Bill Stathopoulos

Founder

👋 I'm Bill, and here's my story:

1. Building SalesCaptain, an Outbound & AI GTM agency for B2B SaaS to $3M+ ARR, while being a digital nomad for 4 years.
2. Authored a book - "Cold Email Secrets"
3. Scaled a Growth Marketing Agency to $1M ARR at the age of 28. Grew the team from 7 to 25+ employees in 3 years. Closed clients like Nestle, Revolut, GE, and the Singapore Airport.
4. Helped multiple startups go from zero to $5M+ revenue in 18 months since 2015
5. Trained 2,500+ Growth Marketers in the last 5 years
6. Built the speakers lineup for Ad World, with 50k+ attendees and 100+ speakers, making it the largest advertising conference in the world
7. Interviewed Seth Godin, Scott Galloway, Arianna Huffington, Rory Sutherland, the CMO of Samsung, the CMO of Hubspot, and 30+ world-class Marketing executives.
8. Published the book “Cold Email Secrets”, the bible of modern Outbound & GTM. 
9. Named “Top Lead Generation Voice” on LinkedIn in 2024
10. Became the Clay Club Host in London, leading a team of 15+ GTM Engineers

What you'll get working with me:
🧲 Your Go-To-Market (aka GTM) Strategy
🏀 Optimize your Marketing channels; make the most of your budget
🏆 Build systems for User Acquisition, Activation, Retention, and Revenue

Peace, love & growth ✌️

Bill

Co-Founder

We build and scale Outbound Sales systems that include multi-channel prospecting, lead response, and our cutting-edge processes to help you build your business.

Most people who call themselves GTM engineers won’t last the next 12 months!

That’s exactly why we built the SalesCaptain AI GTM Coaching Program.
For the next cohort, we’re opening one scholarship seat.
One person gets full access for free.
 
The market is already separating surface-level skill from real capability.

Knowing one or two tools does not carry a team anymore.
Budgets tighten, channels and tools change fast and last year’s plays are expired.
 
Running GTM now requires command of the full motion.
From data to message to campaign to pipeline. And from first signal to booked meeting.
 
The program runs for 8 weeks and I teach it myself.

We work through:
* Outbound structure
* Clay list building
* Campaign setup and copy
* GTM systems and infrastructure
* Operating as a GTM engineer inside a real team
 
We have weekly live sessions, a private Slack channel and all recordings included.
The scholarship gives full access to all of this.
 
To apply 👇 
Comment GTM and repost this post.

 
We’ll announce the selected participant at the beginning of December.
 
We’re training the next top 5% of GTM engineers.
This scholarship makes space for one more.

The program's link is in the 1st comment.
#aigtm #scholarship #gtmengineer #clay

CEO, SalesCaptain | Clay London Club Lead 👑 | Top lemlist Partner 📬 | Investor | GTM Advisor for $10M+ B2B SaaS

We walked into a time machine and saw what GTM looks like in 2028.
That’s what Clay Club Paris felt like.

After talking with Varun Anand (Clay), Charles Tenot (lemlist), Frank Sondors 🥓 (Salesforge.ai 🔥) and other operators in the room, the pattern were obvious.

The strongest teams aren’t arguing about tactics or tools anymore.
They’re redesigning their GTM in 2026 around these 5 values:

1️⃣ SYSTEM DESIGN
The strongest teams build GTM as one connected system. CRM, enrichment, outbound and reporting move as one. If people are still moving data manually between tools, no matter what you do, this setup won’t scale.

2️⃣ ACCOUNT STRATEGY
The best teams spend more time deciding who not to target than rewriting copy. Insisting on volume is nothing but a way of hiding weak targeting.

3️⃣ DATA
Pipeline quality depends on your data quality. 
Find unique data sources that will set you apart. Make sure your Outbound decisions are not relying on opinions, they must rely on signals.

4️⃣ PEOPLE & PARTNERS
- Great hires think in workflows, not tasks, they design how leads, data, and decisions flow across the team.
- The strongest partners run their own product in production (example: Clay). If they don’t trust it for their own GTM, they won’t make yours better.

5️⃣ COMMUNITY
A few hours in the right room replaces months of trial and error (that's why events like Clay Club matter). 
Make sure you invest in attending/organizing the right events and talking to real operators. If people travel to be there, you know that room matters.

If you want to build GTM the way the strongest teams do, tomorrow I’m sitting down with Davide Grieco, Clay’s Head of Growth.

We’ll walk you through how Clay (a $3B+ company) runs its own GTM internally. 
Prepare your questions, we're revealing everything.
Here's the link: https://lnkd.in/egmdt3uy

P.S. A Paris trip isn’t complete without a stop at lemlist. That team is exemplary of these GTM values.
Later, Julia Guenier told me the visit landed with them, and the energy after it was 🔥. That meant a lot :))

A $30M SaaS CEO confirmed something to me that most GTM teams don’t want to hear:
AI isn’t making sales faster.

Last week in Bucharest, I spent an hour with Charles Tenot, CEO of lemlist.
Talking about the uncomfortable parts of building a real SaaS company.

What became obvious fast to both of us was this 👇 

Growth almost never stalls because of the market.
It stalls because companies stop building for customers.

Lemlist didn’t hit a wall because demand disappeared.
 They hit it because too much energy went into fixing systems,
and not enough into shipping things users cared about.

Charles walked me through a few decisions most teams won’t touch, but for Lemlist they changed everything:

- They killed SEO even though it worked.
- They stopped writing content they wouldn’t read themselves.
- They rebuilt the team around product velocity, not headcount.
- They treated brand like an asset, not a channel.
- They accepted the truth about AI: it looks better in RevOps than in real sales workflows.

In his words:
“AI looks great in operations. Sales barely uses it.”

And that gap explains most “AI transformation” failures.
We’re building software for teams that design workflows…
Not for the people who actually run them.
Until AI lives inside the rep’s day, not just inside the dashboards,
productivity will stay flat.

We also went deep on:
– Why traffic lies
– Why attribution rarely tells the truth
– Why dashboards don’t create leverage
– Why outbound is shifting from volume to precision
– And why CEOs shouldn’t fix problems, they should clarify them

This was a founder conversation about what breaks, and what actually fixes it. And I really appreciate his openness and honesty.

If you’re building SaaS, leading GTM, or trying to grow without getting lost… believe me, you’ll see yourself in this!

Full interview is live: https://lnkd.in/eznRgyTr

#lemlist #aiinsales

Last night we brought together 20+ GTM leaders for a private dinner in Bucharest 🇷🇴  on the sidelines of Tekpon AI Summit.

Lately, I’ve started making these small, private dinners a regular thing.
It’s my way of being focused on real conversations with the people running GTM every day, and staying close to the actual operators, about what’s working and what’s breaking and what they're doing next.

Here are some key points from the conversations we had:

- AI is forcing org design changes. GTM teams are getting leaner, more cross-functional, and structured to ship faster (not just operate faster).

- Outbound in commoditized markets needs more than volume, strong positioning and localization are becoming (the) real differentiators.

- Scaling product-market-fit isn’t one playbook. Early-stage teams need speed and a sharp narrative. Later-stage teams are solving for specialization, structure, and focus.

I love these insights because they come from unscripted conversations between people actually building.

Next dinner is in London on Dec 2.

Thanks to everyone who joined the table 💚 
Frank Sondors 🥓, Mike Korba, Ciprian Vlad, Cristian Dina, Robert Jackson Batiste Pasquet, Ignacio Villanueva Martin, Catalin Gealapu, Robert Strobl, Marijana Gligoric, Osman Koc, Hai Ta, Abdul Mukati, Alina Mitrica, Alina Ionciu, Dan Tabaran, Elizaveta Chugunova, Mihai Vinatoru, Fulvio Covone, Tommaso Fè and of course Theo Kanellopoulos.

Apologies if I missed anyone, let me know in the comments.

#gtm #dinner

95% of go-to-market teams are drowning in data,
and 0% know what to do with it!
 
That’s the brutal gap we uncovered yesterday in our live session with Davide Grieco (Head of Growth at Clay).

I will get straight to it.

Here are 6 things the most advanced teams are doing (and you should be copying in 2026):
 
1️⃣ Leads → pipeline, only when routed intelligently.

Webinar signups, demo requests, product usage...all of it lands in Slack or your CRM. But without prioritization, reps don’t know where to focus, and leads go cold. 
Top teams auto-score and route leads based on fit, behavior, and deal potential, so sales only acts when it matters.

2️⃣ Intent doesn't always trigger action.

A single website visit doesn’t trigger a sequence. Clay’s team proved that orchestration only works when fit + behavior + value are layered before making a move.
 
3️⃣ The 3-dimensional scoring system.

Leading teams score every account across these 3 core dimensions👇 

1. Account Fit Score: Tech stack, GTM motion, sales team size.
2. Engagement Score: Product usage, events, LinkedIn activity.
3. Contract Potential: Will this account be worth $5K or $500K?
 
4️⃣ Every account gets routed into one of these 4 tiers:

- Low fit, low engagement → Ignore or self-serve.
- High fit, low engagement → Educate & warm up.
- Low fit, high engagement → Monitor with product nudges.
- High fit, high engagement → Full GTM firepower: sales + ads + content.
 
5️⃣ Go-to-market teams are in sync

Sales, Marketing, and RevOps work off the same live dashboards (powered by Clay) where scores, tiers, and signals update in real time.
 
6️⃣ Everything maps back to revenue.

Every live stream, post, and paid ad is tracked, not just by clicks, but by which ICP accounts engaged. Engagement score goes up → campaign triggers fire → pipeline grows.
 
Is this just another GTM framework? ❌ 
No, This is what Clay, a $100M ARR company (with a $3.1B+ value) is doing internally, and it’s working.

I'm sharing the full slides from the session, because I believe every GTM team should have this playbook!

Comment SLIDES and I’ll DM you the full deck.
+ Link to the full webinar video in the first comment.

LFG🔥

We built a predictive outbound engine for a $35M SaaS that finds buyers before they raise their hand. 
This changed their pipeline forever.

Before, this is how Outbound worked 👇 

You would scrape lists, launch cold emails, and hope someone was “in market.” 
Most replies--> Not interested/Wrong timing/ Or worse-no reply at all.

Now, our process changed that model.

Here’s how we do it:

1️⃣ Step 1: Start with intent

We use Propensity, Bombora and Warmly, to track which companies are researching relevant topics.
No more industry limits, we open the filters wide to spot interest across every sector.

💡 Optional: Add a growth filter if you want to get even tighter, but the main thing is finding those “hidden” buyers.

Output: A live list of companies already searching for solutions you offer. These are not cold leads, they are future buyers you catch before the market does.

2️⃣ Step 2: Enrich and qualify, fast.

Now we drop those accounts into Clay or BetterContact

We pull:

→ Company size, revenue, funding, HQ
→ Who they’re hiring (remote, distributed roles)
→ Decision-makers in HR, Ops, IT, Finance (or whatever is relevant)
→ Fresh news: funding, layoffs, partnerships, expansions...etc

Every bit of context shapes your outreach (No more “saw you have a dog” lines. Each message hits real pain points, in real time.

The result?

A pipeline full of warm accounts, primed for outbound. 
Each one shows real signals.

The best part: These leads convert. 
We see up to 4-5% positive reply rates, and half of those turn into booked calls.

Outbound is about building systems that spot real buying intent, enrich every record, and make every touch count.

Want to see how this works for your team? DM me or drop a comment below and I’ll show you our workflow.

#outbound #saas #b2b #workflow #clay

Most outbound problems start in the same place: 
You’re talking to the wrong people.

I see teams rewriting copy 10 times, testing 4 versions of the offer, arguing about subject lines…
and the reply rate is still stuck at 1–2%.

This is not because the email is bad.
It's because the list is.

Here’s the simple way I look at outbound:
→ Targeting: who you’re reaching
→ Messaging: what you’re saying
→ Offer: what you’re proposing
(+ Deliverability and Infra: whether your email even lands)

If the audience is off, nothing else matters.

You can’t “out-copywrite” a bad list.
The only soft KPI I obsess over is positive replies.
(Not replies, POSITIVE replies).

If those aren’t moving, you’re hitting the wrong segment, full stop.

We learned this building campaigns for both early-stage teams and big brands.
- More volume won’t fix it.
- Personalization won’t fix it.
- A clever opener won’t fix it.

Here’s what actually works:
→ Pull real data from your CRM before you guess anything
→ Build a list around pain, not job titles
→ Use Clay to enrich and filter, don’t just scrape everything that moves
→ Test in small batches (50–100) before scaling
→ Watch for buying signals, not vanity signals
→ Protect your domains

When you get the audience right, everything downstream gets easier.
Your message lands.
Your offer makes sense.
Deliverability improves because people actually respond.

Curious: what’s the targeting mistake you see most often?

#targeting #leadgen #deliverability #gtm #outbound

Just because you can see a signal doesn’t mean you should use it in your outreach.

In the webinar we had with Frank Sondors 🥓 from Salesforge 🔥, we talked about one of the easiest ways teams break intent-based campaigns:
 
They take the signal…
and put it straight into the first line of the email.
 
“Hey, I saw you joined this webinar.”
“Hey, I noticed you liked that post.”
 
Good signal + bad experience = dead reply rate.
 
I shared what I call the Underwear Rule:

You can have deep visibility on a prospect, but you don’t have to mention everything you know.

Here’s how to use signals properly (and actually increase replies):

1. Use the signal to pick the right audience

Signals tell you who’s worth contacting, not what to write.
Examples: webinar topic, pricing page visit, post engagement, job change.

2. Write the message around the problem, not the signal

Don’t say “I saw you…”
Instead, talk about the challenge the signal points to.
That’s where relevance comes from.

3. Keep the opener clean

Lead with an idea, question, or observation, not creepy surveillance.
Your first line sets the tone.

4. Use the signal to choose the CTA

Hot signal: ask about timing.
Warm signal: ask about priority.
Cold-ish signal: ask about relevance.

5. Let the signal guide your segmentation, not your copy

Signals = filters.
Your copy = insight.
That’s the whole game.

I would love to know which signal would win "The most useful" award in your outbound this year?

#intent #intentsignals

A $3.1 Billion company is not built only on features.
The secret sauce is in how teams move.

Clay didn’t become the giant it now is only by shipping better software.
They did by rewriting how a GTM company is designed.

I saw it up close.

I remember in March 2024 we were running webinars teaching teams how to use Clay.
Back then, most had heard of it.
But very few knew how to build systems with it.

Since then, as SalesCaptain we’ve touched Clay from every angle:
• Webinars, events and Clay Clubs
• Running Clay workflows inside 60+ real teams
• Building and sharing Clay tables that went viral on LinkedIn
• Being recognized as a Clay Solutions Partner
• Watching our team build tables from mid-air paraglides and under the Great Pyramid of Giza as part of the Clay World Record
...etc

And here’s what I want to highlight 👇 

The most impressive thing about Clay was never just the product.
It was the operating system behind it.

Clay doesn’t run like your typical SaaS company.
It runs like a studio.
Builders, operators, community, partners…
All working in public.
All sharing what actually works.
All treating GTM as a craft, or an art.

Examples from inside Clay:
👉 Marketing, Growth and Sales don’t “align”, they operate as one system.
👉Accounts don’t move by MQL stages, they move by behavior.
👉Teams aren’t built around channels, but around buyer movement.

Notice anything?

GTM in Clay is not a department.
It is company design.

On December 9, Davide Grieco (Head of Growth at Clay) and I are going live and revealing EVERYTHING.

We’ll walk through:
• How Clay designs teams around the buyer journey
• How growth connects sales and marketing in practice
• How decisions run on signals
• How execution scales without adding layers
• How the same operating model runs inside SalesCaptain and across every team we work with.

If you’re still trying to “optimize” your GTM,
Time to wake up!
Your competitors are redesigning their companies around it.

Tuesday, December 9: https://lnkd.in/egmdt3uy

(Picture from the latest Clay Club in Paris with Varun Anand Co-Founder of Clay, Charles Tenot CEO of lemlist, and Frank Sondors 🥓 CEO Salesforge.ai 🔥)

The 30+ Clay workflows we rely on going into 2026.

Yesterday we had an amazing webinar with Frank Sondors 🥓 from Salesforge 🔥, where we walked through the top Clay and GTM workflows going into 2026.

Here's a quick recap since many asked for a breakdown 👇 

- The old B2B GTM game of add reps, push more emails, hope for pipeline is breaking down. AI is everywhere and channels are flooded. 
Getting the right attention is hard and costs keep climbing. 

Here’s how we are facing this:

→ Clay became our GTM data warehouse. We plugged in 150+ sources: intent, CRM, hiring, events, social, you name it. 

→ We split outreach into 3 layers: 
1️⃣ AI Outbound for hyper-personalized reach at scale (50+ signals, real data enrichment, real prospect pain points). 

2️⃣ Intent-Based Audiences for targeting people who show the right buying signals (hiring, visiting our site, mentioning us, attending events). 

3️⃣ Inbound-Led Outbound for those already aware and engaged with our brand (catching the warm leads before they go cold). 

→ Every workflow runs off real-time triggers. New CMO hire/Product launch/ Company raises a round...etc, they get a message they’ll actually want to open. 

→ A small team of 5-6 reps built enough pipeline to keep pace with teams of 50. (Yes, really, ask Frank Sondors 🥓) 

→ We ran event workflows for speaking gigs, sent local cues in cold outreach, and mapped out who in our ICP was moving jobs.

→ Before, we relied on “more hands.” Now, it’s “more brains”. This means automation, data, signals, and speed, all working together through workflows that talk to each other. 

The truth is, traditional outbound is not coming back (you need to let go).

GTM needs to evolve, and the systems behind it are now the biggest advantage. 

The full slide deck from the webinar is ready for anyone who wants a closer look. Drop “CLAY” below if you want it. 

#clayworkflows #gtm #webinar

On 9 Dec, you’ll see exactly how Clay uses Clay to run its own GTM motion.
(And how that’s shaping everything we build for 2026.)

Yes, we are unveiling the system we operate on daily.

Because if I opened your CRM right now, could you show me the 20 accounts you’d bet your quarter on?

And i'm not talking about the logos, or leads that “feel hot.”
But the ones that actually matter right now, who fit, who are in market, have money and will move.

That’s the standard Clay runs on internally.

Every account is scored by what we call at SalesCaptain, "The GTM Rule of 3"
1. Fit: Who actually matters
2. Behavior: Who’s active, showing intent
3. PCV: Where the deal value sits

High Fit, High Behavior, High PCV --> Sales moves.
Low Fit, Low Behavior --> CRM automation takes over.
This ensures marketing and sales don’t argue about stages, instead, they move accounts.

This is the model we’re using internally at SalesCaptain.
And it’s the same framework we implement across companies building high-efficiency GTM engines.

On Dec 9, Davide Grieco and I will walk you through:

• How GTM is shifting from channel-first to signal-first
• The matrix Clay uses to map every account to TOFU, MOFU, BOFU
• What real account prioritization looks like using data + AI
• The workflows teams should build going into 2026
• Case studies from Clay and SalesCaptain teams in the field

You’ll leave with a working model for how to run GTM in 2026.

You don't want to miss this.
More details and link in comments.

🔥 The lead scoring blueprint you wish you had 3 quarters ago.
Built on Clay’s internal prioritization model,
and it’s the same system we apply internally at SalesCaptain and with our clients.

At SalesCaptain, we work with go-to-market teams across industries. 
And this prioritization matrix consistently drives impact.

Why? Because it aligns sales, marketing, and growth around the ONLY two questions that matter:
1. Is this account the right fit?
2. Are they showing meaningful engagement right now?

We walked through this in our recent webinar with Clay, where we shared a practical 2x2 matrix that drives everything from outbound plays to PLG routing to paid campaigns.

👉 If you only update one thing in your GTM motion for 2026, make it this.

Here is how the "2026 GTM Prioritization Matrix" works

✅ Account Fit Score
We look at indicators like:
- B2B vs B2C
- GTM motion (PLG + SLG)
- Stack: Salesforce, HubSpot, Snowflake, Clay...etc.
- ICP signals: size, vertical, hiring patterns
- Similarity to past closed-won accounts
➡️ This tells us if this account worth pursuing at all?

✅ Engagement Score
We track behaviors like:
- Pricing page visits
- LinkedIn engagement
- Webinar attendance
- Product activation
- Positive replies to outbound
➡️ This tells us: are they leaning in, right now?

Then we tier every account accordingly:

🟥 Tier 4: De-prioritize
→ Low fit, low engagement
→ No sales effort. Light nurture via PLG motion

🟦 Tier 3: Opportunistic Sales
→ High engagement, low fit
→ Route to PLG. Sales steps in only when signals are strong

🟨 Tier 2: Marketing Nurture
→ High fit, low engagement
→ Warm up with content, events, and thought leadership

🟩 Tier 1: Target Accounts
→ High fit, high engagement
→ AE multi-threading, dinners, BOFU ads, the full pipeline play

This matrix now powers every core GTM workflow we run:
* Clay-based scoring + tiering
* CRM enrichment
* Real-time Slack alerts
* Tier-specific outbound messaging
* Dynamic paid campaigns
* Internal dashboards
* Client workflows

No matter if you’re running outbound, PLG, ABM (or all of the above) this system adapts and scales.

We’ve deployed versions of it for category leaders, high-velocity startups, and bootstrapped teams.
It works, it scales, and it gets your entire GTM speaking the same language.

These strategies separate good GTM from elite GTM.
Save this post and share it with your team.

90% of teams using AI personalization are fooling themselves.

Why?

Because a like is not demand.
And a comment is not intent.

We both know most prospects give you NOTHING to personalize.
No posts, opinions or any real signal.
Just a job title and a logo.
(Scroll LinkedIn  and you’ll see it.)

So what happens?
You scrape a name.
Grab a company.
Dump it into a prompt.
AI spits out something that looks personal.

But where’s the connection?
Nowhere.

Then comes the big mistake:
Someone liked a post.
So you assume interest.

❌ Wrong.

That person might be bored.
Half-asleep on a train.
Doomscrolling before a meeting.
Nothing about that means they want to buy.

Activity is not intent.

AI can’t create demand out of thin air.
So you end up sending “custom” messages that are all the same
except for the first name, and calling it personalization.

Here’s how we actually run it at SalesCaptain (and how you should too):

1. AI filters by company, role, and pattern
2. Write by segment, not fantasy personas
3. Use variables for real context
4. Keep the voice human

If your personalization starts and ends with a prompt, it’s not personalization.
It’s a fancy automation with better grammar.

P.S. The photo below is from a special interview with a CEO of a $30M ARR SaaS. It drops soon. Stay tuned. 😉

#aipresonalization #gtm

Your job title is killing your outbound.

One of the strangest patterns we are seeing in Outbound:
Teams do everything right. They have:
→ strong offer
→ clean data
→ good workflows
→ optimized profiles
…but their acceptance rate still tanks.

Why?
Because the outreach is coming from someone with “Sales” in their title.

People don’t want to talk to:
❌ BDRs
❌ SDRs
❌ Account Executives

They want to talk to the person behind the thinking.
In LinkedIn lingo: a thought leader.

Here’s what actually works 👇 

1️⃣ Run outreach from leadership profiles
CMO, CEO, COO...etc anyone whose title naturally signals expertise and decision-making.
Even if they’re not the ones pressing “send,” their profile creates trust and gets conversations started.

2️⃣ Keep your sales titles out of the front line
You can still route replies to your reps.
Just don’t let a “BDR” title be the first thing a prospect sees.

3️⃣ Treat LinkedIn profiles like landing pages
Your headline and top section shape acceptance rates more than the copy inside your message. Read that again.

4️⃣ Apply this to both email AND LinkedIn
Email inboxes filter by sender name.
LinkedIn surfaces your title immediately.
In both cases, the wrong title can lower your engagement rate.

If you’re not getting responses, don’t jump to rewrite your sequence.
First check whose name is sending it.
Let me know if you faced a similar issue, or if you have any questions drop them below.

#outbound #bdr #sdr #linkedin

What can your SDR actually produce in 5 minutes?
I ask every team the same question.

For most reps, the answer is:
Almost nothing… because the workflow is full of friction.

Those 5 minutes usually disappear into admin work:
CRM checks, fixing fields, searching for contacts, bouncing between tools, rewriting the same intro line.

And there's nothing I love more than removing friction!
Then, 5 minutes becomes a surprisingly productive unit.

Here’s what a “5-Minute SDR Workflow” looks like in the systems we build at SalesCaptain:

Minute 1:
Open LinkedIn → Identify a new contact → Add + enrich instantly
(When it comes to EU, we use Surfe here to pull enriched data + correct fields)

Minute 2:
Auto-sync to CRM → fields mapped, company matched, no duplicates

Minute 3:
Check job-change alerts → Does this person recently move roles?
If yes → add to a “new role” micro-segment (high intent)

Minute 4:
Add contact to correct sequence based on tier:
Tier 1 → personalized multichannel
Tier 2 → semi-automated
Tier 3 → automated

Minute 5:
Add one line of personalization using ICP pain points → send first touch

One rep.
Five minutes.
One fully activated contact, correctly enriched, correctly segmented, correctly sequenced.
If that’s not real output, I don't know what is!
 
For Outbound to work best, automate/compress everything that slows reps down.
Once you remove the admin, every 5 minutes becomes meaningful.


I'm adding a link here if you want to try Surfe for free: https://bit.ly/4rygOiB

The 5 Min SDR Workflow

You can delegate campaigns, but never delegate knowing what works.

In the early days as a founder, you are the sales team
You are the product manager
You are marketing
There is no other way. You need to see every reply, feel every objection, and spot every pattern in the feedback.

You learn fast when you run outreach, write copy, and jump on calls yourself. 
You see what channels drive real conversations. 
You hear what features make people say yes. 
You know what gets ignored.

That is not busywork. That is the job! 
You build your playbook from the inside out.

But as the company grows, your time gets pulled in new directions. 
Team building, hiring, culture, leadership...etc.
Suddenly, running every campaign yourself is not the highest ROI. 
You have to let go of the day-to-day.

Here’s what you need to remember: stepping back does not mean stepping away.

You can hand over the outbound engine, you can hire a marketing lead. But you cannot lose the pulse. 
The moment you stop knowing what messaging lands, which channels convert, or what customers want, your edge is gone.

Your business only stays alive if you keep the connection, which means:

→ Staying close to your team’s feedback
→ Reviewing campaign results together
→ Jumping into customer calls when needed
→ Tweaking strategy based on what is working now

You move from solo operator to team captain, but the market never stops moving, so you cannot stop listening.

I have lived this at every stage-agency, SaaS, conference, outbound, you name it. The founders who win are the ones who keep learning, even when they delegate.

When do you think is the right moment to let go? I would love to know how you did it.
#founder #gtm #saas #startup #outbound

I’m giving away a full outbound system-built for you, free.
In partnership with ZenABM and HeyReach.io

Signal-led outbound, (according to Kyle Poyar), is the #2 bet for marketers in 2026.

Yet many teams fail to apply it!
And it's not because they lack tools,
but because they lack the GTM engineering power to connect them.

You can spend thousands on “deals” this Black Friday.
But without a connected, intent-driven process, you’ll still have no pipeline.

That's why we decided to give away something better than any discount code.

A fully done-for-you Intent-Led Outbound Operation.

Built for you
End-to-end
Free.

Here’s how we will do it 👇 

→ ZenABM (free): capture high-intent accounts from your LinkedIn ads
→ Clay (done-for-you): auto-prospect the right ICPs inside those hot accounts
→ SalesCaptain (done-for-you): write and build winning LinkedIn + email sequences
→ Outbound setup (free): launch Smartlead + HeyReach.io campaigns
👇
You start booking meetings in weeks.

If it works (and it will), you keep the tools at a 20% discount.
If not? No commitment.

I honestly think this is a deal of a lifetime 🔥 

Slots are limited and open until December 5th.

First come, first served.
If you want in, the link is below in the comments.  

#outbound #signalled #free

Founders are searching for a stamp that doesn’t exist.

My cousin is an orthodontist.
She went to uni, did her master’s, got her accreditation, and now has a paper that literally says:
“You’re good enough.”

From that moment on, 90% of what she’ll face in her career, she’s trained for.

Founders don’t get that.

There’s no school, no license, and no moment where someone hands you a certificate saying:
“Congrats, you now know how to hire, fire, sell, market, lead, forecast, do finance, and not lose your mind.”

You just wake up everyday and try not to break the company.

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with two things to stay sane and keep scaling:

1️⃣ Systems for alignment
I’m reading "Measure What Matters" (thanks Theo Kanellopoulos for the recommendation) because as SalesCaptain grows, I can’t be in every room.
So we need to rely more on OKRs not as “productivity hacks”, but as a system to answer:
“How do I make sure people know what matters without me intervening?”

2️⃣ Beliefs for sanity
I’m rereading "The Greatest Salesman in the World", not for new tactics, but actually for reminders:
* You’re a unique creature, stop trying to fit in.
* Approach people with love if you want them to open up.
* Success might be one more bend in the road away. Keep going.

Of course, tools matter and tactics help.

But every founder needs two invisible frameworks:
1. A system to align the team.
2. A belief system to keep the fire burning.

Scott Ward (HabitStack) unpacked this beautifully in our chat.
You can watch the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/eAgHjSrH

Still no stamp. But maybe that’s the point. 😉 

Let’s keep building.🔥

Here’s the exact 5-layer AI outbound system behind our $3M ARR.
It only requires 3 tools! 
And you can use it today.

This is how we built SalesCaptain’s AI-Led Outbound system into a repeatable machine:

1️⃣ Identify your ICP & sub-niches

Start with a broad market, then slice it into micro-segments.
Instead of “manufacturing companies,” I go for “food packaging manufacturers in the UK.”

2️⃣ Identify problems for each sub-niche

Map the pain points for every group.
Compliance headaches, logistics issues, tight margins...etc.
Now, your outreach moves from “let's just send to anyone (the infamous spray and pray)” to “pain-driven.”

3️⃣ Create templated emails for each niche

NO generic templates. No ‘Hi {first_name}, I hope this finds you well.’ nonsense.
I build mini playbooks per niche, pairing pain with value (let me know if you want an example in the comments).
Each email has a job: speak to the problems that matter.

4️⃣ Personalization with AI

AI comes in to scale what works.
Pull company news, intent data, and triggers into every message using Clay.
You move from manual 1:1 writing to AI-assisted relevance at scale-without losing the human touch. For this, and the previous step, tools like Twain or Octave can help a lot.

5️⃣ Send emails

This is the execution part, where tools like Instantly.ai and lemlist connect the dots.
The system loops, learns, and improves with every send.

The creativity: who to target, what pain to solve, how to structure... 
still comes from YOU.
AI takes over the repetitive parts.

That's the basis of AI-led outbound, scaling without compromising on quality!

If you want more workflows like this, let me know in the comments below.

#ailedoutbound #aiinsales #workflows

Blue Water Marketing

Chief Executive Officer

Managing Partner

I have 15 years of experience building marketing plans, purchasing media and analyzing successes for companies including Match.com, Nat Geo, Lending Tree, Harvard Business School & EMC. I founded BWM in 2017 and currently oversee all marketing activities at the company as Chief Marketing Officer. 

I currently lead a team of professionals who cover all aspects of integrated marketing and communications, including product marketing, market research, branding, social media, PPC, SEO & lead generation.

My diverse experience has enabled me to manage all aspects of a BWM's profile—from developing marketing plans to client-relations. 

Also, as part of my role at BWM, I've had the privilege of interviewing a number of business owners on our Podcast highlighting the life of a business owner, discussing the growing pains, planning & successes of various business owners.

Chief Marketing Officer

TCSM Holdings

TCSM Holdings is the parent company of direct-to-consumer eCommerce stores in the United States,  committed to providing excellent products for all their customers.

Principal Owner

https://chrismarrano.com/

Business Coach

Harvard Business School

On a daily basis, I was in charge of purchasing, maintaining and tracking all digital and traditional media placements to ensure all programs and courses were up to date and filled.   

Additionally, I updated course websites with new faculty, dates and program subject matter.   

I researched, secured and managed all events and promotions for Business School courses and programs.  

Worked closely with web team and Social Media team to plan and establish campaigns for future programs and events.  

Helped create Instagram, Facebook and Twitter posts that aligned with both existing and future programs.

Marketing Account Executive

Coordinated the implementation of a variety of global online, print, mobile, and sponsorship initiatives, as well managed marketing operations and deliverables with our ad agency.

Worked with media buying agency and creative agency/in-house creative services to coordinate advertisements with various online publishers, print publications, and outdoor venues. 
Additionally, I worked closely with internal teams to create messaging and custom content with publishers. Furthermore, established various online strategy plans for custom brand content with thought leadership and web teams.

I assisted with the planning and implementation of various sponsorship initiatives that involved brand activation of sponsorships for MLB, PGA, NFL, and F1. Within those sponsorships I managed all deliverables required for activation, logistics and tracking. I also created Excel and Powerpoint for documentation of sponsorship benefits and metrics which included proof of placements, impressions and various other results for clients.

Associate Program Manager

Mullen

I worked on planning all offline media for four national brands. I strategically implemented ads in magazines, newspapers, radio and television, while also working hand-in-hand with the digital media teams for the brands. 

On a daily basis, I worked with our Brands' account and creative teams in making sure our clients were happy with everything within their plans. Additionally, I worked with outside sales representatives across all mediums to make sure that the clients received the best positioning and timing for their media buying.

Assistant Media Planner

BarCast Network, LLC

Assisted with sales and promotion initiatives for digital advertising network displaying broadcasts on a proprietary channel in bars and restaurants in major cities in the US. 
Generated weekly activity reports to CEO and partners. 
Participated in partnership strategy meetings with major accounts such as Anheuser-Busch and Diageo and provided demographic input and feedback for programs.

Intern

Founder @Blue Water Marketing | eCommerce & Digital Marketing Nerd

Hey, I’m Chris Marrano.

I’ve spent the last 15 years in the trenches of digital marketing, starting on Madison Avenue-style agency floors at Mullen (Boston) working with brands like Match.com and LendingTree, then going client-side at Harvard Business School before launching Blue Water Marketing from the ground up.

Today, I run an eCommerce growth agency that helps Shopify brands scale from 7 to 8 figures—without bleeding budget.

We do this by combining Meta Ads, Google Ads, Klaviyo, and content at scale with deep financial visibility (think MER, aMER, CAC, and contribution margin). We don't just run ads—we integrate into your brand’s systems and decision-making so growth isn’t just fast—it’s profitable.

I'm also building ADIQ.AI, an AI-powered SaaS platform that helps brands analyze creative performance in real time—because in this market, "creative testing" without data is guesswork.

Outside of business, I live in South Florida with my wife Taylor and our two boys. I’m a family-first operator. Weekends usually involve beach days, t-ball games, and building something in the garage (usually with a goldendoodle supervising).

If you're a DTC founder looking to:
✅ Turn creative chaos into profitable customer acquisition
✅ Build predictable growth systems backed by numbers
✅ Actually understand what's driving your MER

Let’s connect.

Chris Marrano

I made these ads in twenty seconds with one click of a button.

And before anyone asks, we do not work with Gruns Vitamins.

These were created as a demo to show what our new internal AI static ad tool can do.

Here is the context.

We built a front end application months ago so our media buyers could generate static concepts fast. It saved time, but we knew it could be better.
Last week we upgraded the system with the Gemini 3 Pro API and the new edit API call.

The output is on another level. Cleaner product renders. Accurate lighting and shadows. Faster background swapping. Brand aligned compositions. Instant hook variations to feed the new Andromeda update. 

And the images are good enough to test immediately

What used to take a designer two or three days, we can now produce in under a minute.

This matters because most seven and eight figure Shopify brands still cannot keep up with the creative volume Meta needs after the Andromeda update. 

Everyone is talking about scaling, but very few teams have the systems to actually produce testable creative at the speed required.

This is why we built the tool.

Not to replace designers, but to keep media buyers unblocked and maintain momentum inside the ad account.

If you want the behind the scenes breakdown of how we tied Gemini 3 Pro into our workflow and how we are using this heading into Q4, drop STATIC in the comments and I will send it over.

Grüns you can use any of these id you'd like 😃

Scaling 7 & 8 Figure DTC Brands Profitably | Building AI-enhanced systems | Founder@BlueWaterMarketing | Founder@ADIQ.AI

60 hours of reporting → 5 minutes.

AI generates a full cross-channel report from a single question with Whatagraph

Most agencies still spend a week on reporting, not because it’s hard, but because they’re doing it manually.

And a week spent formatting data isn’t great work.

It’s just wasting talent.

Here’s the reality most teams don’t say out loud:
You’re pulling numbers from Meta, then Google, then LinkedIn.
You’re fixing Looker dashboards every time an API sneezes.
You’re chasing Funnel or Supermetrics issues hours before a client call.
And when the report is finally done, the insight is already stale.

I’ve been in those meetings.

I’ve managed those teams.

I’ve watched marketers spend more time being accidental data engineers than actual strategists.

Everything changed the day we stopped treating reporting like a craft project—and started treating it like a system.

One prompt. A full report with graphs and insights in few minutes.
No SQL.
No dashboard rebuilds.
No data gymnastics.

Just:
→ Connect all your marketing data sources in one click
→ Describe the report you want with a prompt
→ Get a clean, visualized, cross-channel report instantly

That’s the real shift.

Not “faster reporting.”

But reporting that finally matches the speed of decision-making.
If you want access to the tool and see exactly how these instant reports are generated, you can get it here https://lnkd.in/ehrP7rYy

Brand partnership • Scaling 7 & 8 Figure DTC Brands Profitably | Building AI-enhanced systems | Founder@BlueWaterMarketing | Founder@ADIQ.AI

Most brands want to rank on Google, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. But they don't have the system to actually do it.

We tried building our own content engine in-house. It kind of worked, until it didn’t.

Research, briefs, content structure, internal linking, QA, publishing.
- Six different tools.
- Too many bottlenecks.
- No unified workflow.

We could automate parts of it, but never the entire loop. Which meant we were never going to scale it across our portfolio or our SaaS.

The turning point was when I started testing AirOps. Not as another “AI tool,” but as the system that finally stitched everything together.

Here is how it works… 
1. Drop in a keyword
The workflow pulls supporting questions, competitors, gaps, and outlines.
2. Build a production-ready article
With real internal linking paths, brand voice, expert quotes, and embedded case studies.
3. Automatic quality checks
Fact checks, terminology consistency, citations, and tone adjustments.
4. Repurpose instantly
LinkedIn posts, social snippets, video scripts, FAQ sections, summaries, email variants.
5. Human review at the right points
Not to rewrite everything.

Just to add expertise, context, and brand alignment. This took us from 40 to 50 hours to roughly 3 to 4. Not because we wrote faster. Because the system did the work we could never automate end to end.

If you are trying to rank on Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini, you need a real engine behind the scenes.

Not writers guessing. Not a bunch of disconnected tools.

A system.

I have a five minute walkthrough of the exact workflow we are using.

How it works, why it works, and how you can install it inside AirOps without writing a single line of code.

Comment “ENGINE” and I will send you the video.

Your Meta ads didn’t “break.” Your strategy is just 2 years old.

Every Shopify brand owner I talk to is blaming the Andromeda update for their tanking performance.

Here’s the problem: Andromeda fully rolled out in October.

You’re blaming your current results on something that happened 3 months ago. 

The real issue? Most brands are still running 2023 playbooks:
→ 8-15 fragmented campaigns
→ Hyper-segmented audiences
→ 3-5 creatives per ad set
→ Obsessing over interest targeting

Meanwhile, brands who actually adapted are seeing 17-35% efficiency gains.

What actually changed:
Meta rebuilt its entire ad retrieval system. The algorithm now matches creative attributes to audience segments automatically.

Translation: Your job isn’t to find the perfect audience anymore. It’s to give the AI creative diversity so it can do the matching for you.

What’s working now:
One brand consolidated from 8 campaigns to 2. Same ads, same budget.

Result: CPMs dropped 20%. CPAs fell 35%. Within days.

The formula that’s winning:
• 1 campaign per objective
• Single ad set with 10-50 diverse creatives
• Broad targeting (yes, really)
• Feed the system weekly, don’t micromanage daily

The uncomfortable truth:
“Test 100 hooks” isn’t a strategy. It’s busywork.
Andromeda doesn’t want 100 variations of your winner. It wants genuinely different creative concepts—different angles, formats, and messaging approaches.

The brands winning right now aren’t better at media buying. They’re better at creative production.

Your targeting skills became table stakes. Your creative volume became your moat.

Here’s what I’ll admit:
This transition isn’t easy. We’re still refining how to consolidate accounts efficiently without torching performance during the shift. There’s no perfect playbook yet.

But waiting isn’t an option. Every week you run fragmented campaigns is a week you’re starving the algorithm of the data density it needs.

The learning curve is real. The necessity is realer.

Most brands obsess over Q4 and miss the easiest revenue of the year.

Q5 is coming, and if you are not planning for it, you are leaving profit on the table.

Q5 runs from December 26 to mid January.
It is one of the highest intent, lowest CAC periods for ecom.

Why it works:

People buy for themselves after gifting.
People use gift cards and store credits.
New Year goals shift buying behavior.
Competitors pull back spend.
CPMs drop and efficiency spikes.

Here is what we tell every 7 and 8 figure brand:
1.	Treat Q5 as its own acquisition sprint
New angles. New hooks. New offers. The psychology is completely different.

2.	Shift messaging from gifting to personal benefit
“Now it is your turn” converts very well.

3.	Push easy bundles
Gift card buyers index high on bundle AOV.

4.	Lean into New Year trigger angles
Health. Reset. Upgrade. Organization. Improvement.

5.	Do not scale down right after Christmas
Your most efficient days might be the last week of the year.

6.	Prep your retention plays
Q5 buyers behave like their own cohort.

7.	Increase creative volume
Andromeda rewards variety. Give it more quality signals.

Q5 should not be an afterthought. It should be a planned growth moment.

If you want the Q5 creative and offer playbook we use for our clients, drop Q5 and I will send it over.

Most people are focused on finishing Q4 strong.
Internally, we are already building for 2026.

Not goals.
Not guesses.
Infrastructure.

The conversations I have been having with operators this year always come back to the same thing. Growth is predictable when systems are predictable. Chaos appears when there is no architecture.

So here is exactly what we are building for 2026 across operations, systems, marketing, and fulfillment.

1. Operations that remove human bottlenecks
I want every repeating task documented, delegated, or automated.
Creative tracking, media buyer scorecards, reporting cadences, client checklists, onboarding.
Nothing should live in someone’s brain or Slack thread. If it does, the system is already broken.

2. Systems that survive scale
Agencies fail when they grow faster than their systems.
We are rebuilding everything to handle more spend, more clients, more outputs without adding stress.
Clear routing rules, defined ownership, AI workflows, predictable review layers, and automated accountability.
No more manually chasing anything.

3. Marketing that compounds, not resets
The old model of “create content when things slow down” is gone.
We are building marketing like an assembly line.
Research, content direction, outlines, drafts, approvals, publication, repurposing.
A real engine.
The goal is to stack authority every week, not start over every quarter.

4. Fulfillment that produces the same output every single time
This is where most agencies break.
If quality depends on which strategist or buyer is assigned, you do not have a system. You have a hope.
We are building playbooks that define how to think, how to decide, how to react, and how to get ahead of problems.
And we are tying every workflow to real numbers.
Not feelings.
Not “vibes.”
Performance.

5. AI where it gives leverage, not noise
We are not throwing AI at problems. We are integrating it where it gives measurable lift.
Ad performance systems
Creative brainstorming
Daily check-ins
Content production
Quality reviews
Prediction layers
AI should be part of the ops stack, not a shiny distraction.

Here is the part most people forget.
The success you see in January is determined by the systems you built in October, November, and December.

We are not building for next week.
We are building for 2026.

If you want me to share the exact framework we use to audit operations and rebuild them into systems that scale, drop SYSTEMS and I will send it over.

Last week I spoke at eCom North Miami Summit to a room full of 7 & 8 figure brand owners (and a few pre-revenue founders hungry to learn).

The topic: Why the brands that win in 2026 will be the ones building AI-powered systems right now.

I walked through what happened to all of us this summer. August was incredible for most of our clients. September? CAC doubled. ROAS collapsed. Some brands saw 30-40% revenue declines month-over-month.

At first we thought it was us. Then we talked to other agencies. Everyone was seeing the same thing.

As we now all know, Meta quietly finalized the rolled out of Andromeda and changed the rules on all of us.

Here's what I shared:
→ The old playbook is dead. Interest targeting, 20 campaigns, 3-5 ads per ad set — gone.
→ Creative velocity is now mandatory. 3-5 creatives per week = death. Winning brands are launching 10-50 iterations weekly.
→ Media buyers need to become marketers again. Creative = targeting. Story = segmentation. Psychology = ROAS.
→ The 6-stage Creative Factory we built to produce strategic creative at scale using AI.
→ The 4 automated workflows every brand needs running before their first coffee.

I also showed the 71 active workflows we've built internally that run 3,500+ executions per week.

This isn't theory. It's what we're doing every day to stay ahead.

If you were in the room, thanks for the energy. The questions after were just as valuable as the presentation.

If you want the deck, drop "ECOM" below and I'll send it over.

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The Battle

Bill Stathopoulos

Chris Marrano

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The Battle

Bill Stathopoulos

Chris Marrano

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