
He put curiosity to work immediately.
He rewrote website copy; Then case studies; Then LinkedIn profiles, Twitter. Everything. His entire business strategy shifted away from persuasion – toward curiosity.
“When rewriting our website, our case studies... we framed everything in a customer centric way. It's been a game changer,” says Feras who says sparking curiosity is more than just outreach.
"Curiosity is now the central element in funnel building."
The following is a detailed review of his experience with the Spark Selling Academy and his colleagues within.
A blind spot is discovered
Feras serves ecommerce brands seeking growth using paid advertising – but are frustrated with it.
His clients’ growth is mostly about avoiding common pitfalls of a needlessly complex ecosystem – digital advertising. He helps brands find blind spots and scale-up ad buying, declutter and focus on driving revenue.
“Your websites, LinkedIn profiles, Twitter accounts should all be sparking customers’ curiosity,” explains Faras.
“Sales outreach is my way of validating, does this business resonate in the market? Does it spark any interest?”
This new focus also gave Feras confidence needed to hire a capable social media expert, designer and cartoonist.
Within days of joining the Spark Selling Academy, Feras committed to reinventing how he communicates with current and potential new customers. Then he made it happen. Not because of the Academy.
Because of himself.
“At first, Spark Selling was framed as a part of my sales outreach. But outreach is merely a barometer of brand. When customers respond to a cold email, they're also cross referencing a LinkedIn profile or our website.
So these principles of curiosity and intrigue were major blind spots for our agency. No longer!”
2023 & 2024 results
In 2023 Feras said, "We are seeing a pattern of intrigued response rates north of 10x greater than 2022 while sending a fraction of the volume of messages comparatively. We are finally confident cold outreach can be a scalable part of our sales process, while maintaining brand integrity."
By the time 2024 hit Feras, a solopreneur who finds time to write music, was flying.
It's only April and I've closed 3 deals already. All have potential to be long term engagements. And from people that were complete strangers, as a solopreneur.
Even better, we have proven, flexible process and system. Most important is to be open minded but also not ignore precedent - strategies & channels that we know work.
All channels are proven to generate revenue/ pipeline - referrals, cold calls, LinkedIn DM, inbound, mass cold email with triggers.
Feras Khalbuss
What caused the success
Feras shared with me...
"I give a huge amount of credit to Jeff Molander and Dante Fabro in addition to other ad hoc partnerships like Jordan Platten and Jeffery Powers teaching me their POV on things like market research, offers/middle of funnel/closing strategies.
A couple of details are below...
- One deal closed with cold email. I met the brand on LinkedIn via DM's where they suggested a call. Sent a custom voicemail + personalized email.
- One deal closed with pure cold email for interim CMO contract at a startup. This contract has potential to turn into recurring engagement for Meta Ads + email marketing building a foundational funnel for them. They specifically commented on LinkedIn/my background so the bio was huge.
I sent them a strong "poke the bear" message. Something along the lines of: Do you trust the status quo strategies will bring the needed results? - One consulting deal closed via inbound (my website). Best guess is this was influenced by LinkedIn posts maybe SEO. Got the lead to a call via a custom voicemail in an email. They specifically found our big electronics case study useful since they have a high AOV/price product.
This would not have been possible without trusting my intuition and shedding limited beliefs about:
- Provocations + cold email and breaking analysis paralysis on details.
- LinkedIn and social media being "saturated."
- Custom voicemails being "creepy.”
- Cold calls -- as those were used to refine/rotate lists in email.
I also credit radical self belief, lots of mindfulness and meditation and prayer. Also, following up and creating a pipeline.
I'm a believer in Communications Edge.
I think per my POV/case study belief is a huge part of the equation. I believe avoiding the word "wrong" or avoiding generalizations is huge to prime the subconscious and avoid closing off possibilities.
I continue to be pleasantly surprised when inbound for example proves to be a viable strategy.
Falcon meets Feras
Lastly, I have a proof of concept that I can get meetings with extremely high status brands. When reaching out, I also get market research -- to suggest ways of initiating conversations with lower vs. higher revenue brands and common business problems."
Cheers, Feras.
Since I've known him, Feras pushes back on me a lot. I love it because I don't have all the answers, all the time.
Feras says the most important part of succeeding, "is to be open minded but also not ignore precedent -- strategies & channels that we know work."
My experience tells me Feras is correct.
Want people to get curious about a conversation on LinkedIn, in a sales outreach message or in real-time conversation?
Create an itch. Scratch it. But don't over scratch. Less is more.
Engage people by getting them curious.
Help them want to ask for your conversation, ebook, whatever. Resist offering it.
How do you react? See you in comments.
