Denis Acia

Co-Founder at SaasFluence | B2B Influencer Marketing for SaaS Brands

I’m Denis, Co-Founder of SaasFluence

We’re an influencer marketing agency helping B2B tech brands drive demand and visibility by partnering with LinkedIn influencers.

Currently — with over 200 influencers, we manage influencer marketing programs for B2B sales tech companies like Maildoso, Icypeas, Saleshandy, Fowla, and others.

Why We Started SaasFluence

Before SaasFluence, I ran an outbound agency, Applus Leads. Through that experience, we worked with some incredible B2B tech brands — companies with fantastic products and real value to offer. But despite outbound efforts (cold calls and cold emails), they weren’t getting the traction they deserved.

A big reason?

Their LinkedIn presence and engagement were minimal. Most had only a few hundred page followers and very little visibility in the market.

That lack of recognition made it hard to convert cold leads. Without social proof or brand mentions, prospects were hesitant to engage — especially in the highly competitive sales tech space.
What they really needed was a new approach — one that would:

1. Build credibility
2. Earn trust
3. And drive demand by establishing them as trusted solutions in the market.

That’s where SaasFluence comes in.

Our mission;
To help B2B tech brands leverage influencer marketing to drive demand, increase sales, and grow.

How We Can Help

☑ If you’re a B2B tech founder or business leader with an influencer marketing budget of at least $10K/month,
 ☑ And you don’t have the time to run campaigns or manage influencer partnerships,
We’ll handle it for you.

We’ve launched thousands of LinkedIn-sponsored campaigns, and our clients are seeing exceptional ROI.

If you’re curious, DM me and I’ll share a few of our client case studies so you can learn more about our systems and results.

Or, visit our website to explore further:
 👉 www.saasfluence.co

Lead Generation Partner - Outbound

If my team replies to my Slack messages in 30 seconds I get a little bit worried about our work.

In most agencies everybody feels a pressure to stay active so the boss thinks they are working hard. 

You feel like if you do not answer a DM immediately you might look like you are slacking off. 

But I think that culture is a mistake.

If you are answering me in 30 seconds it means you were not in the zone. You were just waiting to be interrupted. 

A brain cannot do its best work if it is getting interrupted every few minutes.

Tell your team to turn off notifications for a few hours and disappear. Go do hard stuff that requires deep thinking. 

I would much rather wait two hours for a brilliant strategy than get a "On it!" in three seconds.

Remember that you hired adults because you trust them to do the job. You do not need to watch their status bubble to see if they are sitting at their desk.

If your team is answering too fast they might be losing the chance to do their best work.

Fast reply or good work - what matters more to you?

Don't follow up with your prospects today. Trust me on this.

It is the first week of January. Everyone just got back to their desks. I know for a fact their inboxes are a total war zone right now. They have 300 unread emails. Maybe 500. 

They are stressed and they are just trying to survive the morning.

If you send them an email right now saying "just bubbling this up," you are not being a good salesperson. You are just annoyance number 301. 

I like to give people what I call Grace Week. Just give them some room to breathe. Let them delete all the junk and get back to normal life.

I am waiting until next Tuesday. When I reach out, I will tell them I waited because I knew their inbox was probably a mess. 

It shows you have some empathy. It shows you care about their sanity more than your quota.

People appreciate it when you don't act like a robot chasing a number.

Are you sending emails today or are you waiting?

I spent 3 months sending emails to SaaS founders who didn’t have a budget until I found this.

I used to spend a lot of my outbound efforts guessing. I would find a SaaS company through Sales Nav, find the CEO, and send them a pitch for our influencer services. 

Sometimes they replied. Most of the time they didn't. 

Then Matthew from Prospeo.io showed me what they built for their V2 update. It was crazy. 

I finally stopped searching for "companies" and started searching for "signals."

Here is how I use it now for Saasfluence:

→ I set a filter to only show me SaaS companies hiring for marketing roles.
→ I check the "Technographics" to see if they already use tools like HubSpot.
→ I also check "Intent Signals" to see companies that are researching Linkedin marketing.

This changes the whole game for me.

If a company is hiring a marketing leader (or other related roles), I know three things for sure:

1. They have a massive problem they need to solve.
2. They have the budget to pay for a solution.
3. My timing is perfect because they are already thinking about growth.

The data is refreshed every 7 days and 98% of the emails are verified. I don't even scrub the list anymore!

I’m moving almost all our internal searches over to Prospeo.io now because it saves me so much time on cleaning CSV files.

Swipe through the carousel to see how I set this up and the exact email template I use.

I’ll put a link in the comments if you want to try Prospeo.io yourself.

Signal based outreach

Is work-life balance just a lie we tell people so they don’t quit?

I have been looking at my own life lately and I see a pattern that makes me a bit angry. 

Every single time Saasfluence is winning and we are managing MORE clients, my health automatically goes into low priority mode.

I skip the gym and I eat whatever is near me because my brain is always on the next meeting.

Then I get tired of feeling slow and I focus on my fitness. I spend more effort on my health and I eat clean. 

And what happens? My to-do list piles up. I am not pushing the business as hard because my energy is somewhere else.

I'm starting to think you can't have every area of your life in the green at the same moment.

I see these influencers on Linkedin say "My work is my life.” If you spend 14 hours every day building a company, doesn't something else need to die?

Maybe it is your relationship with your kids or your physical health. You only have so much energy in the tank.

Does anybody here have it all figured out? Are you winning at health, money, family, and work at the same time? 

Or are we all just choosing which part of our life we are going to neglect this week?

(Please no AI comments below. I want to hear from humans.)

I used to spend 4 hours a day on LinkedIn trying to grow. Now I use these 4 tools to do it in 45 minutes:

Trigify.io → I use this to find social signals. I don't message random people anymore because that is a waste of time. 

I find people who are leaving comments on my favorite niche thought leaders. These people are already interested in what I'm interested in. Higher chances of converting them.

Extrovert → I used to spend forever thinking of what to say on 20 different posts every day. This tool helps me stay active in the comments. 

It keeps my name visible where my customers are hanging out and I don't lose my mind doing it.

MagicPost → When my brain feels like a dry sponge and I have no ideas, I open this. I don't let it write for me. That is a mistake. 

I use it to kickstart my drafts. I can get a post done in 30 minutes instead of an hour of staring at a blank screen.

Aimfox → This is the heavy lifter for the DMs. Once the other three tools have warmed up my profile and people recognize my name, I use Aimfox. 

It handles outreach at a scale I could never do by hand.

The point is not to use bots to manage my Linkedin. These tools just let me be more human faster. 

I spend less time on boring stuff and more time talking to people who can grow the business.

How much time do you spend on LinkedIn every day?

I have a confession: I am not passionate about B2B influencer marketing.

Do not get me wrong. I love my team and our clients say we do great work…

But I do not wake up every morning dreaming about creator briefs or looking at invoices for software.

I think gurus tell founders a big lie. They say you must be obsessed with your product. 

You must live and breathe your niche every second and I think that’s totally unnecessary.

What I am obsessed with is getting our clients a win. I like when a founder tells me their sales calls are finally converting because of the work we did.

I love the game of building a company. I love finding great people and making a plan and seeing it succeed. The "thing" we sell is just the car we drive to get to the goal.

It is okay to not be in love with the tool. It’s okay to just be in love with the results you get for people.

We shame founders who are not obsessed with their specific niche and it just makes people feel like they are doing it wrong. It’s fine to just love the win.

Are you in love with the product or are you in love with the game?

I found a way to stop the "Day 1" onboarding chaos with one single link.

Do you send an email asking for your client's logo? Then another email with a Google Form? Then another one asking them to book a kickoff call?

The client is already overwhelmed and you haven't even started the work yet.

We stopped doing that. We use a tool called Flowla and we create one "Onboarding Room" for everything.

Here is exactly what we put inside:

→ A 30-second welcome video:

Record it right there in the room. Say "Welcome! Everything you need to get started is right here."

→ A checklist:

They see a list of what they need to do and what we are doing. They know exactly what is happening next so you never have to send "just checking in" emails.

→ An intake form:

We embed a form in the page. No PDFs to download. They fill in their KPIs and their target audience and we get it instantly.

→ A calendar link:

Our Cal(dot)com link is sitting at the bottom. They book the kickoff call as the final step.

→ An upload section:

We ask them to drag and drop everything into the room. It keeps our inbox clean.

We send one link. 

The client feels like they hired a professional team instead of a messy freelancer. It sets the tone for the whole relationship.

Do you have a smooth onboarding process or is it a mess of emails?

fix your onboarding

Why does a lead from a creator close 3x faster than a cold lead?

It’s because of "Distance to Trust."

When you get a cold lead the distance is very long.

Path A:

It starts with a Stranger. Then you send a cold email. They feel scepticism. 

You have to do 3 demo calls to prove you can solve their problem. You earn trust and you close.

That path takes a lot of time.

The distance shrinks when you try to convert a lead from a trusted creator’s post.

Path B:

It starts with a stranger. But then they see a creator's post. The creator hands their trust over to you. 

The prospect comes to you already believing in the product. You do 1 discovery call and you close.

Influence is a shortcut.

Do you want the long path or the shortcut?

I think most of us on LinkedIn are aiming at the wrong target and here’s why…

We look at viral posts and think "I need to post about how to get 10k followers."

Or we post generic advice about "how to be a better leader."

We are fighting for attention at the very top of the pyramid.

It is crowded there and honestly, there is not much money in it.

The "money" is hidden at the bottom of the pyramid.

It is where people are looking for boring solutions to boring business problems.

A post about "How to get 100 likes" might get you a dopamine hit. But a post about "How to fix a messy CRM so your sales team stops quitting" might get you 10 likes.

But 3 of those likes are from CEOs who have that exact problem right now. And they have a budget to fix it.

If you want to be a famous creator, stay at the top. If you want to build a business, go to the bottom and solve a boring problem.

Do you post for likes or for leads?

If you are a SaaS founder, here is how you make one creator post last for months...

I see this all the time. A brand pays a lot of money for a creator to post. The post goes live, it gets some likes for a day, and then it is gone.

This makes the math very hard for your business because you paid a lot for something that only lasted 24 hours.

You need to turn that one post into a content engine. Try using this playbook:

Day 1: 

You do the obvious stuff. The creator answers every comment. You share it to your company page. You make sure everyone sees it.

Day 7: 

Take the main lesson from that post and put it in your email to your users. Tell them a story about why this creator uses your tool. It feels more human than a standard marketing email.

Day 14: 

You take the video or the image from the creator. You run it as a paid ad.

It looks like a friendly recommendation instead of a boring commercial. Usually your cost per click goes down.

Day 30: 

When someone books a demo on your site, show them that creator's video on the thank you page. Tell them "While you wait for our call, see how this person uses us." 

Day 40:

Write a simple blog post on your site. Title it "How [Creator Name] solved this big problem using our tool." You are just telling their story again.

You paid for the post once. But now you are getting value for more time, and you can repeat this playbook for all creator posts.

Are you reusing your creator content?

Creator marketing tactics

Before I started my influencer marketing agency, I did cold emails for SaaS clients.

And I found one framework that worked for pretty much any tool I was selling.

Here is the exact structure I used to book hundreds of meetings:

1. Salutation

"Hey [Name]" is fine. 

2. Relevant Personalization

This is where everyone messes up. Do not just say "I saw you went to X college." That is weird. You need to connect the observation to the problem you solve.

Example: "I noticed you run a pay-per-meeting model at your agency. That means you cannot afford to waste credits on bad data, right?"

See? I am proving I understand their business model.

3. The Offer

Connect it right back to the personalization. Tell them why you are emailing them now.

Example: "Asking because we just launched a new verification feature at [Tool Name]. It helps you find verified emails without burning your credits on the wrong people."

4. Social Proof

Give them a reason to trust you. A number or a name works best.

Example: "We are already helping 50 other lead gen agencies keep their bounce rates under 1%."

5. CTA

Do not ask for marriage. Just ask if the topic is relevant.

Example: "Would this be relevant to you right now?"

That is it. 

What is your go-to cold email framework?

I haven't used this tool yet, but I'm obsessed with the idea behind it.

When one of our creators puts out a post, we see the likes and comments. But we have to spend hours reading through hundreds of comments just to see if people like the price or if they like feature X.

I saw Trigify.io and it looks like it can fix this mess. 

One thing I want to do is sentiment analysis. I want the tool to tell me if everyone is complaining about a specific part of the dashboard. 

Instead of me guessing, I can get a clear report on what the market hates. That is pure gold for a product team.

The other part is even more crazy. They say they can connect social signals to your pipeline. 

If I can show a client that a single comment from a prospect led to a closed deal in their CRM... that is holy grail.

Right now, the link between a LinkedIn comment and a dollar is very blurry. I think this might be the tool that finally makes it clear. 

Do you track the sentiment of your comments or count the likes?

Sending a cold connection request to a stranger is just weird.

If a random person stops you on a dark street you get nervous. Most LinkedIn requests feel like that. 

You get a notification from a face you never saw before and you probably hit delete because you have zero clue who they are.

We use a method I call the Shadow Strategy. We use a tool called Extrovert for it and it has changed everything for our team.

→ I pick 50 people I want to work with.
→ I add their names into Extrovert.
→ Every time they post anything the tool sends me a notification.
→ I leave a helpful comment within the first hour of them posting.

I do this about three times in two weeks. I'm not trying to sell them anything yet. I'm just sharing my thoughts on their ideas.

When I finally send the connection request they already know who I am. 

They see my name and they think 'hey this guy has been leaving some good comments'. It is not a cold request anymore.

Our acceptance rate is about 60 percent (for prospects).

You spend 15 minutes a day doing this and your outreach stops being an intrusion.

Do you message strangers or do you let them get to know you first?

Hlib Storchak

AE @ <oneaway> | We help busy sales teams generate top of the funnel leads with Clay

GTM and RevOps aren’t buzzwords.
They’re how modern teams scale revenue with predictability.

If you’re a founder, revenue leader, or operator, you’ve probably felt it:

Your people aren’t the problem.
The systems they’re forced to run on are.

→ SDRs stuck in manual prospecting instead of closing gaps
→ RevOps buried in spreadsheets instead of enabling clarity
→ Sales teams running outdated playbooks from 2019
→ Leadership frustrated by pipeline that feels random, not repeatable

That’s where we come in.

I’m Hlib - GTM lead at Strongest Group.

We don’t position ourselves as “just another agency.”
We operate as your growth partner.

What that means: we embed with your team and help across the full revenue stack:

→ GTM strategy & positioning - so your offer lands with the right audience
→ Clay-powered outbound workflows - predictable pipeline built on real signals, not lists
→ RevOps infrastructure - systems that create visibility, alignment, and speed
→ Sales enablement + plays - processes your team can run tomorrow
→ Creative campaigns - that cut through noise and set you apart

Because here’s the truth:

Scaling revenue isn’t about duct-taping another tool or running “one-off campaigns.”
It’s about building a GTM + RevOps engine that compounds every quarter.

The results?
We’ve helped early-stage startups, agencies, and growth-stage SaaS unlock:

• Predictable top-of-funnel growth
• Faster, cleaner sales cycles
• Higher productivity across every revenue function
• GTM engines that don’t break when you scale

If you’re serious about growth, you don’t need another vendor.
You need a partner who can help design, build, and operate systems that last.

📌 DM me “Growth” and I’ll show you the exact frameworks we’re using to generate 5–15 qualified opportunities/week...

While laying GTM + RevOps foundations your team can rely on long after.

Chief Executive Officer

Hlib S.

AI fatigue is real.
And it's changing everything about outbound.

We just recorded a podcast about GTM trends for 2026.

One topic hit different:
People can spot AI-generated messages instantly now.

You don't need to be an expert.
The patterns are painfully obvious:

Generic compliments.
Overly formal language.
Three paragraphs that say nothing.

Everyone sees it.
Everyone deletes it.

So here's the shift that's actually working:

Stop trying to hyper-personalize with AI.
Everyone's doing it.
Prospects are numb to it.

"I saw your post about X" doesn't impress anyone anymore.
It's getting treated like an empty message.

Start focusing on relevancy instead.
Relevancy = reaching people who actually have the pain you solve.

Right now. 
Today. 
Not theoretically.

Pain-qualified signals matter more than personalization ever will.

If your message is relevant to their actual problem?
You don't need 5 paragraphs of fake personalization.
You just need to be direct and human.

Here's what we're doing differently now:
We write first drafts by hand.
Literally.
Pen and paper.

No AI.
No templates.
No prompts.

Just thinking through what a real person would actually say.
Then that becomes the backbone of the message.

We're not outsourcing our thinking to ChatGPT or Claude.
We're crafting the message as humans first.
Then we reverse-engineer how to scale it with AI.

The goal isn't to use AI better.
The goal is to sound like a human who actually cares.

And sometimes the only way to do that is to start without AI entirely.

The contrarian move for 2026:
Go against the grain.

While everyone's racing to automate everything...
The winners will be the ones who figure out how to stay human at scale.

Less AI polish.
More real thinking.

Less hyper-personalization.
More actual relevance.

That's the shift.

Full podcast is in the comments.

We go deep on this plus a bunch of other GTM shifts,
Nobody's talking about yet.

What's your take on AI in outbound?
Overused? Still valuable? Completely ruined?

Building GTM + RevOps systems for B2B companies | DM me “Grow” to get started

What I actually do all day as a GTM lead.
(Spoiler: it's not just building Clay workflows)

A lot of people glorify GTM engineering.
They make it look sexy.

Like you're just sitting there building genius workflows and watching the pipeline roll in.

That's not the reality.

Here's what a typical day actually looks like for me:

Morning: Pulse check on everything.

We're currently handling 8 clients plus our own internal lead gen.

First thing I do is check all active campaigns across multiple channels.

→ Cold email performance
→ LinkedIn outreach stats
→ Reply rates
→ What's working, what's dying

I'm not just launching campaigns and forgetting about them.
I'm checking daily to make sure nothing's broken.

Mid-morning: Cold calling team sync.

We have a cold calling team running parallel to email and LinkedIn.

I need to make sure they have fresh lists.

Make sure they're actually calling.
Make sure the results are coming in.

It's not glamorous.
But if I don't stay on top of it, things fall apart fast.

Throughout the day: Client communication.

This is huge.

I try to give 2-3 updates per week to every client.
Not because they're asking for it.
Because I want to build trust and show proof of work.

Transparency matters.

If clients don't know what you're doing,
They assume you're doing nothing.

So I keep them in the loop.

Afternoon: Workflow building and optimization.

This is the part people see on LinkedIn.

Building Clay workflows.
Prompt engineering.

Thinking about:
→ Which workflow could bring more results?
→ How do we get more leads?
→ What's the next angle to test?

It's creative.
But it's also stressful.

Because you're constantly wondering if what you're building will actually work.

Random: Sales calls.
Yeah, I still take sales calls.

Sounds ridiculous for a GTM lead, right?
But I enjoy it.

And honestly, it keeps me sharp.

I see what prospects care about.
I hear their objections.
It makes me better at building campaigns.

End of day: Learning and staying current.

GTM moves fast.

New tools.
New strategies.
New features in Clay.

I'm currently going deeper into n8n because I think mastering it
Will help us scale to bigger clients.

But it's not just learning for fun.
It's learning to stay relevant.

If you're not improving, you're falling behind.

The reality:

It's not sexy.
It's a lot of work.

But I genuinely enjoy it.

I wouldn't trade it for anything else right now.

I have a healthy amount of stress.
The kind that pushes you forward instead of burning you out.
And that's the balance I'm trying to keep.

So yeah.

That's what a typical day in GTM actually looks like.

Less "genius workflows"
More "controlled chaos and constant iteration"

What does your day-to-day actually look like?

Drop it in the comments.
Curious how different everyone's reality is.

No alternative text description for this image

Location freedom is real.
So is location loneliness.

Working remotely has always been my dream.

Execute tasks from anywhere.
No commute.
No office politics.

Just me, my laptop, and whatever city I feel like being in.

And honestly?
I've been loving it.

But here's what nobody warned me about.
It's really easy to become a lone wolf.

You're sitting in your apartment.
Or a coffee shop.
Or a coworking space in a new city.

But you're still in your own bubble.

Autumn 2025 hit me hard.
I started feeling like I was working into emptiness.

Shipping stuff. 
Taking calls. 
Closing tasks.

But no real human connection.

Just me and my screen having a very one-sided relationship.
Not great for the soul.

Here's what actually helped:
Meet people.
In real life.
On purpose.

Not just work colleagues.
Like-minded people from wherever you're located.

Even once every two weeks makes a difference.

Sounds obvious.

But when you're deep in remote mode,
You forget humans exist outside of Slack.

Office visitis changed everything.

Huge shoutout to Tomi and Toni for organizing a full week in Helsinki for me.

Being with the team in person hit different.
We connected on a completely different level.
Not just "hey, nice to meet you" energy.

Real conversations. 
Real laughs. 
Real bonding.

We're planning another one in February.
Can't wait.

Working closely with the right people matters.
Harri is visiting me in Riga next month.

We work together daily on our GTM unit.
And our connection is literally the foundation of everything we're building.

Teams calls are fine.

But sitting in the same room, whiteboarding ideas, grabbing lunch together?
That's where the real magic happens.

We're planning to meet way more often in 2026.
Because that's how you actually build something.

The lesson:
Remote work is amazing.
But don't let freedom turn into isolation.

Schedule the trips.
Book the office weeks.
Meet the humans.

Your work will be better for it.
And so will you.

How do you deal with remote work loneliness?
Or am I the only one talking to my coffee cup at 2pm?

Most people know Prospeo.io for one thing:

Really good email data.
Really good phone data.
Really good verification.

That’s how I knew them too.

But that version of Prospeo is basically V1.
And V2 is a very different story.

Over the last weeks, I’ve been playing with Prospeo’s new beta.

Not as a “let me list features” exercise.
But as part of real outbound workflows.

Here’s the shift that matters:

Prospeo is no longer just a data lookup tool.
It’s turning into a searchable lead engine with data quality baked in.

Instead of:
- pulling lists
- verifying across tools
- cleaning spreadsheets
- praying the data is fresh

You search once.
And you get already-verified leads:

Emails.
Direct mobiles.
With real signals behind them.

What stood out to me most isn’t volume.
It’s confidence.

You’re not guessing if the data will bounce.
You’re not stitching together 4 tools before outreach even starts.
You’re not hitting people “just because they fit the ICP”

You’re reaching real people, at the right companies, at the right moment.

And yes.
I’m part of the V2 beta.

Yes, my feedback is actively going into the product.
And yes, this is one of the few data tools,
I’m genuinely excited about heading into 2026.

If outbound is part of your job, you should try Prospeo V2 yourself.

Don’t take my word for it.

Test the data.
Break it.
See if it holds up.

Curious how you currently handle data before outreach.

One tool?
Or five stitched together?

Want to write cold emails people actually read? 

Stop learning from marketers.
Learn from storytellers.

Most people read sales books to improve their cold email:
Frameworks.
Templates.
"Proven strategies".

And their emails still sound like robots wrote them.

I took a different approach.
I started reading fiction.
(Though I really hated the idea at the beginning)

And my reply rates improved massively.

Here's what fiction teaches you that sales books don't:

1) How humans actually think.
Sales books tell you what people want.
Fiction shows you how people feel.

The difference?
People don't buy because of logic.
They buy because something resonates emotionally first.

Fiction teaches you: 
→ What makes people curious 
→ What makes them keep reading 
→ What makes them care

When you understand that,
Your cold emails stop feeling like pitches.
They feel like conversations.

2) How to write naturally.
Sales books teach you to write "professionally."
Fiction teaches you to write like a human.

Compare these:

Sales book approach: "I wanted to reach out regarding a potential opportunity to collaborate on driving revenue growth through our innovative solution."

Fiction approach: "Saw you're scaling in Europe. We help companies like yours book meetings in markets where you don't have teams yet. Interested?"

One sounds like a sales email.
The other sounds like a person talking.

3) How to hook attention immediately.

Good fiction grabs you in the first sentence.
You can't put it down.
That's exactly what cold email needs.

Sales books teach you to "establish credibility" in the opening.
Fiction teaches you to create tension, curiosity or relevance right away.

Sales book style: "My name is Hlib and I work at Strongest Group, a leading GTM agency..."

Fiction style: "You're probably getting 50 cold emails this week. This one's different."

Fiction trains you to make people want to keep reading.

The lesson:
Stop reading like a salesperson.
Start reading like a human.

Fiction won't teach you cold email frameworks.
But it'll teach you how to write emails people actually want to read.

And that's worth way more.

What's the last fiction book you read?

Drop it below.
Always looking for recommendations.

After seeing dozens of GTM agencies,
These are some warning signs:

I've worked with agencies.
I've worked at agencies.
I've seen the good, the bad and the absolute disasters.

And there are clear patterns that separate agencies,
Who'll actually help you from ones who'll just burn your budget.

Here are the red flags to watch for:

1. They promise specific numbers without understanding your business.
"We'll get you 50 meetings in the first month"
"We guarantee 10x ROI"
"You'll see results in 2 weeks"

If they're throwing out numbers before they've even asked about your ICP,
Your offer or your market...

They're trying to guess.
And you're paying for that.

Good agencies don't promise outcomes before doing discovery.
They promise a solid process that leads to outcomes.

2. They don't ask enough questions upfront.

If the sales call feels like a pitch instead of a diagnosis - RUN.

Good agencies dig deep before proposing anything:
→ Who's your ICP? 
→ What's your current GTM motion? 
→ What's worked and what hasn't? 
→ What's your close rate? 
→ How's your infrastructure set up?

If they're not asking these questions,
They're not building a strategy.

They're applying a template.
And templates don't work.

3. They won't show you their actual process.

"Trust us, we've got this"
"We have a proprietary system"
"We can't share details until you sign"

No.
If an agency won't walk you through their process step-by-step before you commit...

They either:
A) Don't have a real process 
B) Are hiding how generic their approach is

Top agencies are transparent.
They show you exactly what they'll do, how they'll do it and why.

4. They talk more about tools than strategy.
"We use Clay, Apollo and Instantly"

Cool.
So does everyone else.

Tools don't win campaigns.
Strategy does.

If the agency spends more time talking about their tech stack than about:
→ How they'll define your ICP 
→ How they'll craft messaging 
→ How they'll test and iterate 
→ How they'll measure success

They're tool operators, not strategists.
You need strategists.

The pattern:
Bad agencies sell you on hype.
Good agencies sell you on process, transparency and realistic expectations.

Before you sign with any GTM agency, ask yourself:
→ Did they actually ask about my business? 
→ Can they explain their process clearly? 
→ Are they promising outcomes or committing to execution? 
→ Do they talk strategy or just tools?

If the answers don't feel right, walk away.
Your budget will thank you.

Have you worked with a GTM agency before?
What red flags did you see (or miss)?

P.S. if you ever need help with building your own GTM motion, feel free to book a call with our handsome lad Tero.

He will ask you a lot of nice questions, show you our exact process and you can see for yourself what the real GTM engineering is :D

How I build prospect lists that convert 5x better than average:

Most people build lists by scraping everyone who fits a basic filter.
Then they wonder why their conversion rate is 2%.

Here's the problem:
Big lists don't convert.
Relevant lists do.

Here's my exact 5-step process for building lists that actually convert:

Step 1: Define your ICP criteria (be specific)
Don't just say "B2B SaaS companies."

Get granular:
→ Employee count (f.e. 50-200) 
→ Industry keywords (f.e. "cloud software" or "subscription platform") 
→ Geography (where they operate) 
→ Tech stack (if relevant)

The more precise your criteria, the better your conversion.
Vague ICP = wasted outreach.

Step 2: Use multiple sources to find companies

I primarily use Prospeo.
But I also pull from LinkedIn Sales Navigator when needed.

Why multiple sources?
Because no single database has complete coverage.

One source = 60% of your market.
Two sources = 85% of your market.

Always stack your data.

Step 3: Find the right people (not just any people)
I use Clay's "Find People" feature.

Here's the key: Use the "similar titles" option.
Don't just search for exact titles like "VP of Sales."

Search for similar roles too:
→ Head of Revenue 
→ Chief Revenue Officer 
→ Director of Business Development

This expands your reach without sacrificing relevance.

Step 4: Validate and enrich your data

Use Prospeo and Icypeas for email enrichment.
Then validate with tools like ZeroBounce.

But here's what most people skip:

AI-powered qualification.
I use Clay AI agent to score each prospect based on client-specific criteria.

This tells me who's worth reaching out to first.

Step 5: Tier your list and prioritize
Not all prospects are equal.

I segment into 3 tiers:
→ Tier 1: Perfect fit (ICP + high intent signals) 
→ Tier 2: Good fit (ICP but lower intent) 
→ Tier 3: Potential fit (close to ICP)

Always start with Tier 1.
Exhaust it completely.

Then move to Tier 2.
Then Tier 3.

This keeps your outreach focused on the highest-probability conversions first.

The difference between 2% and 10% conversion isn't luck.
It's list quality.

Stop building lists fast.
Start building lists right.

What's your list-building process?
Drop it in the comments :D

We turned a nightmare industry into a 25% reply rate machine.
Here's how:

One of our clients operates in iGaming.
And if you've ever tried doing outbound in this space, you know it's brutal.

But we managed to hit a 25% reply rate.

Let me walk you through what made this work.

The challenges we faced:

First, the market is tiny.

iGaming isn't like SaaS where there are thousands of companies to target.
The total addressable market is extremely limited.

There just aren't that many gaming companies in the world compared to other industries.

Second, people are invisible.

LinkedIn profiles are incomplete.
Emails are hard to find.
Contact data is scattered everywhere.

We had to pull from multiple data sources
Just to piece together who even works at these companies.

It's not a "run one enrichment and you're done" situation.

What we did differently:

When your market is this small, you can't afford to be lazy.

We focused on two things:

1) Nailing the offer upfront.

We spent real time understanding what these companies actually need.
Not what we think they need.
What they're actively looking for.

Then we built an offer that made saying "yes" the easiest next step.
No vague value prop.
No "let's explore synergies".

Just a clear, specific offer that solved a real problem.

2) Multi-channel everything.

In a small market, you can't just send one email and hope for the best.

We went omnichannel:

→ Cold email
→ LinkedIn outreach
→ Calling where it’s needed

The goal wasn't to spam them.
The goal was to show up where they actually pay attention.

Some people ignore emails but answer LinkedIn DMs.
Some people reply to email within 5 minutes but never check their LinkedIn.

We covered all the bases.

Why it worked:

The formula was simple:

Right person + right offer + easy next step = high reply rate.

We weren't blasting thousands of leads with generic messaging.
We were reaching a small, highly targeted group
With something they actually cared about.

And because the offer was so relevant, saying yes was logical.

No friction.
No confusion.

Just "yeah, let's talk".

The results:

25% reply rate.
Booked a ton of calls.
And we're just getting started.

Now we're testing new angles to hit the same audience from different directions.
Because in a small market, you need to squeeze every opportunity.

The lesson here:

Small markets aren't a disadvantage if you do the work.
You just can't be lazy about it.

Nail your offer.
Go multi-channel.
Make saying yes easy.

That's the playbook.

Have you ever worked in a "nightmare" industry?
What made it so hard?

The best GTM advice for early-stage startups?
Talk to your customers.

Sounds obvious.
But almost nobody does it right.

Here's what I mean:
Early-stage startups usually have two problems.

Problem 1: Product-market fit.

Do people actually need what you're building?
Most founders obsess over this.
And they should.

Without it, nothing else matters.

Problem 2: Message-market fit.
You have a great product.

But can you package it in a way that sells to cold audiences?
This is where most startups get stuck.

They know their product works.
But they can't explain it in a way that makes strangers care.

So they guess.

They write copy based on what sounds good.
They test random angles.
They hire copywriters who've never talked to a customer.

And they wonder why cold outreach isn't working.

Here's the fix:

Stop guessing.
Start talking to your inbound leads.

When someone buys from you, ask them:
→ Why did you buy? 
→ Why now? 
→ What problem were you trying to solve? 
→ What made us the right choice?

Be genuinely curious.
Let them talk.
And actually listen.

What happens next is magic.

They'll tell you exactly how to sell your product.

In their words.
Not marketing speak.
Not feature lists.
Real language from real buyers describing real problems.

That's your message-market fit.
Handed to you on a silver platter.

Then you scale it.

Take those stories.
Take those words.
And multiply them across lookalike companies.

Find companies similar to your best customers.
Use the same messaging that worked on the originals.

That's how you scale GTM without guessing.

The formula is simple:

1. Talk to paying customers
2. Understand why they bought
3. Steal their language
4. Target similar companies
5. Repeat

Your customers already know your messaging.
You just need to ask.

What's the best insight a customer ever gave you about your own product?

I built one Clay workbook in December.
It booked 20+ calls.

Here's the exact process:
Everyone's building these massive, complicated Clay workflows.

50 enrichments.
100 columns.
AI doing backflips.

Meanwhile, I'm over here with one simple table.
And it's generating more pipeline than anything else we're running.

Here's what it does:

Step 1: Find the right companies
Used Clay's "Find Companies" feature.

Targeted B2B SaaS in Europe.
11-500 employees.
Got 10k+ companies.

But here's the key: I didn't just filter by industry.
I used specific keywords like "SaaS", "cloud software", "subscription software"

Why? 

Because "software development" includes a ton of non-SaaS companies.
Tight targeting matters.

Step 2: Qualify them hard
Not every company on that list is actually our ICP.

So I used Claygent to scrape their websites and classify:
→ Is this actually a B2B SaaS company? 
→ Do they have SaaS-style pricing? 
→ Do they have a product interface?

This step alone saved us from wasting time on bad fits.

Step 3: Deep research on their ICP
Here's where it gets interesting.

For every qualified company, I had AI analyze:
→ What they offer 
→ Who they sell to (industries, personas) 
→ What their case studies looks like

Then I asked: "Find 3 companies in Finland that match this ICP."

So now I have a list of prospects,
AND tailored examples of companies they'd want as customers.

Step 4: Find the right people
Used Clay to find CEOs, founders, CROs, VPs of Sales, Heads of Sales.

All the decision-makers in business development.
1600 people total out of 1000 companies.

Step 5: Write hyper-relevant emails
The opening line was generated by AI based on the research:

"Hey {name}, saw you work deep in {industry}. We checked companies in Finland and found great matches. Here are 3 that stood out: {Company 1}, {Company 2}, {Company 3}"

Then the offer:
"If we could book you meetings with them or other Scandinavian companies matching your ICP, would you be open to it?"

That's it.

No generic pitch.
Just relevance and a clear offer.

The results:
20+ calls booked in December.
Tons of positive replies from highly qualified prospects.
Some people skipped the email entirely and booked directly from our website.

Why it worked:
→ Tight targeting (no spray and pray) 
→ Deep research (we actually understood their business) 
→ Relevant offer (we're not selling. We're solving their problem)

The workflow is simple.
You can build it once and reuse it forever.
No need to overcomplicate things.

P.S. Full step-by-step breakdown with screen recording is in the comments. Watch it if you want to replicate this.

The honest guide to breaking into GTM space in 2026.
(From someone still learning it)

Look, I'm not going to pretend I'm a GTM engineering expert.

I haven't been in this space for that long.
But I've watched a lot of people break in successfully.
And I've learned enough to see what actually works.

So here's what I'd do if I was starting today.

First, understand what the role actually is:
A GTM engineer isn't just a Clay wizard.

You need two skill sets:
1) Technical skills (Clay, automation, workflows)
2) Strategic thinking (understanding GTM, knowing what actually works)

Anyone can build a workflow.

But can you figure out what the right approach is first?

Can you understand the end goal,
And reverse engineer the system to support it?

That's where most people fail.

They focus only on the tools.
Not on the strategy behind them.

Start with Clay.

It's the core skill for this role.
No way around it.

How to learn:
→ Clay University on their website (tons of free content and updates) 
→ Get yourself an account and start building 
→ Replicate workflows you see on Clay's site 
→ Break things and figure out why they broke

Don't just watch tutorials.
Actually build stuff.
That's the only way it sticks.
Get real experience.

Once you're comfortable with Clay,
Go work for a GTM or outbound agency.

There are tons of them hiring.

Even if you start as an AE or in a different role,
You'll see how they apply these systems for clients.

That's exactly what happened to me.

I worked at outbound agencies as an account executive.
But we used the same systems internally for our own lead gen.

That hands-on experience taught me more than any course ever could.

Build your network:
This one's huge.

Be active on LinkedIn.
Engage with: 
→ Other GTM engineers 
→ Agency owners 
→ Creators in the space

Join Clay's Slack channel.
Get into WhatsApp groups.
Show up consistently.

These connections will lead to opportunities you'd never find on job boards.
And people in the community genuinely help each other.

Timeline reality check:
You don't need years to break into the top 5%.
6-8 months of focused, hard work.

That's it.

Learn Clay.
Build workflows.
Get real experience.
Network like crazy.

After that, it's exponential growth.
Because you'll be surrounded by people like you.

You'll push each other.
Share wins.
Learn faster.

So if you're thinking about breaking into GTM engineering...

Don't overcomplicate it.
Learn the tools.
Understand the strategy.
Get experience.
Build connections.

The path is simple.
Execution is what separates people.

What's stopping you from starting today?

Clay inside Claude sounds amazing.
Here's who actually benefits:

If you missed it, Clay just became a connector in Claude.

You can now access Clay's entire research infrastructure directly inside Claude:
→ Contact databases
→ Enrichment providers
→ AI research agent

All without leaving the chat.

No more 15 tabs open.
No more context switching between tools.
Just ask Claude what you need and Clay delivers.

Pretty cool, right?

But here's my honest take:

This is mostly valuable for individual SDRs.

If you're a rep doing your own prospecting and research,
This is massive.

You can now:
→ Find the right contact at a target account 
→ Pull their verified email and phone 
→ Research their company, recent news, hiring signals 
→ Write personalized outreach

All in one conversation.
That's hours saved every week.

For GTM agencies?
Less of a game-changer.

We're already running Clay workflows at scale.
Building tables with thousands of leads.
Enriching, scoring, segmenting automatically.

The Claude connector is cool for quick one-off research.
But it's not replacing our core Clay workflows anytime soon.

However...
If you're using Claude Code?
You're about to cook so much more.

Imagine combining Clay's data
With Claude Code's ability to build and execute.

That's where things get really interesting.

We're already experimenting with this.
Building agents that do research, enrichment and outreach automatically.

Early days.
But the potential is insane.

My top 3 use cases for the Clay connector in Claude:

1. Quick account research before a call.
"Tell me everything about {{Company X}}. Recent funding, hiring signals, leadership changes, what their VP of Sales has been posting about."

Boom.
Full briefing in 30 seconds.

2. Finding the right person at a target account.
"Find the Head of GTM at {{Company Y}}. Pull their email, phone, and recent thought leadership."

No more digging through LinkedIn for 20 minutes.

3. Writing outreach based on real context.
"Write a cold email to {{Person Y}} referencing their recent comments on AI adoption and their company's expansion into Europe."

Personalization that's actually personal.
Not "I saw you run {{X company}}" garbage.

The bottom line:
Clay inside Claude is a big deal.

For individual reps, it's a productivity hack.
For agencies and teams running Clay at scale, it's a nice add-on.

For people using Claude Code?
It's the start of something much bigger.

Go connect it and play around.
Link in comments if you want to try it.

What's the first thing you'd use Clay inside Claude for?

First month of 2026 in the books.
(It's not over yet, I know)

Here's the honest breakdown:

January was a lot.
Great things happened.
Hard things happened.

Let me walk you through it.

The wins:

☑ Business unit is growing fast.
→ Onboarded 6 new clients this month. 
→ Signed 3 more (starting soon). 
→ Our own GTM engine brought in a client looking to enter the Finnish market.

That last one felt especially good.
We're not just doing this for clients.
We're doing it for ourselves too.

And it's working :D

☑ Harri and I went deep on AI agents:

We started implementing Claude Code into our daily workflows.
(Again, who on planet isn't using it already?)

Building agents that help with fulfillment.
Still early days.
But the potential is massive.

This is going to change how we operate.

☑ Fitness became non-negotiable.

Started being super consistent with my routine.
And honestly?
I feel like a different person.

More energy.
More focus.
I can do 12-hour workdays without crashing now.

Should've prioritized this years ago.

☑ The podcast got amazing feedback.

We dropped our first episode.
People actually loved it.
Already planning episode two.

More on that soon.

The struggles:

1) We're really busy.

9 clients is great for business.
But fulfillment is getting heavy.
There's only so much two people can do.

Some weeks felt like we were barely keeping up.

Not complaining.
Just being honest.

2) We need to hire.
This became very clear in January.

We need someone who can execute.
(And I hope that next week the solution is going to arrive)

3) Didn't go deep enough on n8n.
This was on my list.

Wanted to master it for more complex client workflows.
Didn't happen.

January got away from me.
Moving it to February priorities.

What's the plan for February:
→ Structure our work better so output per hour goes up 
→ Stress less about fulfillment 
→ Harri is joining the LinkedIn content game (expect posts from him soon) 
→ Recording podcast episode two 
→ Team meetup in Helsinki 
→ Keep building

January was chaotic.
But in the best way.

We're growing.
We're learning.
And we're just getting started.

How was your January?
Drop the highlight and the struggle in the comments
(I am going to read through all of them)

P.S. met my very good friend Lars in Oslo yesterday.
He is doing GTM for Arcline (YC W26) - super cool to see more companies from 🇳🇴 break into YC

Stop pretending you know why your reply rates dropped.
You don't.

And if someone tells you they know exactly why, they're lying.

Cold email is a system with 20+ moving parts.
Any one of them can break silently.

But here's what separates people who recover fast,
From people who stay stuck:

They have a troubleshooting process.

Here's what to check when your reply rates tank:

1. Check your domain health first.

Not your copy.
Not your offer.
Your domain.

Go to any publicly available tools.
Check your domain reputation.

If it's "low" or "bad", you're landing in spam.
No amount of better copy will save you.

2. Test inbox placement manually.
Send yourself 20 test emails from each domain.

Check: 
→ Primary inbox 
→ Promotions tab 
→ Spam folder

If even 2-3 land in spam,
Your domain is burnt.

Stop sending immediately and fix it.

3. Audit your email volume per domain.

Are you sending more than 15-25 emails per domain per day?
You're pushing too hard.

ESPs flag high volume as spam behavior.

The fix: 
→ Add more domains 
→ Spread volume across them 
→ Never max out a single domain

4. Check your technical setup.

SPF records. 
DKIM authentication. 
DMARC policies.

If any of these broke, your emails aren't getting through.

Most people never check this.
They just assume it's still working.

5. Review reply rate trends, not vanity metrics.
Don't look at opens (we don't track those anyway).

Look at: 
→ Reply rate over last 7 days vs previous period 
→ Positive replies vs total replies 
→ Meeting booking rate

If replies dropped but everything else is the same,
It's your messaging or offer.

If everything tanked at once, it's infrastructure.

The reality:
Most reply rate drops are infrastructure issues.

Not copy issues.
Not offer issues.

Your emails are landing in spam and you don't even know it.

That's why the best move is to build great infrastructure from the start.
Not scramble to fix it after things break.

My go-to for this?
Maildoso.

Automatic alerts when something's off.
Self-rotating mailboxes.
IP switching built-in.

I'm not constantly checking if things are getting worse.
The system handles it.

And when reply rates do drop,
I know it's not infrastructure.

So I can focus on the actual problem.

Build the foundation right.
Everything else gets easier.

Link in comments if you want to check it out.
(SMTP + Google Workspace = best deliverability)

If I bought every tool I get pitched on LinkedIn,
I'd be spending $15k/month on licenses.

That's insane.

Every week, I get at least 5-10 messages:

"We're the best tool in the market" 
"Game-changing solution for GTM" 
"You need to try this"

And look, I'm not being sarcastic or trying to offend anyone.
Some of these tools are probably great.

But if I subscribed to everything that landed in my DMs, I'd go broke.

So here's how I actually evaluate new tools without wasting time or money:

1) Lock in your core tools first.

These are the hardest to replace.
The ones your entire workflow depends on.

For me, that's: 
→ Clay (for data and workflows) 
→ Salesforge.ai 🔥 (for cold email and multichannel) 
→ HubSpot (CRM and sales)

These aren't negotiable.

I'm not switching them every time someone pitches me an "alternative"

Pick your core stack and stick with it.
Stability matters more than chasing the next shiny thing.

2) Leave room to rotate in certain categories.

Not every tool needs to be locked in forever.
Some categories should be flexible.

For example:
→ Email finding tools 
→ Email validation tools 
→ Data providers

These markets move fast. 
Policies change. 
Databases get updated (or don't). 
Providers fall behind.

So I do regular pulse checks.

Every quarter, I test alternatives to see,
If my current provider is still the best option. 

If it's not, I rotate.

But I'm not switching core infrastructure. 
Just the tools that are easier to replace.

3) Don't chase every trend you see on LinkedIn.
You've seen them.

The sick workflows. 
The crazy integrations. 
The "you NEED this tool to compete" posts.

Don't buy it immediately.

Let the market validate it first. 
Let the experts use it for 3-6 months.

See if it actually delivers or if it's just hype. 
Then, if it still makes sense, test it yourself.

But don't be the guinea pig for every new tool that launches.

4) Ask yourself: does this solve a real problem I have right now?

Not a problem you might have in 6 months.
Not a problem you saw in someone else's workflow.
A real problem you're dealing with today.

If the answer is no, don't buy it.
No matter how good the pitch is.

The best tool stack isn't the biggest one.
It's the one that actually solves your problems,
Without adding unnecessary complexity.

So before you hit "subscribe" on the next tool someone pitches you...

Ask yourself:
→ Is this core or replaceable? 
→ Does it solve a problem I have right now? 
→ Has the market validated this or is it just hype?

That filter alone will save you thousands.

What's a tool you bought but never actually used?

Drop it below.
We've all been there.

Someone DM'd me about lead conversion.
My answer turned into a mini playbook.

So I figured I'd share it here too.

The situation:

They're generating solid inbound leads.
Marketing is doing its job.
People are signing up.
Intent is there.

But the sales team can't convert them...

Leads come in warm.
Then go cold before anyone even talks to them.

Sound familiar?

Here's what I told them:

1. Speed to lead is everything.
I asked: "How much time passes between form submitted and first contact?"

If it's more than 5-8 minutes, you're already losing.
I'm not exaggerating.

A lead fills out a form.

They're interested right now.
→ Not tomorrow
→ Not in 2 hours
→ Right now

The company I work at books 1000+ meetings per month through cold calling.

One thing we've learned:
Catch people when intent is hot.
Wait too long and they've moved on.
Or worse, they forgot they even signed up.

2. Local numbers matter more than you think.
This one's overlooked all the time.

If you're calling international leads from a random foreign number,
Good luck.

People don't pick up unknown numbers.
Especially from country codes they don't recognize.

Get local numbers for the markets you're selling into.
It's not complicated.

But it makes a massive difference in pickup rates.

3. Does your company look legit online?
I asked: "If I searched your company on LinkedIn right now, what would I find?"
→ Could I easily tell you're a serious company? 
→ Would I see real people posting real content? 
→ Or would I find a ghost town with a logo and zero activity?

First impressions matter.

Before a lead picks up your call, they're probably Googling you.
Or checking LinkedIn.

Make sure what they find builds trust, not doubt.

4. Are you leading with value?

I asked: "Are you using any lead magnets when approaching these leads?"
→ A document
→ A short video
→ A report

Something that gives them value before you ask for anything.

Most sales teams just call and pitch.
But if you send something useful first,
You're already different from everyone else.

It builds trust.
And gives them a reason to actually talk to you.

The reality:
Generating leads is just step one.

What happens in the first 5-10 minutes after signup determines everything.
→ Speed
→ Trust
→ Visibility
→ Value

Nail these four and you'll convert way more than you're converting now.
Hope this helps whoever needed it.

What's the biggest challenge you face with converting inbound leads?

taplio

The Battle

Denis Acia

Hlib S.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreDenis Acia's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreHlib S.'s LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Denis Acia

Hlib S.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Denis Acia's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreHlib S.'s LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDenis Acia's LinkedIn Performance