Build a predictable pipeline of commercial opportunities.
ZeroDesk identifies the companies you want to do business with, finds the right decision-makers, and handles cold email, LinkedIn outreach, follow-up and qualification on your behalf. When someone is ready for a call, quote, proposal or next step, we hand the conversation to you.
Think of it like high-level networking on autopilot.
Instead of running ads and hoping the right businesses find you, we go directly after the commercial accounts you actually want. We build the target list, identify the decision-makers, reach out through email and LinkedIn, handle the follow-ups and manage the conversation on your behalf. Once someone is qualified and ready for a call, quote or next step, we hand them over to you.
For contractors, and for the manufacturers, dealers, suppliers and distributors that sell to them.
See who we could targetA 30 MINUTE CALL. WE MAP YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE
AND SHOW YOU HOW MANY COMPANIES ACTUALLY MATCH IT.
Who runs this
Josh Radford
Founder · ZeroDesk
10+ years of industry experience as an agency owner, building and running outbound systems for service businesses. You work with him directly.
A named human, not an agency inbox
30.8%
Reply rate among accepted targeted LinkedIn connections
65
Conversations generated in one B2B infrastructure campaign
27.7%
Reply rate among accepted connections in another 30-day campaign
The problem
Why do most contractors have unpredictable revenue?
Because the work arrives instead of being created. Referrals, repeat customers and bid boards produce real revenue, but none of them can be turned up in a slow quarter. When a project slips or a budget freezes, there is nothing in motion to replace it.
Referrals are revenue, not a pipeline
Referrals, repeat business and luck are real money. They just arrive when they arrive, and no one in the company can make more of them on purpose.
The drop comes without warning
Projects get delayed, budgets freeze, referrals slow down. By the time the calendar looks empty, the work that would have filled it needed to start ninety days ago.
One conversation starts everything
Most businesses here do not need hundreds of customers. They need the right ones, and that starts with a conversation that would not have happened on its own.
The real question is not what outreach costs
It is what one new client is worth to you. If a single contract is worth $50,000 to $250,000, the math answers itself.
The engine
How does ZeroDesk create qualified conversations?
By running four things as one machine instead of four disconnected tactics. We research and build the target list, run outreach across LinkedIn and email in your name, automate the follow-up and routing, then track every opportunity in a CRM you own. Each part feeds the next, which is why the output is booked conversations rather than activity reports.
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01
Research & list building
Who exactly are we going to contact?
We define the buyer before we write a word: company type, size, region, and the specific title that signs off on your kind of contract. Then we build the list by hand and by tool, verified, so the campaign is not wasting sends on the wrong people. Bad targeting is the most common reason outbound fails, so this is where the first two weeks go.
- Ideal customer profile built from the jobs you actually want
- Named decision makers, not info@ addresses
- Verified contact data, deduplicated and suppression checked
- Segments by region and service line so messaging can be specific
Target list260 / 4,120Southeast USRev $2M–$50MOwner / VP / GMFiber & utilityVERIFIEDVERIFIEDVERIFIEDVERIFIED3,860 records removed — wrong title, no decision authority, unverifiable email -
02
LinkedIn & cold email
What does the outreach actually involve?
Two channels running at the same targets, in your name. On LinkedIn we clean up your profile so it reads like a contractor worth replying to, then run connection and follow-up campaigns. On email we write the sequences, send from dedicated warmed domains, and monitor deliverability every week.
- Profile optimization, connection requests and reply handling
- Campaign copywriting you approve before anything sends
- Multi-step follow-up sequences across both channels
- Deliverability, domain warmup and ongoing optimization
SequenceReply rate 4.8%D 01SENTLinkedIn
Connection request — no pitch
D 03OPENEDEmail
“Splice crews for the Q4 build?”
D 06SENTLinkedIn
Short message referencing their build
D 09REPLIEDEmail
Follow-up, one specific job reference
Sending domain: go-yourcompany.com · warmed 14 days -
03
Automation & routing
What happens the moment someone replies?
The reply is routed to the right person and a reminder is set, automatically, before anyone has to notice it. Interested replies go to your calendar, not-now replies go into a nurture track with a date attached, and everything is logged. The point is that no reply sits unanswered because someone was on a job site.
- Opportunity routing to the right person on your team
- Reminders and notifications so follow-up never depends on memory
- Booking links wired straight into the reply flow
- Weekly reporting on sends, replies and booked meetings
Reply routingAuto · 0s delayInbound reply
“We’re bidding two FTTH jobs in Q1. Can you do a call Thursday?”
Director of Construction · Fiber contractor, MS
Booked
Thu 10:00
Owner
Routed to GM
Reminder
+2 days
Logged to CRM · stage set to Qualified -
04
CRM & pipeline
Where does all of this end up?
In one CRM you own, where every opportunity, proposal and conversation lives in a stage you can see. You can look at it on a Monday morning and know what is actually in play and what stalled. When we stop working together, the whole thing stays with you.
- One system of record for opportunities, proposals and conversations
- Pipeline stages that match how you actually sell work
- Visibility into what is stalled and what needs a call today
- Full ownership: the data and the logins are yours
PipelineOwned by youNew reply6Fiber contractor
Mississippi
—
Utility EPC
Texas
—
Qualified4Fiber contractor
Call Thu 10:00
$180k est.
Proposal2Roofing group
Sent 12 Aug
$64k
Won1OSP engineering
Signed
$210k
Every opportunity, proposal and conversation in one place — logins transfer to you
WE TELL YOU HOW MANY COMPANIES MATCH YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE. 30 MINUTES.
The handoff
What happens after a prospect replies?
We don’t dump every response into your inbox and make you figure it out.
When prospects respond, ZeroDesk continues the conversation on your behalf. We answer basic questions, determine fit, uncover timing and needs, follow up when necessary, and move the conversation toward a real next step.
Your team gets involved when there is actually something worth getting involved in: a call, quote, proposal, site visit, bid opportunity or purchasing conversation.
01
Target list
02
Decision-maker outreach
03
Follow-up + conversation
04
Qualification
05
Call / quote / proposal
This is where your team comes in.
We handle the prospecting. We handle the follow-up. We handle the back-and-forth. You handle the sale.
Support services
What else does ZeroDesk build around the outbound engine?
Support services for clients already running outbound with us. The site that closes the traffic outbound creates, and the marketing that keeps you visible between campaigns. Neither replaces the outbound work.
Can ZeroDesk build or rebuild our website?
Yes, and it matters more than most contractors think. Outbound sends decision makers to your site, and most contractor sites lose them in the first ten seconds. We build on WordPress or fully custom depending on what the business actually needs, not what is easiest to sell.
- WordPress builds for service and contracting businesses
- Custom builds when an off the shelf platform does not fit
- Conversion focused page structure and mobile speed
- Inbound enquiries wired into the same CRM the campaigns feed
What does done for you marketing include?
The ongoing marketing work, handled end to end, so the owner is not writing content, chasing designers or managing channels. You approve direction once and the work runs. It keeps your name in front of the same buyers the outbound campaigns are contacting.
- Content and campaign production
- Channel management and posting
- Creative and copy
- Reporting on what is actually producing conversations
- Coordination so the message matches what outbound is saying
These are add-ons to the outbound engine, or standalone projects if that is all you need.
The ramp
What happens in the first 90 days?
Two weeks of setup, then campaigns go live and replies start coming in. Consistent meeting flow lands around day 90, once the messaging has been corrected against real reply data. Anyone promising booked meetings in week one is skipping the warmup that keeps your email out of spam.
WEEKS 1–2
Setup
Infrastructure, targeting, list building, messaging and campaign setup.
WEEKS 2–4
Outreach ramps
Outreach ramps. Initial replies, conversations and market feedback begin.
DAYS 30–60
Refinement
ICP and messaging refined using real response data. Qualified opportunities begin accumulating.
DAYS 60–90
Repeatable pipeline
Enough volume and data to judge the channel, identify winning segments and build a repeatable pipeline.
Some clients see opportunities almost immediately. Others have longer sales or purchasing cycles. Outbound compounds over time as conversations, follow-ups and future opportunities accumulate. We do not promise closed revenue in 30 days. A 45 to 60 day window before significant, repeatable results is the honest expectation.
Fit
Is ZeroDesk a fit for my company?
It comes down to economics, not industry labels. Outbound works when one customer is worth real money, the buyers can be identified, and there are enough of them to work through. We would rather tell you no on the call than take a retainer we cannot earn.
Qualifies
- You sell B2B.
- One customer, contract, project, account or equipment sale is worth thousands, tens of thousands or more.
- Your ideal buyers can be identified by company type, geography, size, role or other clear signals.
- There are hundreds or thousands of companies you could realistically sell to.
- You have capacity to fulfill new work, or an existing sales team that can close.
- You would rather create opportunities proactively than wait on referrals, ads or inbound demand.
Does not qualify
- You need leads this week
- You sell to consumers rather than businesses
- Your average contract is under $25,000
- Nobody on your team can follow up on replies
If one new customer is worth thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, you probably do not need hundreds of leads. You need conversations with the right people.
Coverage
Which industries do we run campaigns in?
The pattern here is companies where one new account, project, contract, equipment sale or recurring purchasing relationship can easily justify the investment.
Core — deepest experience · Strong — proven fit
- Telecom & Broadband InfrastructureFiber construction, OSP, aerial, splicing, broadband contractorsCore
- Underground Utility & HDDDirectional drilling, utility construction, hydrovac, trenching, underground contractorsCore
- Civil & SiteworkExcavation, grading, concrete, asphalt and paving, site developmentCore
- Equipment Manufacturers & DealersHydrovacs, trailers, boring equipment, utility equipment, heavy and specialty equipmentCore
- Materials & Infrastructure SuppliersFiber cable, conduit, handholes, closures, utility and electrical materials, specialty distributionCore
- Commercial Specialty ContractorsElectrical, roofing, HVAC, plumbing, fire protection and similar commercial tradesStrong
- Industrial & Infrastructure ServicesPipeline, oilfield services, fabrication, industrial maintenance, water and wastewaterStrong
- Equipment Rental & FleetSpecialty construction equipment, trailer fleets, rental houses and fleet solutionsStrong
Don’t see your industry? If you sell a high-value B2B service, contract, product or piece of equipment and we can identify the companies that buy it, there is a good chance outbound can work.
The other side of the market
Do you sell to contractors instead of being one?
ZeroDesk does not only help contractors win projects, it helps the companies that sell to contractors win customers. Manufacturers, equipment dealers, materials suppliers, distributors, rental companies, and fleet, safety, tooling and software vendors selling into the trades.
01
A contractor can hit field capacity and stop wanting new projects. A distributor or manufacturer can absorb far more new customers.
02
The buyer universe stays highly identifiable by industry, geography, size, equipment and job title.
03
Customer lifetime value can be very high when contractors repeatedly purchase materials, equipment or inventory across multiple projects.
The same engine runs in reverse. We identify the contractors, reach the owner, operations or purchasing decision-maker, qualify interest, and hand the opportunity to your sales team.
Proof
What results has ZeroDesk produced?
Client work is described by industry and region unless the client has approved being named, and every number here is one we can walk you through on a call. If a figure is not on this page, it is because we could not defend it.
What a real exchange looks like before it reaches you
ZeroDesk opens, the prospect replies, several messages go back and forth, the opportunity gets qualified, and only then does it pass to the client. Names, companies and logos are blurred.
From 31 LinkedIn connections to a $1.3M fiber project
Rapid Light Communications had the crews, equipment and production history to run fiber construction, but no way to reach the companies awarding the work. The owner had 31 LinkedIn connections and was prospecting through Yellow Pages listings.
ZeroDesk built the target list of prime contractors, broadband builders and ISPs, reached operations and construction leaders, and carried the conversations through follow-up and qualification before handing them over.
211
Accepted invitations from targeted decision-makers
3
New company onboardings in under two months
$1.3M
Fiber project secured in the same window
30 MINUTES, NO OBLIGATION.
The alternatives
Let your salespeople sell. We’ll keep their pipeline full.
ZeroDesk is the prospecting and SDR layer that sits in front of your closers. If you already employ salespeople, we keep their calendar full instead of replacing them. If you do not, you get the layer without the headcount.
- Research target companies and accounts
- Identify the right decision-makers
- Build verified prospect lists
- Send personalized cold email and LinkedIn touches
- Follow up repeatedly
- Handle early back and forth and basic qualification
- Route qualified opportunities to the right closer
| ZeroDesk | In-house SDR hire | Doing it yourself | Typical marketing agency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | FROM $1,500/MO | Salary, payroll tax, tools and management, plus ramp time before they produce | No cash cost, but it comes out of the hours you spend bidding and running jobs | Retainer, usually plus ad spend on top |
| Time to first meetings | Campaigns live around day 15, first replies in weeks three to six | Two to four months including hiring and ramp | Whenever the week allows, which is the problem | Often 90 days or more, since inbound has to build an audience first |
| Who writes the messaging | We write it, you approve it, we rewrite it against reply data | The rep, whose writing quality you find out about after hiring | You, at night | A copywriter who may never have sold your trade |
| If it does not work | We change targeting and offer, or tell you outbound is wrong for your market | You have a hiring decision to unwind, with severance and lost months | It quietly stops and nobody notices for a quarter | Usually a recommendation to increase spend |
| Ownership of lists & CRM | You do, including the logins | You do, if the rep documented anything before leaving | You do, usually spread across a spreadsheet and an inbox | Often the agency's account, which you lose on exit |
| Salary, benefits and software stack | None. One retainer covers the people, the tooling and the sending infrastructure | Salary, benefits, payroll tax, sales tooling and management time on top | Tool subscriptions you pick, maintain and pay for yourself | Retainer plus the platforms they bill through |
| Ramp-up risk | Low. The system is built and running in two weeks and can be stopped | High. A bad hire costs months of salary and a dead pipeline | Low cost, low odds of consistency | Medium. Spend is committed before results are visible |
You may not need another full-time prospector. ZeroDesk gives your team the research, outreach, follow-up and qualification layer without another salary, benefits package, software stack, training burden and management workload.
Pricing
How much does ZeroDesk cost?
Three ways to buy, all on a 90-day initial term so the ramp has time to work, then month to month. Most clients run the full outbound system at $2,500 a month. The price is on this page because you should not have to book a call to find out if you can afford it.
Single Channel
$1,500 / month
One channel, run end to end, in your name.
- Research, ICP definition and ongoing list building
- Outreach and follow-up in your name on your chosen channel
- Sending infrastructure, domain setup and warmup
- Follow-up, conversation handling and qualification
- CRM setup, routing and weekly reporting
- 1 ICP targeted · one channel
Full Outbound System
$2,500 / month
Both channels run as one managed pipeline.
- Cold email infrastructure, domains and warmup
- LinkedIn outreach from your real profile
- Research, list building and messaging across both channels
- Reply handling, qualification and opportunity handoff
- Roughly 17% less than buying both channels separately
Enterprise BD
from $4,000 / month
For sales teams, multiple ICPs or multiple territories.
- Multiple sender profiles and email infrastructure
- Territory segmentation across product lines and regions
- Rep routing, CRM workflows and larger databases
- Advanced reporting and account ownership
90-day initial term, then month to month · $500 one-time onboarding fee
Performance aligned
Select clients qualify for a reduced monthly retainer combined with a success fee on business generated through ZeroDesk. Structure varies by industry, margins and attribution.
Add-ons, quoted separately
90-day launch bonus
Commit to 90 days of the full outbound system and a sales-focused website refresh or dedicated conversion landing page is included.
Not included in any tier
- Running your sales calls, which stay with you
- Domain registration fees, paid by you since the domains stay your property
- Paid ad spend
- Website work beyond the scoped conversion refresh, quoted separately
- Done for you marketing, quoted separately
FAQ
Common questions about outbound business development
ZeroDesk is done-for-you outbound business development for high-ticket B2B companies. We identify the companies worth targeting, find the decision-makers, run cold email and LinkedIn outreach in your name, handle the follow-up and the early back-and-forth, qualify the opportunity, and hand you the conversation when there is a real next step: a call, quote, proposal, site visit, bid or purchasing conversation. The niche is infrastructure and commercial B2B: contractors, the manufacturers and equipment companies that serve them, and the suppliers and distributors selling into the same ecosystem.
Most accounts see first replies inside the first three to six weeks, and consistent meeting flow by day 90. The first two weeks go to research, list building and domain warmup, which cannot be skipped without burning your sending reputation. Campaigns go live around day 15 and messaging is iterated on real reply data from there. Anyone promising booked meetings in week one is either sending from a burned domain or guessing.
Cold email is sent from separate sending domains that we buy, warm up and maintain for you. Your primary domain is never used for cold volume, so your day to day email with customers and crews is protected. The sending domains are close variants of your brand so replies still read as coming from your company. LinkedIn outreach runs from your real profile, because that is the only way it works.
Business to business cold email is legal in the United States under CAN-SPAM. The requirements are honest headers, a real physical address, no deceptive subject lines and a working opt out that we honor immediately. We follow all of them and we suppress anyone who asks out, permanently, across every campaign. If you sell into Canada or the EU we adjust the approach for CASL and GDPR.
Yes. The prospect lists, the sending infrastructure, the CRM and every conversation in it belong to you. If we stop working together you keep all of it and we hand over the logins. Nothing sits in a shared agency account you cannot access. That is not a favor, it is the only arrangement that makes sense when the asset being built is your pipeline.
We iterate on the parts that are measurable: the target list, the offer, the subject lines and the sequence timing. Most underperformance traces back to targeting or offer, not copy, and we find that in the reply data within a few weeks. If after a full ramp the numbers say your market does not respond to outbound, we tell you that plainly instead of billing you to keep sending. You are not locked into a long contract to find out.
No. We book qualified conversations onto your calendar and you run the call. You know your pricing, your capacity and your scopes better than any outside team could. What we do is make sure the person on the other end is a real decision maker who understood what they were saying yes to. Closing stays with you.
About thirty minutes. That is a short check in on which replies are worth pursuing and any change in the work you want more of. Beyond that you need to take the calls we book and reply to prospects within about two days. Accounts that answer replies quickly book significantly more meetings than accounts that let them sit.
A purchased list is a spreadsheet of contacts, usually stale, that still leaves you to write, send, follow up and track everything. We research and build the list against your actual ideal customer profile, then run the outreach, the follow up and the tracking as one system. The deliverable is not contacts, it is booked conversations. You also keep the list, which you do not with most resellers.
Telecom and broadband infrastructure, underground utility and HDD, civil and sitework, equipment manufacturers and dealers, materials and infrastructure suppliers, commercial specialty contractors, industrial and infrastructure services, and equipment rental and fleet. The common thread is a high-value B2B sale and a decision-maker we can identify by name. If your buyer is a homeowner, this is the wrong fit.
We do. We interview you once about the work you want more of, the jobs you win and the objections you hear, then we write every sequence and send it to you for approval before anything goes out. You have final say on the messaging and you can change it at any point. After launch we rewrite based on what is actually getting replies, not on what sounded good in a doc.
You do not need a new site before outbound starts. Campaigns can launch on your current site and we will tell you honestly whether it is costing you replies. If it is, we build the new one in parallel on WordPress or fully custom, wired into the same CRM the campaigns feed. Website work is an add on to the outbound engine or a standalone project, not a prerequisite.
Both. WordPress for most service and contracting businesses, because it is easy for your team to update. Fully custom when an off the shelf platform genuinely does not fit what the business does. We recommend the cheapest platform that does the job rather than the one with the biggest build fee.
Next step
Ready to stop waiting on referrals?
Thirty minutes on the phone tells you whether an outbound system is worth building for your company.
Book the 30 minute callThirty minutes. If outbound is wrong for your market, we will say so on the call.
What happens on the call
- 01We look at where your opportunities come from now
- 02We tell you whether outbound fits your contract size
- 03You leave knowing how big your addressable market actually is, whether or not you hire us