Outbound built on research
A foothold into the companies you want as clients.
Every market contains a finite number of companies that can buy what you sell. Most never get counted. Foothold counts yours, works out which of them is already paying for the problem you fix, and opens the conversation with whoever signs. What happens in the room is yours.
The market, sized
Who can buy what you sell, how many of them exist, where they cluster, and what the reachable part of that market is worth.
The evidence
Ownership, accounts, headcount, contract awards and how a company wins work today. Every name is read before it is approached.
The introduction
A meeting with the person who signs, and a brief on them in your hands before you take it.
What we do
Everyone who needs what you sell, and the way in to each of them.
The companies, the people, what each of them is dealing with, and the opening. Most of it is done before a single email is written.
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01
The map
Your market, countedA search of Companies House will hand you four thousand names. Most of them cannot buy from you. Some are owned by a group whose procurement would have to approve you first. Some are too small to carry the contract. Some already have somebody doing this. And most of the rest have never publicly spent money on the problem you solve. Sorting four thousand into the two hundred that can actually buy is the work, and roughly a third fall out on ownership alone.
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02
The dossier
Every company, read before it is approachedOwnership structure, filed accounts, headcount, contract awards, how the business wins work today, and whether anyone inside is already doing what we would be doing. Named companies, named people, and the evidence attached to each one.
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03
The campaign
Written to them, sent from infrastructure of its ownYour market is grouped by the problem those companies share and written to on that basis, so what lands in front of them is about their situation rather than your product. Sending runs on dedicated domains, authenticated and warmed, so your own domain and its reputation are never part of it.
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04
The brief
In your hands before the meetingWho they are, what they said, what is currently costing them money, what they are trying to fix and where the opening is. All of it before the meeting starts, so it is worth your time from the first minute of it.
Who it is for
Companies with more market than they are working.
Three shapes it usually takes. One of them is probably close to yours.
Thirty people, £150,000 projects, winning work through tenders and referrals.
Around four hundred UK companies buy what they make. They are in front of perhaps forty of them.
Twenty staff, a £60,000 average fee, dominant in one sector.
Three adjacent sectors buy the same service from firms with no better claim to it, and have never heard their name.
A hundred and twenty people, with capacity for two more crews.
The buyers who would fill that capacity are identifiable, finite, and nobody is speaking to them.
Foothold qualifies on economics rather than sector. What a client is worth to you, and whether there are enough of them to reach, decide it. Headcount never does.
How it works
From the first call to meetings in your diary.
Five stages, and the first one costs nothing. Nothing sends until you have read the messaging and agreed to it.
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01
No charge
The market read
Six questions about what you sell and how you win work today. Within two working days, back comes a first count of the companies able to buy it and the monthly figure it would take to work that market. Nothing is owed and nothing follows unless you want it to.
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02
45 minutes
Diagnosis call
What you sell, who buys it, what your best clients have in common, and what has already worked. Most of the campaign is decided here.
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03
2 to 3 weeks
Setup
The market mapped and the first accounts researched. Sending domains bought, authenticated and warmed. Messaging written, and signed off by you.
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04
Ongoing
Live
Sequences run over email. Replies land with me first: anything real is passed straight to you, the rest is answered and never reaches your team. Meetings go into your diary with the brief already attached.
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05
Monthly
Reporting
Every account contacted, every reply and every meeting, logged and attributed. You see the whole list rather than a summary of it.
Pricing and terms
What it costs, and what you are committing to.
Both on the page, so you can decide whether the call is worth your time before you book it.
The arithmetic, in full
A first year at the lower end costs £62,500, setup and twelve months together. On £150,000 contracts at a twenty per cent net margin, two closed deals put you ahead. On £50,000 contracts you need six. If your numbers do not clear that, I would rather tell you than take the setup fee, which is why the market read comes first and costs nothing.
The three month term is not a lock-in for its own sake either. It is the shortest honest window in which outbound can be judged, because the first few weeks are spent warming infrastructure rather than sending.
Questions
The ones that come up on every first call.
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How much of my time does this take?
An hour for the diagnosis call, an hour or so to read the messaging and approve it, and then the meetings themselves. Nothing else needs you. The research, the writing, the sending, the replies and the reporting are not your job.
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Where do the names come from?
Companies House filings, published contract awards, filed accounts, trade sources and the companies' own websites. Every contact is verified before anything is sent to it, and the reason each company is on the list is written down next to it.
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Is this a firm or one person?
One person, doing the work herself, with specialists brought in where it makes sense. You will not be handed to a junior after the sale, because there is nobody to hand you to. That is the point.
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Is cold email to businesses legal in the UK?
Yes, to corporate subscribers, under PECR and the legitimate interests basis in UK GDPR. Contacts are built from public records and business sources, every message carries a working opt-out, and removals are honoured immediately and permanently.
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Who owns the list and the data?
You do. The research, the accounts, the contacts and the reply history are yours, handed over in full if we stop working together.
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Will my own domain be used?
No. Outreach runs on separate domains bought for the purpose. Your company's email reputation is never exposed to it.
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How many meetings will I get?
Anyone who gives you a number before seeing your market is guessing. The market is sized first, and the realistic range comes out of that sizing rather than out of a brochure.
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What happens if it does not work?
You see every account, every reply and every meeting as it happens, so you will know long before the three months are up. If the market turns out to be too small or too cold, I would rather say so and stop than keep invoicing.
About
Built by someone who has sold, not someone who has read about it.
Foothold does this work the way it was learned: defining a market, building the list, writing to it, running the calls, and closing the business at the other end. Not campaign strategy at a distance, and not a list handed over for somebody else to work.
The daily target was a hundred decision makers, by phone and by email, across several countries and several sectors. The deals that came out of it were closed and then delivered end to end.
Foothold is run by Eni Kurtula, its founder and only consultant. Her record is on LinkedIn, and she would rather you read it before the call than during it.
Having sat on the other side of the table, I know what someone needs in front of them before a meeting earns its place in the diary.
Book a call
Two ways in. Both start the same conversation.
Take whichever suits the week you are having.
Start with the market read
Six questions about what you sell and how you win work today. Within two working days, back comes a count of the companies able to buy it and the monthly figure it would take to work that market.
Answer six questionsOr book the call
What you sell, who buys it, and whether there are enough of them to be worth building a campaign around. Nothing to prepare. If Foothold is not the right fit, I will tell you on the call.
Choose a timeYou will be speaking to Eni, founder of Foothold