☀️19/30 | Market Development @ RollPros

I’ve built my career in sales and business development by doing the work most people avoid: prospecting, building relationships from scratch, and staying consistent long after the first “no.”

Over the past decade, I’ve worked across manufacturing, healthcare, motorsports, and other B2B environments where trust, follow-through, and real conversations matter more than slick decks. I’ve built pipeline, grown accounts, supported dealer and partner networks, and learned how to navigate complex buying groups without losing momentum.

I believe a “no” is rarely the end of a conversation. More often, it’s an opportunity to add value, understand timing, and leave the door open for the right moment. That mindset has helped me stay disciplined with outreach, resilient in the field, and focused on long-term relationships rather than quick wins.

I’m at my best in roles where I can own my territory or accounts, show up face to face, and be accountable for results. I enjoy working with business owners and operators, asking good questions, and connecting solutions to outcomes that actually move the needle.

Right now, I’m open to sales, business development, account management, and field-based roles with teams that value integrity, effort, and relationship-driven growth.

If you’re building something meaningful and believe sales is still a people business, I’m always open to a conversation.

🌀 Kyle vanArtsen

Great memories watching Ralph Sheheen  call SX races back in the day

Kyle vanArtsen 

Business Development & Sales Leader | New Logo Growth | Corporate Branding

Motorsport/Fighting Reporter of Sports Business Journal

FOX Sports is bringing back the old SPEED brand with a new racing-focused video podcast that will appear on the FS1 TV channel with Kevin Harvick and Will Buxton.

Hard work all week.

--

So when it’s time to play, we play hard.

Big thanks to Kenny and that absolute beauty of a #Suzuki for adding some throttle therapy to the feed.

--

Hammer Down.

📸 : Vital MX

Lead generation is broken.

Too many companies:

- Try to generate leads themselves, but fail
- Hire a lead gen agency with bloated retainers who can’t deliver

Lead generation as a whole is always changing, so unless you’ve got a dedicated team
on it (that knows what they’re doing) — you can expect to overpay for underwhelming
results.

That said, in 2025 — you don’t need to try to generate leads yourself, or pay an
outsized retainers for subpar work.

With Leadbird, you:

- Don’t pay for overpriced retainers
- Only pay per meeting-ready-lead we deliver
- Get the expertise of career outbound salespeople

We achieve this for you through:

- Targeted lead list building
- Domain + inbox set-up and warm-up
- Proven cold email copywriting principles
- Done-for-you cold email campaign management

Book a free demo from the link in my bio to join over 115 active clients getting
high-quality, meeting-ready-leads every single month.

Talk soon,
Nick

Nick Abraham

I recently visited a company’s site and got hit with a live cold call from one of their reps a few minutes later. I absolutely loved it.

Every bit of data we have shows that the faster you call your leads after they show any type of intent, the more likely they are to book into an appointment. 

So much so that we call leads that respond to our cold emails as fast as humanly possible to try to capitalize on this. 

But, frankly, I had never seen it done off of a website visitor play. In retrospect, it's quite obvious, though. 

1. Identify website visitor
2. Enrich and get email + phone
3. Assign to rep
4. Have rep call

There's clear alpha in this right now, and I'd love to see more companies take it on. 

The future of GTM belongs to those who pick up the phone fastest.

I send 2M+ cold emails and 1M+ LinkedIn DMs per month for 1,000+ active clients across Leadbird and Cleverly

8 months ago, I got a very strong, personalized cold email from a barber in Dallas who had been following my content. It said:

“Hey Nick,

Love the content on X, very informative. 

I noticed in your bio you mentioned you live in Dallas Tx, figured I'd offer my service to you. I enjoy networking and meeting people in the entrepreneurial space, and what a great way to connect during a fire haircut, lol.

I'll add my link below so you can see my review/work. 

Also, haircut on the house.”

Since Alex sent this email, I've been seeing him every two weeks for my haircut. 

This is a real-life case study (literally) showing that:

1. Cold email is one of the most powerful channels to build relationships with people you don't know at all. 

2. Local businesses are starting at a complete blue ocean in terms of lead generation opportunity (we literally ask all clients if they'd be willing to run a local campaign for this reason).

Takeaway: Be more like Alex.

For the longest time while cold emailing local businesses, I removed “info”, “support”, and “help” @ [company name] emails. Wow, what a mistake that was.

I thought that those were generic emails and nobody checks them. So, I’d of course favor actual people’s (generally the owner) emails. Except over time, I realized how small this made our list.

It became clear that not all SMB business owners actually set up personal email accounts, and sometimes do operate out of the generic names (some friends in the space made this clear to me!).

And, it just…worked (see below for confirmation).

This changes a lot for us. It’s almost like we unlocked new TAM by confidently reaching out to addresses we never would have before, being that we now know they actually may be fruitful.

All that to say: if you’re cold emailing local businesses, don’t shy away from the generic addresses. They might just be exactly what will work.

I got my first agency to $10,000/month by sending cold Instagram DMs until my thumbs hurt or my account got restricted. Today, that art has been lost.

I get messages from business owners trying to grow their business and outsourcing lead gen entirely from Day 1 all the time.

When you start outbound by asking: “how can I automate or outsource this?”:

1. You don’t learn what makes people respond this way.

2. You don’t get valid feedback on your offer this way.

3. You leave the entire motion in the hands of someone who doesn’t care as much as you or a software provider who inhibits you from developing the skill.

You lose, no matter what.

Not to mention, there's something to be said about experiencing the grind and what it takes to book a meeting. I'm confident I'll win long-term because I know exactly what it's like to take a prospect from cold → closed, all manually.

Even though there’s tons of automation tech out there, there’s value in doing things manually.

Mark Cuban says the best business opportunity right now is selling AI implementation to businesses. Here’s how I’d do it with cold email:

People that do it wrong will mass-send generic copy about “implementing AI” to a massive list. It will go nowhere, and they’ll claim this “doesn’t work”.

People that do it right will:

1. Find 1 problem that’s solvable with AI for 1 type of business (ex: a specific AI workflow for HVAC businesses' back office).

2. Solve it in a way you can productize/replicate (using AI).

3. Scrape a list of ONLY those types of businesses (smaller, but more targeted).

4. Email a subset of the list offering to do execute this for free in exchange for case studies/testimonals.

5. Run the playbook 3 times for free to land case studies (video customer interviews + written case studies on-site).

6. Email the rest of the list saying:

"{{name}} - want {{problem solved}}?

Asking because we did it for other {{company types}} like {{company 1}}, {{company 1}}, and {{company 3}}.

Worth a chat?"

This has really always been the playbook for getting services businesses off the ground. AI has just increased demand for certain services, and made it faster to deliver for the vendors.

If I were fresh out of college trying to start something, this would likely be it.

It feels like every week, we see people in outbound preach about a new data vendor, infrastructure provider, or even sending platform. 

Even within tools themselves, I feel like I can't scroll the timeline without seeing Smartlead, Clay, or others announce a big new feature.

It's both awesome and exhausting, sometimes.

At the same time, it's indicative of how much this space moves and how fast it does. Every outbound marketer needs to be on their toes constantly to ensure they're not missing something. 

And though I don't want to come across like I'm fear-mongering, it's true. I've seen this in the last year with competitively generated agency owners, unfortunately fizzling out because they were stuck in their ways and didn't adapt. 

You absolutely need to keep your finger on the pulse of all tools and strategies in this space or you will fall behind. 

I like to frame it mentally as being a student of the game. It is ever-evolving, meaning it is quite literally impossible to master it. 

That’s my Tuesday reminder.

It feels like there are a million AEO/GEO companies right now. One of them needs to steal this cold email template before their competitors do. Why I love it:

1. Overall short and skimmable: This can be read in a few seconds.

2. Subject line is (easily) personalized and relevant: pairing the company name with ChatGPT most certainly piques interest.

3. First line looks* hyper-personalized (just variables): piggybacking off the subject line, this looks like the sender was actually doing their research (even though it’s just a Clay workflow).

4. Clear outcome offer: Show up first in ChatGPT.

5. Relevant social proof: Clear proof that you've done this before. 

6. Soft CTA: Not pushing too hard for the meeting. 

This email is perfect proof that you don't need anything too fancy. You just need to have a strong offer presented well and, most importantly, presented clearly. 

Do you know of any companies in this space running a similar flow?

No, outbound marketer. The 23 Clay workflow posts you saved this month will not help you reach your outbound goals. There are things way less fun but way more high-impact that will.

I love Clay workflows as much as the next guy. But these are not the difference between hitting your outbound targets and missing them. 

Unfortunately, a lot of people like to spend most of their time thinking about researching or building these workflows, as opposed to spending time on the fundamentals of great outbound.

If you’re looking to improve your outbound performance and close rate from it, start spending time doing these things:

- Monitoring infra and deliverability to proactively identify issues

- Running small signal-based campaigns in the background for unvalidated offers instead of just 1-2 big campaigns

- Using localized campaigns that mention your city for tough markets (especially service businesses)

- Training your sales team with structured processes instead of letting them wing discovery calls

You don't build a business on the fun stuff. You do so on the boring material.

For the first time ever, YC included agencies in their request for startups. I’d be lying if I said I was surprised.

Historically, Agencies were rarely considered in venture conversations because of the required human capital. Revenue scaled only with headcount. This made software-like margins impossible to replicate.

YC’s argument is that this is no longer the case, thanks to AI. In a roundabout way, they're saying you can get the same output with less humans, and that all of the salaries you aren't going to pay go right back to your bottom line. 

That's the semi-obvious stuff. The less obvious angle here is that YC realized how fundamentally great the business model is compared to what they typically invest in. 

The venture game is one of moonshots. You pour a bunch of money into an asset that will burn cash for 5-10 years and hope it either turns cash flow positive at scale, gets acquired, or IPO’s.

By no fault of YC, this leads to a lot of failed companies and a lot of burned investor money. 

To me, YC asking for agencies is almost a safer hedge to a lot of the moonshot venture plays they try. Sure, rarely do agencies get acquired for what SaaS companies do or even IPO…but they're much more predictable and easier to spin up and operate than a lot of other companies. 

I say this is someone who's automated and systemized a lot of our fulfillment. We're able to run an extremely lean team for a relatively large client base because of these systems. And I do think this will become the norm moving forward.

There’s a massive business opportunity for someone that wants to use this cold email right now. Let’s walk through why:

I don't need to educate you on the AI opportunity right now for businesses that aren't using it at all. Businesses, especially local ones that operate way outside of our bubble, have arguably more upside than anyone in terms of properly using AI to boost efficiency.

There are huge consulting shops being spun up right now that solely implement this for customers.

And I think there's a huge play to do so locally with this cold email alone. Why?

1. The subject line is relevant enough to a business owner in a given suburb / area.

2. We layer on the local social proof in the first line with an outcome promise as well. 

3. We really play up the local angle by effectively saying “we are going to be in the area upcoming, so let us know if you are interested”. 

4. We of course end with a soft CTA. 

Cold email doesn't need to be that difficult. You just need to have a strong and unique offer presented well. This is a great example of that.

Everyone in outbound wants to talk about “signals”, but there’s an immensely valuable one I am yet to see someone figure out how to do (including us):

It is not scanning your competitors’ social likes, or emailing website visitors, or reaching out after recent funding.

Instead, it’s:

1. Monitoring freelance job boards (Upwork, Fiverr, etc.) for jobs with keywords relating to your service (for me, that’d be “cold email” and “prospecting” for example).

2. Somehow identifying the job poster and getting their email.

3. Reaching out and saying “Saw your job post on [platform]…” then transitioning to a pitch. 

Why I think this would work so well:

1. The company posting on one of these platforms means they have an urgent need for the service. There likely isn’t a bigger signal than that.

2. This already works, if done well, with actual job postings via traditional job boards. But, because the employer on freelance sites is usually anonymized, this is harder to do.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on if you've been able to execute this (feels like a Cody Schneider problem 😅).

People are taking spintax too far and it's ruining their cold emails. They're trying to spin individual words to increase variance, but this often leads to certain sentences just not making sense or sounding weird when read out loud.

This is not the way. You clearly show your prospect that a human did not write the email.

The right way to run spintax:

1. Identify the right variables to do it with in the first place.

Certain ones are over the top and risk-prone for messing up the email. Especially with certain Clay workflows, people are going overboard.

Easy, less risk-prone ones:

- Case studies (switch out company name and result)
- CTA sentence (spin 4-5 different ways of saying "Can I send you more info?")

2. Instead of spinning specific words, do it with specific phrases all together that still mean the same thing.

This reduces the chance of the email sending platform creating a sentence that just looks weird or doesn't make sense.

This is “boring” stuff but it's important.

My agency has worked with 500+ clients. In the last 5 years, I've learned a TON about how to deal with unhappy customers. My top 3 learnings about doing it:

1. Product <> Fulfillment <> Sales must all be aligned.

All messaging has to be completely aligned at all times and updated frequently across the board if needed.

Customers can and will get confused by what you are saying, pitching, or delivering.

Example:

Our product team built a new way to launch campaigns, and our fulfillment team started leveraging it. But, our sales team is still pitching the prior way (the outcome was the same, but the workflow is different).

This ultimately led to confused customers and was an issue we had to mitigate.

Don't let that happen!

2. Your contract is, literally, the law.

This goes for any B2B company. Everything you put in there on how your service gets delivered is very important. So is the reverse (everything you don't do.)

This will help prevent scope creep and give you clear boundaries on what you do and do not do for clients.

3. Calling mechanisms are crucial.

Similarly, this goes for both lead generation agencies and other B2B companies. Do not let anyone on your team get comfortable with doing the back-and-forth email battle.

The much more efficient, personable, and higher-leverage play is simply calling the client and figuring out the problem.

Broadly, most people are reasonable and somewhat logical, so explaining your stance (as long as it's justified) should work just fine.

Ensure you have a cell phone data/calling mechanism for all clients.

I know this wasn't anything flashy, but I promise you this is what is important at scale.

A lot of people think they have a lead problem when they actually have a sales problem. This means hiring a lead gen agency isn’t the silver bullet you think it is.

I’ve come across tons of companies (usually smaller + founder-led) that effectively wing their entire sales process. There isn’t a rhyme, reason, or structure to anything they do.

- Prospect doesn’t get pre-call assets
- Prospect doesn’t get pre-call reminder
- Seller doesn’t follow any type of call agenda
- Prospect doesn’t get any post-call assets
- Seller follows up when they remember to

This should all be set in stone, concrete, and the same for every prospect. There should be clearly-defined structure and rules around every part of the process.

Yet, for many founders, this isn't the case.

They basically wing it with every lead, and leave money on the table with clients they couldn’t close as a result.

Companies in this spot simply don’t have a lead problem. They have a problem with what they do with their leads.

And no lead generation agency can fix that for you.

Last week, I posted about being cold called by a rep after I visited their site. I said I loved it, and people were…not happy, to say the least.

I saw tons of comments saying that this was “creepy” and bordering on an “invasion of privacy”.

I’m not here to debate the efficacy of the play. If your company books demos from it, do it. If you don’t, then don’t.

But this privacy point is hilarious to me.

People wrote comments about a company using their online behavior to give them targeted messages at a specific time.

…and then opened Instagram and saw 3 retargeting ads from sites they visited in the last week, and didn’t bat an eye.

My point is that companies do this all day long. We wouldn’t have some of the social media products we do if advertisers couldn’t pay for this ability.

It’s not novel. It’s just being adopted in B2B.

The problem with cold email is that once people figure out what’s working, they overuse it and run it in to the ground…until it no longer works. Let’s fix that.

The perfect example of this is the time-tested campaign copy:

“If we could help generate 1[result] with our [unique mechanism], would you be interested in speaking?”

It worked for a while because it wasn’t intrusive, was relatively low-risk, and promised an outcome (those principles remain, by the way). But, it got overplayed.

The fix to this is not simply different copy, but offering something different altogether.

By this, I mean:

1. Identifying a small set of deliverables everyone in your ICP ideally needs, or could benefit from.

2. Anchoring your cold email around offering that for free.

3. Doing a great job at it, and then opening up the conversation to more services.

There’s a great example of this in the graphic below. Yes, you’ll do some free work. But you have the right to qualify leads up front and only do it if it makes sense.

Like it or not, this will help a lot of outbound teams “win” cold email coming up.

Adding prospects to a Google Doc or sending random calendar invites to stand out in the inbox isn’t new.

Docs, Loom, Canva - people have used these for years because their domain reputation helps deliverability. And yes, you’ll likely land in primary.

But at scale, it’s not the unlock people think it is for two reasons:

1. Enterprises run heavy phishing training. If they don’t recognize the sender, they’re told not to click. That kills the play fast.

2. It carries the same negative sentiment as cold email. Some people will think it’s clever. Others will hate it.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

I used Notion Agents to build a lead gen competitor intelligence agent in maybe 60 minutes. How it works:

1. Discolike grabs the largest B2B lead gen agencies (our competitors).

2. An agent runs via Firecrawl MCP that finds updates on them (new case study, site update, etc.)

3. Sends me a monthly update of all new competitor activity.

No, this isn’t going to change my life and suddenly add $100K of revenue to my agency. But, it’s a dead-simple way to keep me in the loop on our competitors without doing a bunch of research or paying a VA to do it.

Not to mention, there are obvious applications to use this data in a lead gen setting. Ex: Monitor prospects’ competitors’ activity > reference their activity in an email to a prospect.

I don’t think Notion Agents is getting enough love right now, so I thought I’d share.

Cold email sending schedules should not be the hot topic that they are. Really, the rules for sending are simple (backed by 25M+ cold emails):

1. Send Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm. We use Smartlead’s API to randomize start and end time daily (+/- 30 mins of start and end time to increase variability).

2. Saturdays can, in fact, be a good day to hit SMBs or mid-market companies. 

3. Same goes for holidays.

It’s that simple. Stop reading in to data about which days and times perform better. You’ll drive yourself crazy.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that every single company should make a practice of doing this. It's a low-effort, high-reward way to get meetings on the board from outbound.

I'm talking about simply reactivating old leads that never closed or fizzled out from a time in the past. These are people that showed a level of interest in what you were offering, and they were more familiar with you than a true cold lead. 

Not to mention, especially if you're kicking off an outbound motion, these emails are more prone to replies. This will build trust signals early with Google and Microsoft, and overall improve deliverability. 

This is important enough that at onboarding, we ask clients for lists of older leads they want to reactivate. By reaching out to them, we're usually able to get 1-3 wins on the board in the first 7 days of a campaign going live. 

The messaging is fairly simple as well:

"Hey {{name}}, we spoke in the past about {{what you do}}.

Wanted to touch base again because we {{did something new / have new method, etc.}}.

Would it make sense for us to chat later this week?"

If you need any help with this, comment and I can answer as best as possible. I strongly recommend you get it up and running if you haven't already.

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🌀 Kyle vanArtsen

Nick Abraham

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The Battle

🌀 Kyle vanArtsen

Nick Abraham

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Engagements

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