Stop pitching, start helping. How inbound sales actually work

⏱️ Read time: 5 minutes

What you’ll get from this

• Why most sales teams are out of sync with how people buy
• What the modern buyer journey really looks like
• The 4 steps of an inbound sales strategy
• How to stop pushing and start guiding
• Simple ways to make every sales conversation feel like a favor, not a pitch

“Always be closing.”

Sure. Why not always be faxing your proposals too.

Back when shiny-suited sales gladiators roamed office parks and bullied buyers into signing carbon-copy contracts, that mantra made sense. Buyers were information-poor. You held the secrets. Bark hard enough and the deal fell off the truck.

Then Google happened.

Today your prospect has read seventeen comparison sites, scanned Reddit horror stories, and built a DIY ROI spreadsheet before your calendar invite is even sent, all from a single prompt in ChatGPT.

But the LinkedIn bro chorus still chants the ABC gospel as though it’s the 10 KPIs that Moses carved into his iPad. 🙄

In a previous role, I watched a friend of mine (ahem) open a Zoom call with the usual boiler-room pitch. Thirty seconds in, the buyer interrupted and quoted the company’s own case study back at him.

Word. For. Word.

It was like someone mansplaining Hamlet to Shakespeare himself.

Classic costly signalling, minus the signal.

Here’s the thing:

People don’t buy the way they used to

Sales used to be about controlling the conversation. You’d reach out, walk a buyer through your pitch, answer their questions, and close the deal. That model worked when buyers needed salespeople to get information.

But the internet changed everything. Now buyers can research products, compare pricing, read reviews, and even test things out, all without ever talking to a human. They just prompt engineer that sh*t straight into any LLM.

They’re more informed, more skeptical, and less patient than ever. So if you’re still treating your sales process like it’s 2005, you're going to keep getting ignored.

Here’s the truth: buyers don’t want to be prospected, demoed, and closed. They want to be helped, guided, and understood.

Why nobody trusts salespeople

Let’s be honest, salespeople rank at the bottom of trust surveys, right alongside politicians. That’s because too many reps are still pushing products instead of helping people solve problems.

Inbound flips the script. It’s not about interrupting someone’s day to pitch your thing. It’s about understanding where they are in their decision-making and giving them what they need right now, not what you want them to hear.

This means fewer hard sells and more real conversations. It means doing your homework before reaching out. It means being helpful before someone is even ready to buy.

Meet your buyer where they are

Buyers go through a journey long before they ever hop on a sales call. If you skip this and jump straight to pitching, you’ll always feel like you’re chasing leads who aren’t interested.

There are 3 stages in every buyer’s journey:

1. Awareness - They realize they have a problem or a goal.
2. Consideration - They’re researching different ways to solve it.
3. Decision –-They’re choosing who or what to go with.

The job of an inbound seller is to figure out where the buyer is, and then show up with the right kind of help. That’s it. You're not the hero of the story, they are.

Step 1: Identify who's already on the path

Inbound sales starts with spotting the people who might already be trying to solve a problem you can help with. This isn’t just pulling a lead list. It’s understanding what your ideal buyers care about and where they hang out.

To help you find the channels and communities your ICP hang out in, ChatGPTs Deep Research features is fantastic for this. You can use prompts like

Research and list the top online and offline places where [ICP role] in [industry] spend time learning, networking, or seeking solutions to [problem you solve]. Include specific LinkedIn groups, Slack communities, subreddits, industry forums. For each, provide a short description, why it’s relevant to them, and a link.

What to do:

• Monitor channels where your ICP spends time (LinkedIn, Reddit, industry blogs)
• Look for intent signals: comments, post engagement, comparison content views
• Tag and track leads in your CRM who show early-stage interest

Step 2: Connect in a way that earns attention

Now that you know who might need help, the next step is to reach out, but not with a pitch.

Use what you’ve learned. Bring context. Show them you understand their situation. Offer something useful: a consultation, a resource, a different lens on their problem. Make the whole thing feel like a favor, not a trap.

What to avoid:

• Generic sales emails that start with filler like "Hope you're doing well" or "Just checking in"
• Jumping straight into a cold pitch about your features without showing you understand their situation
• Dropping a calendar link right away (“15 minutes to discuss how we can help”) with no upfront value
• Automated follow-ups that feel robotic and ignore prior interactions
• Pretending you’ve done research when it’s clearly just mail merge placeholders

Example:

"Hi [First Name], I came across your profile and wanted to introduce our AI sales platform. We help companies like yours boost revenue by 30% in 90 days. When would be a good time to hop on a quick call?" -

This jumps straight to selling, offers no value, and has zero personalization beyond a name.

What to do instead:

• Personalize your outreach so the recipient feels genuinely seen
• Frame your personalization as a compliment they’d take pride in, not just a random fact about them
• Start with a simple, sincere compliment, then a soft qualifying question to open a conversation-not a hard pitch
• Be curious about their goals or problems, offer help, and only suggest a meeting if it makes sense naturally

Example:

"Hey [First Name], loved your recent post/article on scaling a remote sales team - really excited for what you’re building at [company]. Been following you from here in [location]

How are you finding the talent market this quarter - is it going well?"

This shows you’ve paid attention, compliments their thinking, and opens the door to a conversation without pushing for a sale.

Step 3: Explore what really matters to them

If the buyer’s engaged, it’s time to dig deeper. Not with a script. Think of it like a working session.

Ask questions that help them define their own criteria for success. Help them compare different types of solutions, even if yours isn't the best fit.

At Portant, this is where we sometimes say:

“If HubSpot Quotes does everything you need, go with that. Don’t make it more complicated than needed”

But if a buyer needs full customization abilities, better team collaboration tools, for example, Portant becomes a better choice.

We’ll often mention other tools too, like PandaDoc or Qwilr, if it helps the buyer see their options clearly.

What to do:

• Ask about their full buying criteria, not just what’s in your swim lane
• Map out their alternatives and talk through trade-offs honestly
• Position your offer as a recommendation, not a pitch

Step 4: Advise like a trusted guide

By now, you’ve earned the right to recommend a path forward. So make it personal.

Tailor what you show. Focus only on the features or use cases that matter to them. You’re not trying to impress. You’re trying to make their decision easier.

What to do:

• Reframe the demo as a walkthrough of their future
• Tie parts of the demo back to specific pain points they mentioned earlier in the call
• Anchor your proposal in their goals and constraints
• Focus only on features that directly solve their specific problems, not everything you offer
• End with a clear path to action (next step, timeline, and value expected)

So what now?

Inbound isn’t a tactic. It’s a mindset.

It’s about helping first, selling second. It’s about matching the way people buy instead of forcing them into your funnel. And it’s about doing the hard work to earn trust before you ask for attention.

If you’re willing to slow down a bit, listen more, and show up with something useful, not just something to sell, you’ll start seeing better conversations, shorter sales cycles, and buyers who actually want to talk to you.

And that’s the point, isn’t it? Helping people get where they want to go. Everything else flows from there.

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