Sales sequence templates by vertical (5 industries, ready to use)

Outbound sequence structure is not universal. A VP of Sales at a Series B SaaS company reads email differently than a recruiting firm principal or a law firm partner. The step count, timing, and angle per step should match the buyer — not just the product. Below are five complete sequence structures, one per vertical, ready to configure.

B2B SaaS sequence (5 steps, 21 days)

ICP signal to watch: VP Sales or Head of Revenue + Series A/B stage + SDR job posting. Personalisation hook: reference their current outbound stack or hiring signal.

Step 1 (Day 1, Email): Pain-led. Reference the SDR hiring signal or growth stage. Problem: inconsistent outbound at scale. CTA: worth a quick call?

Step 2 (Day 4, LinkedIn): Profile visit + connection request. Note: "Working on something for founders scaling outbound — worth connecting."

Step 3 (Day 7, Email): Mechanism-led. Explain how heartbeat cycles + shared memory work. Different angle from step 1. CTA: happy to send a short demo clip.

Step 4 (Day 14, Email): Soft check-in. "Is outbound still the priority this quarter, or has focus shifted?"

Step 5 (Day 21, Email): Break-up. Clean, no pressure, leaves the door open.

Marketing agency sequence (5 steps, 18 days)

ICP signal: Agency owner or MD + 5–50 staff + client-facing services. Personalisation hook: reference their service offering or recent case study.

Step 1 (Day 1, Email): Margin angle. Every new client shouldn't require a new hire. Introduce the concept of AI execution layer for delivery.

Step 2 (Day 3, LinkedIn): Connection request referencing their agency focus.

Step 3 (Day 7, Email): Knowledge walkout angle. When account managers leave, client context walks out with them. Introduce the isolated workspace model.

Step 4 (Day 12, Email): Quick check-in. "Is adding clients without adding headcount something you're actively working on?"

Step 5 (Day 18, Email): Break-up with one final angle — the agency version: "Your next client doesn't need a new hire. It needs a new workspace."

Recruiting/staffing sequence (6 steps, 21 days)

ICP signal: Recruiting firm owner or principal. Personalisation hook: niche they recruit for (tech, finance, legal).

Step 1 (Day 1, Email): The two-pipeline problem. When you're busy placing, sourcing stops. New business development goes dark.

Step 2 (Day 3, LinkedIn): Connection request. Short note referencing their recruiting niche.

Step 3 (Day 6, Email): Client development angle. Introduce the parallel pipeline concept — candidate sourcing and client outreach running at the same time without extra headcount.

Step 4 (Day 10, Email): Niche-specific social proof. Reference a firm in their vertical that solved the same capacity problem.

Step 5 (Day 14, Email): Soft check-in. "Is new client development something you're actively working on, or is placement volume the focus right now?"

Step 6 (Day 21, Email): Break-up. Clean close, no pressure.

Professional services sequence (5 steps, 24 days)

ICP signal: Partner or managing director at a law, consulting, or advisory firm. Personalisation hook: their practice area or a recent publication, talk, or article they wrote.

Partners don't respond to aggressive outbound. They respond to relevance and credibility. Lead with insight, not pitch. The tone here is slower and more considered than SaaS outbound — longer gaps between steps, softer angles throughout.

Step 1 (Day 1, Email): BD between client work angle. Most partners have no time for business development during active engagements. Name that problem directly.

Step 2 (Day 5, LinkedIn): Connection request. If they've published recently, reference it specifically — not generically.

Step 3 (Day 10, Email): Referral partner angle. Position as infrastructure for the BD work they already want to do but can't staff.

Step 4 (Day 16, Email): Softer check-in. "Is firm development on your plate this year, or is capacity the constraint?"

Step 5 (Day 24, Email): Break-up. Acknowledge their work briefly, close the door without pressure.

Financial services / fintech sequence (5 steps, 21 days)

ICP signal: VP Sales or Head of BD at a B2B fintech or financial services firm + 20–200 employees + outbound-dependent growth model. Personalisation hook: their target customer segment (SMBs, advisors, brokers, CFOs) or a recent product launch.

Financial services buyers are relationship-aware and compliance-conscious. They're also high-volume outbound targets themselves — they know what bad outreach looks like. Your messaging needs to show you understand their buyer, not just their industry.

Step 1 (Day 1, Email): Trust-building at scale angle. Fintech GTM depends on reaching advisors, brokers, or CFOs who are protective of their relationships. The problem: doing that consistently at the volume required without losing the relationship-first feel. Name that tension.

Step 2 (Day 4, LinkedIn): Connection request. Reference their product or target customer segment — not the company generically.

Step 3 (Day 8, Email): Compliance and memory angle. Any compliance rule you set — what the SDR can and can't say, which segments to avoid, required disclosures — becomes permanent memory the agent applies every cycle. No re-briefing required.

Step 4 (Day 14, Email): Soft check-in. "Is scaling BD outreach without diluting the trust-first approach something you're working on this year?"

Step 5 (Day 21, Email): Break-up. Short, no pressure, leaves door open.

How do AI agents run these sequences?

Each structure above maps directly to an AI SDR configuration. The agent gets the ICP criteria, the angle per step, and the personalisation hook for that vertical. It pulls prospect data, researches the specific signal (job posting, recent hire, published article), writes the email, and sends it on the defined day. You configure the structure once per vertical. The agent runs it for every prospect in that segment, every cycle, without a human in the loop for each send.