How a Healthcare Investment Firm Generated 132 Conversations with Business Owners Exploring Sale or Merger
“You told us what to expect, and you delivered exactly that. ”
Client Overview
Company: Merritt Healthcare Advisors
Industry: Healthcare M&A / Investment Banking
Team Size: ~16 employees (boutique firm)
ICP: Owners of Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs), surgical hospitals, and specialty medical practices considering a sale, recapitalisation, or strategic partnership.
Why They Chose Danish Lead Co.: After trying in-house outbound and another agency, Merritt needed a partner that could (1) truly understand their brand and voice, (2) reliably reach niche healthcare owners at the right time, and (3) act as an extension of their development team rather than a detached vendor.
Challenges Before AI Outbound
Merritt faced the classic challenges of a high-ticket, low-frequency service:
- Most founders only sell their business once in a lifetime, so timing and relevance are critical.
- Referrals were strong but limited and hard to scale.
- Digital marketing and paid ads were becoming more expensive with weaker results.
- A previous attempt at in-house outbound was unsustainable for a lean, 16-person team.
- They tried another outbound agency, but the partner didn’t understand their voice and communication was slow and rigid.
Merritt needed a compliant, high-trust outbound system that could consistently put them in front of qualified healthcare founders without diluting their brand or wasting internal bandwidth.
Our AI-Powered Outbound System
Using our AI-supported outbound engine, we built a discreet, conversation-led outreach system tailored to Merritt’s niche:
Deliverability & Infrastructure
- Fresh domains, diversified providers, and warmed inboxes to keep campaigns landing in the inbox, not spam.
Hyper-Targeted List Building
Voice-Accurate Messaging
- We spent time understanding Merritt’s brand, tone, and value prop, then wrote outreach that sounded like them discreet, credible, and focused on value, not pressure.
Conversation-Led CTAs
- Instead of hard pitches, emails invited founders into confidential conversations about timing, goals, and strategic options.
Tight Collaboration & Agility
- Weekly check-ins plus daily Slack comms with Merritt’s marketing and deal team.
- Ability to launch last-minute location-based campaigns around conference travel to fill spare meeting slots with qualified leads.
Lead Qualification & Routing
- Replies were triaged, tagged, and routed directly to the relevant banker with enough context for a high-quality first conversation.
Results (First 5 Months)
✅ 132 qualified leads / conversations generated with healthcare business owners
✅ Steady flow of high-quality, tightly targeted prospects delivered almost daily
✅ Lead quality rated by Merritt as “up there at the top of our development programmes”
✅ Clear ROI compared with traditional digital marketing channels
✅ Outreach performance matched exactly what was promised during the sales process
For a niche, timing-sensitive healthcare M&A mandate, this created a reliable, scalable pipeline of off-market conversations with founders who would otherwise be difficult (or impossible) to reach at the right moment.
Tools & Stack Used
Clay – Enrichment, firmographic filtering, and signal-based targeting
Smartlead – Sequencing, deliverability monitoring, and reply management
Apollo – Core database for healthcare owner and executive targeting
Key Learnings
Deep Voice & Brand Alignment Matters
Taking time to understand the client’s brand and communication style dramatically improves reply quality and trust in a sensitive niche like healthcare M&A.Conversation-Led Outbound Beats Generic Campaigns
Soft CTAs and confidential, advisory positioning work far better than aggressive sales messaging when founders are considering a once-in-a-lifetime transaction.Tech & Future-Proofing Are Differentiators
In a fast-changing outbound ecosystem, constantly testing providers, tools, and deliverability setups is essential to maintain inbox placement and long-term results.Partnership > Vendor Relationship
Daily communication and agility (e.g. last-minute travel campaigns) turn outbound from a “nice-to-have” channel into one of the firm’s top development engines.
Next Steps
- Continue scaling campaigns across additional healthcare sub-verticals
- Add more sell-side intent signals (e.g. hiring, location, and ownership changes)
- Deepen reporting around message variants to further optimise reply-to-lead conversion
Want Results Like This?
We build AI-supported outbound systems that generate qualified meetings, not just opens or clicks, for complex, high-value B2B and M&A teams.
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