In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host Anthony Sapountzis sits down with Maarij Qureshi, Founder of Simplify Sales and host of Simplify Success, to unpack a practical, trust-led approach to B2B lead generation on LinkedIn. Maarij’s agency helps service businesses land £24k–£80k+ retainers and book 5–10 meetings a week, often within days, using his simple “3-DM” framework. From face-to-face sales and building a 40-person team to a rapid online pivot after COVID, Maarij blends proven sales systems with personalised outreach that actually gets replies.

Anthony shares Aerion Technologies’ journey from a university start-up to a team of six in Australia and 40+ in Nepal, highlighting how the business relied on referrals for 17 years before switching on paid ads and seeing steady inbound enquiries. He outlines today’s client acquisition reality: anchor long-form content (like this podcast) repurposed into short-form clips for LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube now outperforms text-and-image posts. The aim is to stay top of mind with helpful, consistent content while widening reach beyond the immediate network.

Trust sits at the heart of effective outreach. Consultants are inundated with sales DMs each week, so formats that build trust quickly (podcasts, white papers and useful posts) cut through the noise. DevReady itself is a networking engine and content flywheel: clear guest prep, automated follow-ups and streamlined show-note collection make the process repeatable and respectful of everyone’s time. The result is meaningful connections, direct client wins even from a modest audience, and compounding learning across 250+ episodes.

Maarij breaks down the 3-DMs framework: start with a short, profile-specific “this or that” question; follow with a message that acknowledges, relates and asks a quick follow-up; then make a value-first ask such as sharing a relevant win, inviting someone to a white paper interview, or offering a podcast spot. This human sequence lowers defences and delivers about 4% conversion from connections sent (around 8–10 meetings per 200 requests, roughly 40 a day in two hours). Anthony contrasts this with DevReady’s direct podcast invitations on LinkedIn, which convert at roughly 10% because there is no sales pitch, just a genuine invitation to talk.

Looking ahead, Maarij talks about how Simplify Sales is evolving into a fractional CRO partner for companies at £3m+ revenue, adding cold email, content creation and editing, and full-funnel systems, sequenced as outreach for speed, then content and SEO plus brand, and finally paid ads once positioning is dialled in. Clients have grown 3–4× in a year, thanks to rigorous SOPs and a focus on ideal-fit prospects over spray and pray tactics. In parallel, Aerion is developing the next version of its platform with deeper automation and AI agents to further streamline delivery. Across the discussion, one theme stands out for SEO-savvy B2B growth: personalisation beats automation, be human, be useful, and your pipeline will follow.

#LinkedIn #B2B #LeadGen #Sales #DevReadyPodcast #AerionTechnologies