A Dream 100 is a short list of the people you most want to work with, contacted on purpose and followed up with until they know who you are. Andy Milligan runs his Dream 100 through his podcast: instead of pitching 100 ideal clients, he invites them to be guests. This post shows exactly how he works that list.
The idea comes from sales trainer Chet Holmes, who described the Dream 100 as your "best buyers" in his book *The Ultimate Sales Machine*, as summarized by Selling Power. Andy's version is built for service providers who would rather start a conversation than send a pitch. If you are still working toward how to get your first client, this is one of the warmest ways to get in front of the people you want to serve.
Why a podcast makes a better Dream 100 offer
Most outreach asks a stranger for something. A podcast invitation gives them something: a platform, an audience, and a conversation about their expertise. That changes how the message lands.
It also matches how buyers behave now. In a June 2025 Gartner survey of 632 B2B buyers, 73% said they actively avoid suppliers who send irrelevant outreach. An invitation to talk about their own work is about as relevant as outreach gets.
Andy hosts Marketing by Design, a podcast powered by AMA Columbus. Podcasts have the reach to make that invitation worth accepting: 55% of Americans 12 and older now consume podcasts monthly, according to Edison Research's Infinite Dial 2025.
Who goes on the Dream 100 list
Andy's list is specific. His studio builds websites for healthcare companies, so his ideal guests are healthcare marketing consultants, CMOs, and advisors who work with healthcare companies in a consultative role but do not build websites themselves. They serve clients at a higher ticket level and need a web partner, which is where Andy's studio comes in.
He built the first 100 from people already in his network, then tracked each one in a CRM group he calls "Podcast Dream 100," with a status for every contact. When he recorded this session, 79 of them had not been contacted yet.
The Dream 100 outreach sequence
Andy works every contact through the same steps:
- Connect on LinkedIn. If you are not already connected, send a connection request.
- Comment on their most recent post. A real comment, about what they actually shared.
- Wait if you need to. Andy added an in-between status for people he was not yet connected with. "I didn't want to send a cold email outreach without having been connected with them for a little bit," he says. Without that, the email would likely be wasted or land in spam.
- Send a short, personalized invitation email. Andy starts from a template and edits it for each person.
- Move them through stages. Contacted people go into an outreach column. After about a week, they move to follow-up.
The email itself is short and low pressure. It opens with "Been meaning to connect," which works because the two of them really are already connected on LinkedIn.
The email names something specific the person posted, describes the show as a top 100 marketing podcast with more than 160 episodes over three years, and links to the show page. That page carries the social proof: a video, reviews, testimonials, past episodes, and the show's sponsors. The email closes by giving them an easy out if the timing is wrong.
For a full breakdown of the connection and comment steps, see Andy's live session on LinkedIn outreach.
What one session produced
Andy recorded this session as accountability. It took about two and a half hours, longer than he expected, because he personalized each email. He sent more than 60 of them.
By the end of the session, he already had one booked guest. A couple of out-of-office replies came back, and two emails went to the wrong address, a reminder to verify contact details before you send. "I'm really confident that we'll get responses from a lot of these cuz it is a warm outreach," he said.
The volume matters as much as the method. Andy says he tries to do a hundred of these every day and schedules them first thing in the morning, because he sees them as the most valuable work of his day. That habit lines up with the rule of 100, the daily outreach target he follows.
How to build your own Dream 100
You do not need a podcast to use this. You need a reason for the conversation that serves the other person first:
- A podcast or video series. Guests get exposure, and you get an hour with someone you want to know.
- A roundtable or event. Inviting 8 to 10 people from your list to a lunch is a Dream 100 move. Columbus has plenty of rooms for this, and Columbus Marketing Organization events are one place to meet people from your list in person.
- A useful resource. Interview your Dream 100 for a report or guide, then share the finished piece with every contributor.
The episode is where the relationship starts. If you want to turn each conversation into weeks of content, Andy's playbook on podcast clips shows how he does it.
Start your Dream 100 this week
Columbus Marketing Organization is a peer community for marketers, freelancers, and service providers in Columbus, Ohio, founded by Andy Milligan. Members share leads, introductions, and job opportunities, including the weekly Columbus Marketing Jobs newsletter.
Your Dream 100 is not a mailing list. It is the 100 people who would change your business if they knew you. Write down the first 25 this week, connect with each one, and give them a reason to talk that is about them. If you want people working the same list alongside you, join the Columbus Marketing Organization community on Skool.
I didn't want to send a cold email outreach without having been connected with them for a little bit.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Dream 100?
A Dream 100 is a list of the roughly 100 prospects who would most change your business if they became clients. Sales trainer Chet Holmes described them as your best buyers in The Ultimate Sales Machine. You contact them deliberately and follow up consistently until they know who you are.
How do you use a podcast for a Dream 100?
Invite the people on your list to be guests. An invitation gives them a platform instead of asking for their time, so it lands better than a pitch. Andy Milligan connects on LinkedIn, comments on a recent post, then emails a short invitation that links to the show's social proof.
Should you send cold emails to your Dream 100?
Andy Milligan prefers to warm them up first. He connects on LinkedIn and comments on a recent post before emailing, and he holds off on emailing people he is not yet connected with. His view is that a cold email without that connection would likely be wasted or land in spam.
How many Dream 100 contacts should you reach each day?
Andy Milligan says he tries to do a hundred of these every day and schedules the work first thing in the morning. If that is too many to start, pick a smaller daily number you can sustain and personalize every message rather than sending more generic ones.
Read the video transcript
Kind: captions Language: en Well, hello there friends. It is 11:30 on a Monday and I have this entire day generated towards lead generating activities. So, I thought why not I just record my current lead generation experiments [music] and share them with you in order to document and also I think TA has a time-lapse feature now with natively within it. So, this will be helpful as I just hold myself accountable and do this outreach. So, conceptually I'm going to present the outline of this experiment. Then I will move on to the actions then that I will be doing in order to generate the outcomes that I want. And then afterwards, maybe a couple days down the line, I'll make a takeaways and outcomes of this experiment that I'll be sharing with you guys. [music] So this what we're looking at right now is my CRM, which is Folk and I have a podcast. I have a group within Folk called Podcast Dream 100. As you may notice, there's a little bit more than 100 contacts in here currently, but I have multiple statuses assigned to each. And what I'm going to be doing is a big method of lead generation for us currently is the podcast. So our ICP for the podcast is a healthc care marketing consultant, CMO or a a CMO consultant advisor we do that works closely with healthcare companies and a consultative capacity that does non-web related work which is where we would come in. We are a healthcare web design studio or it's a healthcare website or healthcare web marketing agency who serves clients at a higher ticket level than us. [music] So, uh the pre-work before this was setting up 100 ICPs or the dream 100s based on people that I'm already connected with in my network and I have them all assigned with statuses within here. Now, what I've been doing, my normal process here is I will click into each contact. I will go to their LinkedIn and if I'm not already connected with them, then I will connect. I will send a connection request. And of course, LinkedIn doesn't want to load the first time I actually run through this here. Been trying to X out of a lot of these tabs in order to do save space. My first step one is I'll go through the kind of the process for each before I go into a fast forward or a time lapse is I connect with them. If I'm not already connected with them, I connect with them or send a request. Then I go to their most recent posts and I'll leave a comment like I just did on this one right here. So I just left the comment on her post. She posted a screenshot from Warosy's workshop. It's a really good intro. And after I do that, if all those things are insinued, [music] so I [music] know that they're in the funnel metaphorically, and I'll also enrich them. And this one I can tell is going to be a really good fit. So, I also have a a canned email that I'll go in and personalize. That looks like this. Been meaning to connect. Boom. [music] That is not the correct canned email. I go to my recent scent. Looks something like this. Hey Paul, been meaning to or hey Svin, hope you're well. Notice these are relatively short. [music] So, I will take this canned email. Paste. Hey Shannon by [music] friend. The reason that this works because it shows the credibility of the podcast, mentions, past guests, social proof, links to the show page. When they go to this show page, they will be presented with just monstrous amounts of social proof. So, a video, 160 plus episodes, reviews, links to all platforms, [music] monstrous amounts of testimonials right here, past episodes, head shot, [music] and a killer testimonial from the one and only Andy Crestadena. Uh, and also the show's sponsors. So, some more social proof there. This also is a really good low friction cold email intro. Ben meaning to connect makes them think that we're already in touch, which we are on another platform. So, they'll recognize me from LinkedIn and they get 100 top 100 marketing podcast 160 episodes over 3 years. And the good part about full presenter lets me send this natively. Uh, so hey Shannon, mean to connect. I know it's been relatively short. Been connect to we've been connected on LinkedIn for a long time but never formally chatted. I just saw a post of yours on there today from Hormos's workshop. So prompted me to send this thread. Social proof about the show to talk about healthcare marketing. Keep it relatively laidback. Only goal is to invest your head. Great content for you. Top 100 show. High quality show. Not a great time. Give them an out. Cheers. Keep being a light. Cheers. If you're game, let me know and I will coordinate next steps. Shout out to Whisper Flow. Cheers. Boom. An addict review. and then I will hit send. So she's in the outreach column. [music] After a week or so goes by, I will move them to the follow-up stage. And that's generally my process. So start with LinkedIn, make sure you're connected. Then if you are connected, comment on a post. If they respond or comment to that post, then send them the candy email and then assign stages accordingly. So what I'm going to do now is I'm probably going to put this on time lapse and then go through. I have 79 that I have not yet outreached. I want to send outreaches or connection requests to all of these and then assign them in the corresponding stages. I'm confident we'll get some responses by the end of this. And uh if not, I imaged [music] and I'll see you after I finished these outreaches. [music] Yo, what is up, friends? All right, it is a little after 1:53, almost 2:00 in the afternoon. That ended up taking a little bit longer than I expected, largely because I was personalizing the emails a good bit. I also added a intermediary status here for people that I wasn't already connected with. So kind of adding a middle layer. I didn't want to send a cold email outreach without having been connected with them for a little bit. So that would have just been probably a waste of time. Would ended up in spam or something like that. But send a good amount of emails. Uh 60 plus. Uh good news is we did already get one response. If I check my email, see I just have a ton of these in set here. But if we go to our inbox, we got a lot of a couple out of response message. Two I sent to the wrong email address, which isn't [music] great. Uh we did get one booking already, Elizabeth How. So, she has been booked for September the 1st at 1. Uh I think she's a health she's a marketer as well. So, uh nice immediate payoff. Woohoo. But, uh yeah, that was a little over 2 hours. We started a little before 11, so or 2 and 1/2 hours. So, good amount of outreach. Uh, I try and do a hundred of these every day and yeah, we're just keeping the pipeline accelerated. I feel pretty good and it'll be interesting to see the overall conversion to some of these. Just keeping keep on pushing them down the pipeline. I'm really confident that we'll get responses from a lot of these cuz it is a warm outreach and at the end of the day just keeping the pipeline moving along. Uh, usually the way I structure my days, I try and do these first thing in the morning because this is the highest leverage activity, but I will certainly record a follow-up video kind of going through how [music] well these convert and the overall strategy. Uh, but I love this layout of cuz when I click into everyone's LinkedIn, everyone's profile here. I can go directly to LinkedIn, comment on a post, make sure that I'm connected, and then folks enrichment has been really helpful. I can just send an email and draft it natively within here as I'm sure you guys already saw that I did dozens and dozens of times. So yeah, I appreciate you guys watching. This was part accountability, part strategy behind how I position myself for outreach and doing the unsexy work. But [music] I if you've stuck around this long, I appreciate you guys watching and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.