XpandEast
The APAC GTM Playbook · Free Edition
For founders and revenue leaders entering APAC

You budgeted
for APAC.
You got zero logos.
This closed 8.

Here is the playbook that closed eight enterprise deals in one Southeast Asian market, with no cold calls and no ad spend, starting from a LinkedIn profile nobody in the region had heard of. Two million views, and the word-for-word DMs that turned that attention into signed contracts.

2.08M
real impressions, one profile, one year
8
deals over $50K, ~$400K closed
$0
ad spend to produce it
$400K. one market. zero ad spend.

The system, section by section

  1. The full funnel, 2M impressions down to signed deals, every rate
  2. Why cold blasting burns your market, and it runs on trust
  3. The content that gets you seen, saved and forwarded
  4. The sell-by-chat DM system, word for word, with real threads
  5. Lead magnets, follow-ups, and warming a cold target account
01 · The Funnel, On The Record

Where every contact goes,
and how long it takes.

Read it top to bottom. Just over two million real LinkedIn impressions turn into eight signed deals. Every conversion rate is on the bar. The engine and the proposals come together in the first six months. The deals sign later, on the buyer’s clock, not yours.

Months 1–6 · Build the name, open the chat, reach proposal
Impressions
LinkedIn, one year
2,076,331
Engaged
20,066~1% engage
Right titles
4,270~21% are ICP
Connections
3,110~73% accept
Replies
942~30% reply, warm
Positive
418~44% of replies
First meetings
on WhatsApp
108capped, 9 a month
Second meetings
43~40% return
Proposals
32~74% reach it
Months 6–12 · Deals sign
Deals over $50K
8~25% close
real ↑

The output, one account, one year

$400Kclosed, one market, from one profile
8 deals at over $50K$400K+
Cost against one SG repLess
Ad spend$0
Proposals on the table byMonth 6
How long this takes

Everything through the proposal happens in the first six months, the content, the DMs, the meetings, the proposals. The deals sign between months 6 and 12. How far into that window depends on the industry, the company size, the deal size and the country. A bank moves slower than a mid-market accounting-software buyer. Plan for a full year to first cash, with proposals on the table at the halfway mark.

Impressions, engagement and reach are real, from the screenshot below. The stages under them are triangulated from current B2B IT and SaaS benchmarks (Instantly 2026 cold reply 3.43%; warm first-degree LinkedIn reply 18 to 35%; proposal to close about 25%) and the 58-partner field data. The meeting stage is capped at the real ceiling of about 9 first meetings a month.

Real · 365-day analytics LinkedIn content performance: 2,076,331 impressions, up 597%
One profile. One year.
Zero ad spend. ↑597%

The top of this funnel is not a guess. 2,076,331 impressions, up 597% on the prior six months, reaching 733,927 people. 89% of it landed out-of-network, reach you never paid for. The stages below the impressions line are what that reach converts into once you run the DM system in this guide.

3,884 saves. 907 sends.
That is the buying committee
passing you around.

20,066 engagements is the top of the funnel. The ones that matter are the 3,884 saves and 907 sends, people filing your content and forwarding it to a colleague. In SEA that forward is the WhatsApp screenshot that moves the deal. Reactions get you seen. Saves and sends get you shortlisted.

Real · engagement Engagement: 20,066 social engagements, 3,884 saves, 907 sends
it is a TRUST
deficit ↘ 02 · Why Cold Blasting Fails Here

Cold does not fail in APAC
on the law alone. It fails on trust.

The data laws here are real and worth respecting, but they are not the reason your cold outreach dies. The real problem is a trust deficit. In Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Manila and Bangkok, business runs on relationships built before any deal, so when you message a stranger and pitch, their mind quietly files you as a salesperson, a lower rung than a trusted advisor, and once you have landed on that rung it is very hard to climb off it.

~3%
of any market is ready to buy right now
Sell-by-chat field principle, 2026
3.4%
reply to a cold B2B email, across all markets
Instantly Cold Email Benchmark Report, 2026
72%
of shortlisted vendors were already known on day one
Green Hat and 6sense APAC, 2025
80%
of buyers personally know someone at the vendor they pick
Green Hat and 6sense APAC, 2025
The $25,000 burned patch

A US enterprise-AI vendor moving into Malaysia paid an agency to run the volume play into banking and telco. The agency pushed automated cold connection requests and templated pitches at every CIO, CISO and Head of Data they could scrape, thousands of them, with generic messaging nobody had localised. The banking and telco circle in Kuala Lumpur is small, and word travels fast in it. Within weeks the vendor had a reputation as a spammer among the exact fifty or so buyers who actually control the budgets, and warm introductions dried up. When you have only a few dozen real accounts in a market, one careless blast can close the whole market to you.

Cold-first, the leak

What most vendors do

  • 1 Buy a list and hire one Singapore rep to cover all of APAC
  • 2 Blast the whole patch, chasing the 3% who might be ready
  • 3 Pitch on message one, and get filed as "salesperson"
  • 4 Burn the other 97% who were months away from buying
  • 5 Six months later the CRM looks full and the logo count is zero
You chase 3% and poison 97%. The math never works.
Trust-first, the fix

What this manual does

  • 1 Publish so the buyer spends time on your content and warms up
  • 2 Cater to 100% of the market, not just the 3% ready today
  • 3 Open a chat with value, never a pitch, so trust keeps climbing
  • 4 Let them educate themselves over 1 to 6 months, then ask
  • 5 Book the meeting when they are ready, warm and inbound
You keep the whole patch alive. Nobody gets burned.
read the
RIGHT column ↘ 03 · West vs SEA, Side By Side

The same pitch works in one column
and fails in the other.

Four questions. Two answers each. The West sells on task and speed. Southeast Asia sells on relationship and hierarchy. Read down the right column, because that is the room you are walking into. Grounded in Hofstede and Erin Meyer's Culture Map.

The question
US & UK
Singapore · Malaysia · Indonesia · Philippines · Thailand
How do they trust you?
From your track record. Prove you are competent and the deal moves.
From knowing you. They buy from people they like, after time and personal contact. Competence alone does not open the door.
Who makes the call?
One person, fast. Individual accountability.
One senior person, top-down, in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, where power distance is high and juniors defer. Only Indonesia decides by group consensus, called musyawarah.
Where does business happen?
Email, RFP, procurement. LinkedIn helps.
On the messaging app. WhatsApp in Malaysia and Indonesia. Viber and Messenger in the Philippines. LINE in Thailand, used by 78% of the country.
How do they take a cold approach?
Expected. A normal, if low-yield, move.
As a stranger with no standing. Without an intro or a warm-up there is no reason to give you attention. The referral is the real front door.

Named concepts: Indonesian musyawarah (decide by group consensus). Malaysia has the highest power distance measured anywhere, so the senior figure decides. Sources: Hofstede Insights; Erin Meyer, The Culture Map; Cultural Atlas; Commisceo Global.

this made
2M views ↓ 04 · The Content Engine

How to fill the top of the funnel.
Every step, with real posts.

Those two million impressions come from a repeatable method, not from posting more. Here is how to build the content that warms up the buyer before you ever message them. Examples are for a vendor selling accounting software into SEA.

Find your angle Write the post Get reach Turn views into leads The DM system Cold target accounts
1

Find your angle

Before you write a word. What makes the right buyer follow.
Reach
that pulls accounting buyers
1
Write down your monetizable expertise

The one thing you know that changes a buyer's outcome in a way they will pay for. Not your feature list. The specific result they want.

Accounting SaaS exampleNot "our software has e-invoicing." Instead: "How a Malaysian SME clears the LHDN e-invoicing mandate in 3 weeks without a finance hire." That is the outcome a CFO pays for.
2
Pick your strategic arbitrage

Take a topic that already performs and tell it through your own story or a client's. On LinkedIn that means money saved, time saved, a deadline beaten.

Accounting SaaS example"How I helped a Selangor manufacturer cut month-end close from 9 days to 2" rides a proven topic (time saved) through a real story. The topic pulls reach, the story makes it yours.
3
Set your 4-3-2-1 week

Four posts a week, three pillars. Split them so you grow reach and stay qualified at the same time.

Broad reach
Whole-market

General finance and business topics SEA SME leaders care about. Gets you in front of new people.

Brings the audience
Growth
Your niche problem

The specific pain: messy close, tax compliance, e-invoicing. Narrower reach, far more qualified.

Qualifies them
Sales
Proof and offer

Client results, before and after, what you do. Turns a follower into a conversation.

Converts them
Result: a bank of angles that pull CFOs and finance heads, not just any likes.
2

Write the post

The mechanics that get it read on a phone.
Dwell
the one thing the algorithm ranks
1
Lead with "how I," not "how to"

"How to" sounds like every other post and an AI could write it. "How I" is your specific method, the only thing AI cannot copy. It carries proof and builds trust.

Wrong vs right"How to speed up month-end close." → "How I got a Penang SME's month-end close from 9 days to 2, with the same finance team."
2
Write an 8-word hook

The first line is the whole game. Keep it to about 8 words so it survives the "see more" cut on a phone. Lead with a specific number, never a round one, because round numbers sound made up.

3
Add a rehook on line two

The second line is your second chance. Stretch the curiosity one more beat so they tap "see more" instead of scrolling. Do not drop into a list yet.

4
Fill in the SLAY structure

The body writes itself once you follow this. Story, then lesson, then the real steps, then back to them.

S
Story
Open on a real moment. "A CFO called me in a panic 3 days before the tax deadline."
Gets attention
L
Lesson
Turn to what it taught you, so they read on.
Gets retention
A
Actionable
Give the real steps they can use today.
Gets the save
Y
You
End on them. A question that pulls a comment.
Gets the reply
5
Go broad, then narrow, then niche

Inside one post: open broad so the wider market reads it, go narrow to the real problem, then niche on the detail only your buyer wants.

Accounting SaaS exampleBroad: "Most SEA SMEs lose a week every month to their books." Narrow: "It is almost always the manual reconciliation." Niche: "Here is the exact 3-step close we set up for a KL distributor."
Result: a post built to be read, saved and commented on, which is what the algorithm rewards.
3

Post and get reach

The first hour decides how far it travels.
2M+
impressions, no ad spend
1
Post from personal profiles, not the page

The founder and team post from their own profiles. A personal profile reaches roughly 8x what a company page does. The page is for proof. The people are the engine. The 2 million impressions above came from one personal profile.

2
Work the first 30 to 60 minutes

LinkedIn sets the reach in the first hour on early engagement. Comments count far more than likes. Be at your desk when it goes live, reply to every comment fast, ask a question back. Do not schedule and walk away.

3
Trend-jack the news early

LinkedIn catches industry news about a week late, so post on a breaking story before the feed fills with it.

Accounting SaaS exampleLHDN moves the e-invoicing deadline for a new revenue band. Post your read on what it means for those SMEs the same day, not next week.
!
Never put the link in the post body

A link in the body suppresses reach. Put it in the first comment and point to it in the copy. Native content only in the post itself.

Result: organic reach that compounds, until the right buyers know your name before you ever message them.
most guides
SKIP this ↓ 05 · From Impression To Conversation

The missing hinge.
How a viewer becomes someone you can DM.

Content gets you seen. But a view is not a lead. Here is the exact bridge most guides skip: how the person who scrolled past your post becomes a warm connection sitting in your inbox, ready for the DM system in the next section.

1
They engage

A right-title buyer likes, comments on, or saves your post. LinkedIn shows you exactly who. That is your list, built for free.

2
You connect

Send a connection request with no note, or a one-line note that references their comment. No pitch. ~73% accept because they just saw your content.

↑ they know your face now
3
You engage back

Before you message, spend a few days liking and commenting usefully on their posts. Now you are familiar, not a stranger who appeared in their inbox.

4
You open the chat

Now the first DM lands warm. You reference their content or a shared topic, give value, ask a question. The DM system takes over here.

→ into LVQ, next section
Why this hinge matters

Skip it and you are back to cold. The whole reason the warm reply rate is ~30% and not 3% is that you only DM people who already engaged with your content and whose posts you then engaged with. The connection request is not the ask. It is the handshake that makes the later message welcome.

The engine of time-on-content

Lead magnets are how they
educate themselves into buying.

The DM system runs on the buyer consuming one free resource, then another, then another, until they trust you. Those resources are lead magnets, and the comment gate is how you deliver them and start the conversation at the same time.

What a lead magnet is

A specific, ungoogleable resource.

Not a generic ebook. The exact thing your buyer cannot get from a Google search or ChatGPT. For an accounting-SaaS vendor: a Malaysia e-invoicing readiness checklist, a month-end close template, a country-by-country SEA tax-deadline calendar. Something they save and act on.

Why the comment gate

It does three jobs at once.

Asking people to comment a keyword spikes the post's reach in the golden hour, builds a public list of interested buyers, and gives you a reason to slide into their DMs to deliver it. One move, three wins. The delivery message is where the LVQ chat begins.

SN
Your name, Founder
Accounting software for SEA SMEs
Most Malaysian SMEs are still not ready for the next LHDN e-invoicing wave, and the deadline is closer than they think.

I built a one-page readiness checklist: the 11 things your finance team needs in place, and the 3 that get missed most.

Comment "INVOICE" and I will send it over. 💬 Comment: INVOICE
👍 1,240💬 lots of leads↗ 90 sends
FH
INVOICE 🙌
Each comment is a warm lead
raising their hand in public.

You reply to the comment, then DM the resource: "Here is the checklist, hope it helps. Saw you have been posting about your finance team, what got you fixing this yourself?" That delivery message is message one of the LVQ chat. The lead magnet did not just capture a lead. It opened the conversation.

Build a ladder of three
One lead magnet is a lead. Three is a relationship. Make a first one that solves an urgent, narrow problem, then a second and a third that go deeper. As they ask for each one, they spend more time on your content and trust you more, no pitch required. By the third, the meeting feels like their idea.
06 · The DM System, Word For Word

This is where deals are actually won.
Sell by chat, not by pitch.

The content warms them up. The DM is where trust turns into a booked meeting. Most vendors blow this by pitching on message one. Here is the exact system that books meetings at scale, the trust ladder, the message formula, and a real thread you can copy.

most people pitch HERE and die
Stranger
Warming up
Trusted advisor

There are only two ways to move someone from stranger to trusted advisor: spend time with them and give them value. Trust is the lubricant of every sale, the more they trust you, the higher the chance they buy. Pitch too early and the buyer's brain takes a shortcut and files you as "salesperson," a lower status. Once they discount you there, you cannot climb back up. So on LinkedIn, the world's largest B2B networking room, you never walk up and pitch. You add value until they ask.

The real mechanic: time on content
They consume a lead magnet. No pitch, maybe one light question. Later they ask for a second. Then a third. By now they have spent hours with your content and they trust you. You did not convince them. They convinced themselves. This runs over 1 to 6 months, not 3 days. That is what good marketing buys you: time for the buyer to get educated until they think "this is the one," and the meeting feels natural.
The one rule that changes everything

Inbound and outbound
are played at opposite speeds.

Inbound

Speed to lead. Move now.

Someone comes to you after your content, emotions high, ready. Throw the long game in the bin. Get back to them as fast as humanly possible and book the call then and there. Delete "next week" from your vocabulary. Emotions cool fast, especially with SME owners. Catch them while it is hot.

Outbound

Long time horizon. Let it breathe.

You started the chat, they did not come to you. Only a slice of the 3% ready today will ever reply, so play for the other 97%. Give value, ask questions, stay in the pipeline, and let them warm up over weeks or months. No pitch. You are building the trust that makes the eventual ask easy.

The message formula

Every message follows LVQ.
Lube, value, question.

A chat has no tone of voice, so you have to build it in. LVQ does that. Add the V every two or three messages, not every time.

L
Lube the chat

Mirror back what they gave you so they feel heard. "Ah that really sucks, that was me when I started too." Write 2 to 3 times more than feels natural, so the tone carries and they feel understood, not processed.

V
Give value

A resource, a case study, or one real insight, with enough of a nudge that they actually open it rather than letting the link sit there unread. This is what earns the right to ask a question. Broken into four parts below.

Q
Ask a question

Always end on a question that walks them one step down the funnel toward the meeting. Not "nice dog." A question about the problem you solve, that you already know the answer to.

The V, broken into four parts, so the value actually lands:

1 · WHY

Why this came to mind. "I was just chatting to a client and it reminded me of you."

2 · BEFORE

Where they were, that the buyer recognises. "He was stuck at 2 leads a week too."

3 · AFTER

The dream outcome, based on their profile. "Now he books 50 meetings a month."

4 · WHAT NOW

What to do with it. "Watch minute 10 of this, I think it will click for you."

The real thread

What it actually looks like,
selling accounting software.

They opted in for your lead magnet on e-invoicing. Watch how LVQ walks the chat to a booked meeting without a single pitch.

FH
Faizal, Finance Head
Manufacturing SME · Selangor
LinkedIn DM
Hope the e-invoicing checklist helped. I saw you have been posting about your finance team for a while. Curious, what got you into fixing the finance ops side yourself?↖ personalized opener, not a pitch
Thanks, it did! Honestly the LHDN mandate forced it. Been messy, our close still takes over a week and the team is drowning.
Ah that sounds rough, that was exactly us with a KL distributor before we worked together. They were stuck at a 9-day close, drowning at month-end too. After we set up their reconciliation flow it dropped to 2 days with the same team. I recorded a short walkthrough, want me to send it? Minute 6 is the part that would help you most.↖ Lube + Value (why/before/after)
Yeah please, that would be great.
Sent. Quick one while I have you, how many days is your close taking right now, roughly?↖ Question, walks them down
About 8, sometimes more if a tax filing lands the same week.
Oof, and that is the exact week the team can least afford it. What do you think is the main thing holding the close up?↖ Lube + Question
Honestly the manual reconciliation. It eats everything.
That makes total sense, it is almost always reconciliation. Look, I might actually be able to help you shave most of that off. Are you maybe open to a quick 20-minute brainstorm on it? I could do tomorrow 9am or 11am.↖ Lube + offer HELP, two times
9am works.
Perfect, I will lock it in and send a calendar note. What is the best number so my colleague can add you on WhatsApp for the reminder?↖ book it FOR them, get the number
No pitch anywhere. Value, questions, and a soft "open to some help?" The meeting is booked because trust was built, not because anyone sold.
The close moves, word for word

When you sense they are ready: lube it ("that makes total sense"), then offer help, never ask for the sale ("are you maybe open to some help with this?"). If yes, propose two times, tomorrow 9am or 11am, not a calendar link, which feels rude to everyone except young tech founders. Then book it for them and get the phone number. If they go quiet after you propose, follow up up to four times. People who are interested do not mind the follow-up, they respect it.

Why you run a thousand chats, not ten
Every chat is messy and non-linear. Some close in one sitting, most go back and forth with follow-ups over weeks. If you run 10 chats and get 3 rejections, it stings. Run 1,000 chats and 100 rejections do not register, because 5 people are keen and your calendar is filling. The delay even helps: a busy person reads as a valuable person. And every helpful chat builds your reputation, so buyers arrive already saying "you are the one I keep seeing," which is when the price stops being the argument.
Where most people quit and lose the deal

They went quiet.
That is not a no. Follow up.

Nobody keeps LinkedIn notifications on the way they do Instagram. When a chat goes silent, the kids started crying, dinner burned, a meeting ran over. It is almost never rejection. The people who book meetings are the ones who follow up when everyone else assumes the worst and walks away.

The follow-up rule

Up to four times. No guilt.

If someone showed real interest, follow up as many as four times. Change the channel: a LinkedIn message, then a voice note, then find their email, then WhatsApp. People who are interested do not resent it, they respect it. A candidate once followed up five times for a role and earned the interview on persistence alone.

How to re-open, not nag

Lead with value, never "just checking in."

Never send "just following up" or "any thoughts?" Re-open with a new piece of value tied to their problem, so the follow-up gives before it asks. It restarts the chat without the pressure that makes people go quieter.

FH
Faizal, Finance Head
went quiet 6 days ago
Re-engage
Sent. Quick one while I have you, how many days is your close taking right now?
seen · no reply, 6 days
No worries, month-end is brutal, I know the feeling. Just published a short breakdown on cutting reconciliation time, thought of your team straight away. Here it is, the part at minute 4 is the quickest win.↖ Follow-up 1: new value, not "checking in"
Oh nice, sorry, month-end swallowed me. Watching it now.
Ha, no apology needed, that is exactly the problem worth fixing. When you have watched it, want to grab 20 minutes to see if we can get your close down the same way? Tomorrow 9am or Thursday 2pm?↖ back into the ask, warm again
The silence was month-end, not rejection. One value-led follow-up restarted the chat and got it back to the meeting ask. Most people would have written this lead off on day two.
The follow-up ladder
Message 1: new value on LinkedIn. Message 2, a few days later: a voice note, because a voice feels human and cuts through text. Message 3: find their work email, reference the chat. Message 4: the WhatsApp number you collected, a short friendly nudge. Four touches, four channels, each one giving something. Then you let it rest and it stays warm in the pipeline.
warm it
FIRST ↓ 07 · The Cold Exception

What about the target account
that never engaged?

Sometimes the company you most want to sell to never likes a post or opens a DM. You still have to reach them. Cold works here, but only as a careful exception, and only if you do it right. Get it wrong and you burn the one account you wanted most.

When cold is fine

A small, specific slice.

A few people respect a straight cold approach: senior CEOs and executives with no time, who want you to get to the point. For them, lead with the point, back it with a case study and proof, and keep it short. But if your messaging is off, you damage your reputation with the exact people you cannot afford to lose.

The safer play for cold ICP

Warm them first, quietly.

Before you ever DM a cold target account, warm the ground: follow them, genuinely engage their posts for a week or two, and let them see your name in their notifications and their feed. By the time you message, you are a familiar face, not a stranger. This turns a cold DM into a warm one without waiting for them to find you.

The cold-to-warm target-account sequence, step by step:

→

Cold target account motion

For named ICP accounts who never engaged with your content.
Warm
before the first real message
1
Build the named list, not a bought one

Write down the actual companies and the actual finance leaders you want. A short list of real targets beats a bought list of 20,000. This is account-based, one human at a time.

2
Warm the ground for 1 to 2 weeks

Follow them. Genuinely engage their posts, thoughtful comments, not "great post." Let your name appear in their notifications and feed until you are familiar, not a stranger.

Accounting SaaS exampleYour target is a CFO at a Johor manufacturer. For two weeks you comment usefully on their posts about supply-chain costs and hiring. They start to recognise your face and name.
3
Open with personalized and relevant, never a pitch

The two golden rules of a message that lands: personalized and relevant. Reference something specific about them and their situation. This is the family Christmas card, not the real-estate flyer in the letterbox.

Cold-but-warmed opener · accounting SaaS
Hi [name], been following your posts on [their real topic] for a couple of weeks, the one on [specific post] stuck with me. Noticed you are scaling the [finance / ops] side. Out of curiosity, how are you handling [e-invoicing / month-end close] as you grow? Not pitching anything, just the space I work in and it is a mess for most SMEs right now.
4
Then run the same LVQ system

Once they reply, you are back on the trust ladder. Lube, value, question. Long horizon, no pitch, until they are ready. A warmed cold account behaves like an inbound one.

!
Read every message out loud first

Before you send, read it aloud and ask: would I reply to this? Does it make them feel special, or like another cog? If it reads like automation, rewrite it. One wrong cold message to a top target can cost you that account for good.

Result: a cold target account warmed into a real conversation, without burning the relationship you needed most.
NOT
"APAC" ✕ 08 · One Country At A Time

Launch the whole region at once
and you win none of it.

The matrix showed why. Each market is a different room. One team and one set of content cannot serve all of them. Pick one country, earn the proof, then use it to open the next.

1
Malaysia
Start here. Build the engine, land the first same-vertical proof.
2
Indonesia
Open with the Malaysia proof. Localise in Bahasa. Budget for consensus.
3
Philippines
LinkedIn finds them, Viber and Messenger close them. The proof does the talking.
4
Next market
Each closed market opens the next. The engine speeds up, it never restarts.

"The most common mistake is trying to cover Southeast Asia from day one. It sounds efficient. In reality it spreads teams too thin and builds shallow pipeline everywhere instead of real traction in one place."

Jeremiah Tang, Head of Sales SEA, Firmable · 2026
start
MONDAY → 09 · Your First 30 Days

What to actually do Monday.
Week by week, from zero.

You have read the system. Here is how to start it without overthinking. Month one is not measured in deals. What you are building is a running content engine and your first genuinely warm conversations, and everything else compounds from there.

01Set up
  • Rewrite the founder and 2 team profiles: clear headline, who you help, what result
  • Write your angle: monetizable expertise plus one arbitrage topic
  • Draft your first lead magnet, a one-page checklist for one urgent problem
  • Pick your one country. Not "APAC"
02Publish
  • Start the 4-3-2-1 week: 4 posts, broad, niche, proof
  • Every post gets an 8-word hook and a rehook
  • Be at your desk the first hour, reply to every comment
  • Post the comment-gated lead magnet once this week
03Connect
  • Every day, connect with the right-title people who engaged
  • Engage their posts for a few days before any message
  • Deliver the lead magnet to everyone who commented, by DM
  • Start those DMs with LVQ. Value and a question, no pitch
04Converse
  • Run every chat on lube, value, question
  • Follow up the quiet ones with new value, up to 4 times
  • Offer help, propose two times, book the first meetings
  • Warm 5 to 10 named cold target accounts in the background
The only month-one metric that matters
Do not measure deals in month one. Measure whether the engine is running: are you posting four times a week, replying in the first hour, connecting daily, and holding real LVQ chats? Get those live and the funnel fills itself. Deals are a month-six output, not a week-four one.
tick every
one ✓ 10 · Before You Spend A Dollar

Check these ten before
you start your APAC motion.

If you cannot tick them, you are about to run the cold-blast motion under a new name. Each one maps to a stage in the manual above.

The ten-point field check

Tick each one. A blank is where your funnel leaks.
One country picked, not "APAC." You can name it and say why it is first.
Your angle written down: monetizable expertise plus strategic arbitrage, before any post.
Founder and team posting from personal profiles, on the 4-3-2-1 week.
Someone at the desk for the first hour, replying to every comment.
LVQ in every DM: lube, value, question. Never a pitch on message one.
Inbound handled at speed, outbound on a long horizon. Never mix the two.
Cold targets warmed first: follow and engage for 1 to 2 weeks before the first DM.
Every message read aloud before sending. Would you reply to it? Does it feel human?
Same-vertical local proof ready. A foreign-only logo closes the PDF.
A 12-month plan: everything through proposal by month 6, deals from month 6 to 12.
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Saleh Nabil · Founder, XpandEast · field data from 58 partners selling into Southeast Asia