Full Pipeline without 3+ BDRs or a Lead Gen Agency ✨ Top 5 Clay Creator | Founder @ Enablement.ch

You're doing cold outreach already. So your sales pipeline should be full. 

But where are the leads & deals? 

Creating a full sales pipeline is easy. 

You just have to:
→ Create an apollo account and build a list
→ Use an email template from a "LinkedIn Influencer"
→ Send emails & LinkedIn DMs with Lemlist

and on top of that - share content on LinkedIn every day 

You probably tried this already. 
Or hired a Lead Gen Agency to do it for you. 

Why does it not work? 
Here's the truth

#1 - Time
You don't have the time to manually build lists 
AND personalise every message. 

So either reach out to just a few people
or you just spray and pray

#2 - Trust
Everyone can send 1000 emails. 

Just look at your inbox:

→ You are spending 5-10 minutes every DAY to delete emails
→ You look like another Joe Shmoe wanting to ""jump on a call?""

= You & your message don't stand out. 

BUT 

You also know that this can work. 

You see people raving about tools like Clay, RB2B and AI generated messages. 

And you heard about that through people on LinkedIn. 

Ergo personal branding & outreach DO work. 
they can generate qualified meetings,
a full pipeline
and $$$

ONLY 

If you do it right
and create an actual engine
where everything is connected & automated

This system is not just cold outbound
and not just praying that your LinkedIn content creates inbound
This is ALLBOUND

And how do I know this? Two reasons:

#1 - I've done it twice already
 
I generated over $2.4m in revenue in my last role as sales leader at a HubSpot Agency
↳hyper personalised messages at scale in 2022 - BEFORE ai was even possible. 

And now at enablement we generated $200k pipeline in 20 days from a single campaign. 

We practice what we preach. 
Here's how we make our money: 
→ 49.4% Outbound
→ 29.3% LinkedIn
→21.3% Referrals

#2 - We worked with over 70 B2B Tech Companies in the last 18 months

Bound (fintech) 
→ 2x Pipeline in Q1 24
→ 70% Revenue from Cold Outreach

Scrypt (fintech) 
- 10 meetings with C-level per month

Skribble (B2B SaaS)
→ Reduced BDR Team by 80%
→ Still hit revenue targets

XPLN (B2B SaaS)
→ 20+ meetings with CEOs per month

Fruitcore Robotics (Robotics) 
→ Consistently book 85+ meetings per month
→ $543k in Pipeline

If you're thinking now:

"That makes sense, I want know how you REALLY use AI & Automation to create a full pipeline - without a Lead-Gen-Agency or a big BDR team" 

here's the next step. 

DM me and we have a chat. 

PS: This only makes sense if you ACTUALLY want to make a fundamental change in your business and not just looking for a quick fix

Lanny M. Heiz

I started 2025 with $75.9K in monthly revenue, 10,377 followers on LinkedIn, and just 2 people (Gilbert Kralinger and me).

But we had no upsell motion, no renewal system. 

Just a high-margin consulting business. Held together by stress and hustle. 

The goal was clear: hit $100K+ per month and bring on a third person to help with fulfilment or sales.

By Q1, we crossed that $100K mark.

But it didn’t feel like growth. It felt like burnout in disguise, and we were overwhelmed.

Gilbert was pulling 14-hour days to keep delivery afloat.

I stopped doing the thing I was supposed to do (sales, marketing, top of funnel) and got dragged into fulfilment.

We had to pause new client onboardings.
And the momentum stopped.

It was one of the first times I thought, “Maybe we built the wrong thing.”

I kept telling myself we just needed help. And that’s when we hired Pablo Ferrer, total A-player.

But even then, I couldn’t get the energy back.

Deals I was sure we’d win slipped through.
Engagement tanked.

I didn’t want to post. 
I didn’t want to sell.
I didn’t want to scale a system that felt like a treadmill.

Emotionally, I was at rock bottom. 

but then I saw it clearly.

In consulting, if you do your job well, you make yourself unnecessary.

Every project ends. Every month starts from zero.

No compound motion. 
No retention. 
No leverage.

The business was profitable, but fragile.

So we made the call. 

Gave up 90% profit margins, and we went all-in on Fractional GTM Engineering.

We now build, manage and optimise GTM agents for our clients. 

Deliver value every month, get paid every month.

Predictable.
Recurring.
Scalable.

6 months later, I’m entering 2026 with:

$142K MRR,
A 5-person team (still hiring),
18,711 LinkedIn followers.

Most of the revenue now comes from renewals + expansions.

And clients staying 12+ months instead of 3.

A model that actually gets easier, not harder, as we grow.

2025 looked good on paper.
But it felt like survival.

2026 feels like a business.
Built on a foundation. 

LFG

Lanny M. Heiz ✨

GTM Agents that build inbound + outbound pipeline | Clay Enterprise Partner | Founder @Enablement.ch

We just hired a former prospect, who went from cold lead → $500K/month pipeline at Warmly → our GTM teammate in 2 years.
 
I met Ivan Nieuwoudt in 2023.
 
He was part of a sales process for ORCA (yep, they later became a client).
 
We trained him from scratch as a GTME.
 
3 months later, he was booking 30+ meetings a month.
Asking smart questions no one else was asking.
Building stuff most SDRs wouldn’t even think of.
 
But then…
 
He gets a wild offer from Warmly, -one of the most THE GTM tools out there.
 
He called me. “Should I take it?”
 
I told him the truth:
“It’s a killer opportunity. Go learn. But one day, I want to hire you.”
 
He said: “One day, I want to work for you too.”
 
So we stayed in touch.
 
He’d send me updates from Warmly.
I’d send him unsolicited life advice 😅
 
Fast forward to November.
We got to run a small project together.
 
He crushed it. Again.
 
And this time…
 
We had the right window.
The right budget.
The right timing.
 
We matched his salary.
We gave him autonomy.
We gave him the opportunity to learn & work with the best
 
He said yes.
 
And just like that, the loop closed.
 
🧨 From a cold lead in 2023…
 → to half a million dollars/month in pipeline at Warmly…
 → to now building with us, from the inside.
 
If that’s not a full-circle LinkedIn moment, I don’t know what is.
 
PS: Ivan didn’t just accept an offer. He made a bet on the non-VC path.
The profitable, build-slow, build-elite path.
The one that prioritizes craft over hype.
 
I respect the hell out of that.
 
🔥 Let’s f-go, Ivan

The CEO of HubSpot just declared signal-based prospecting as the new standard. Love that. (but let’s not pretend like this is a 2026 invention.)
 
The best GTM teams have been living on signals for years.
What’s new is that the big enterprises are finally catching up.
 
While this is all nice, Yamini Rangan did not answer the real question
 
What does “signal-based prospecting” mean in practice?
 
And no, it’s not just “they liked our post, let’s call them.”
 
The whole go-to-market architecture shifts.
 
Because when signals matter, 3 things change:
 
01) Marketing becomes a signal engine, not a content machine.
 
It’s not just “create awareness” anymore.
It’s “create intent signals” that sales can act on.
 
This means tracking micro-signals → not just form fills.
Time-on-page, repeat visits, linkedin engagement, ad views (but no conversion)
 
02) Sales doesn’t prospect cold. It prioritises hot.
 
The best reps don’t start with 10,000 leads.
They start with 50 intent-qualified accounts this week. (Powered by tools like Trigify, Teamfluence, syft, Fibbler) 
 
No “maybe they’ll reply.” Just timing + context.
 
03) AI handles the 95% that’s not human-worthy.
 
The signal tracking, the enrichment, the qualification, the copywriting, the routing. All automated.
 
Because if your rep is still googling company news, you’re not doing signal-based. You’re doing spreadsheet-based.
 
So yes.
 
Signal-based prospecting isn’t just a tactic.
It’s a system-level unlock.
 
One that requires:
 
 → GTM alignment
 → Signal tracking → scoring → routing
 → Tooling + GTM motion + messaging connection
 → And way fewer SDRs building lists
 
The new GTM isn’t “outbound vs inbound.”
It’s signal-in, value-out.
 
GTM is Allbound

Last year, I did 2,150,517 impressions on LinkedIn. That’s a 178.4% over 2024 (wild).

Spent 4 hours this weekend trying to figure out why.
And tbh I was wrong about what works.

Here’s the breakdown:

Listicles & Rankings: 673,397 impressions (31%)
AI GTM workflows: 485,545 impressions (23%)
Memes about AI: 425,607 impressions (20%)
Lead magnets: 266,329 impressions (12%)
Industry news: 165,549 impressions (8%)

You know those “comment X to get Y” posts?

Everyone tells you to do them.
You see 1,000+ comments and think: "I should try this too."

I did. A lot.

They got comments.
They got reach.
They barely got me pipeline.

Only 12% of total reach.
And even less in actual sales.

So what worked for me?

(1) Rankings + Lists.

Everyone asks me “what tools should I use?”

I’ve spent $100K+ testing them.
I just post what’s working right now. Not 6 months ago.

Why it works:

 → People save it
 → People trust takes
 → People love to argue (engagement = reach)

Templates you can steal:

"7 best questions to ask in your discovery call"
"The best and worst GTM tools of 2025"
"The 5 WORST cold calling openers"

(2) GTM Workflows.

No one wants another AI tool.
They want to know how to actually use it.

We’ve built systems that generated $50M+ pipeline.
I just break them down.

 → One workflow
 → One problem
 → One outcome (with numbers)

That’s it.

(3) Memes.

One of the memes generated us $20K MRR in December.

Memes don’t just get likes.

They surface pain.
They make buyers say: “f*ck, that’s us.”

Just don’t make it cringe.

The takeaway?

Stop farming comments.
And start solving real problems.

Because if it doesn’t help your buyer make a better decision, it’s noise.

Now go build something worth reposting.

Had a call with a team sending ~150,000 emails a month. 3 years ago, they were getting ~6,000 replies per quarter. Last quarter? 80% drop. Here's what happened (and how we fix it) 
 
Reply rates did not slowly decline. They jumped out of the window. From 6k down to 1,000 replies per quarter. 
 
Same effort.
Same volume.
Way less oxygen.
 
And the funniest part is that everyone’s first instinct is always the same: 
 
"AI personalisation"
"We need Clay"
“Let's test different copy"
"We should signal-based outreach"
 
Is that the solution? 
Nope.
 
This was way more painful + boring than that.
 
It was the unsexy stuff that quietly ruins everything while your team keeps “testing the messaging” and "buying new tools"
 
Here’s what was actually happening:
 
they tried to trick spam-filters with a DIY SMTP Server
 
which sounds smart until you realize it’s like “I’ll fix my car by building an engine myself”
 
Reputation got messy
 
Sending patterns got weird
 
and inbox providers basically went “respectfully, no”
 
Then:
 
They pulled leads straight out of ZoomInfo
 
bounced ~35% (yeah… thirty five)
 
and every bounce was basically them telling Gmail/Outlook:
“hey we spam. Please treat us accordingly.”
 
And then the cherry on top:
 
Their emails weren’t personalised
 
like not even “okay-ish” personalised
 
just… same message, 150k times a month
 
which in 2026 is basically speedrunning the spam folder
 
So yeah, reply rate didn’t “decline.”
It got cooked.

3 years of this. ~$120M in revenue they never saw.
 
Not because buyers changed. Because infrastructure quietly rotted while they kept "optimizing copy."
 
What we’re doing to fix it (simple map):
 
Step 1: rebuild the email foundation
 
Zapmail.ai + Maildoso 
 
proper inbox setup, warming, constant monitoring/replacing and a sending logic that doesn’t look like a bot having a panic attack (this alone should pull them back toward the old baseline)
 
Step 2: stop mailing ghosts
 
Clay + waterfall validation
 
Leadmagic enrichment/verification so bad addresses don’t even touch the domain.
 
Step 3: add actual relevance
 
not "Hey {{first_name}} BS."
 
real context, real triggers, real reasons to reply
and this is where reply rate doesn’t just recover, it jumps.
 
Most outbound teams aren’t losing because “buyers changed.”
They’re losing because their infra + data quietly decayed, and they kept scaling the decay.
 
Garbage in - garbage out
 
Go compare your reply rate to 6,12, and 18months ago? 
 
Did it go down/fall off a cliff? 
 
Might be your infra setup

This morning, I read a post stating "Google just killed cold email with the AI inbox" - From someone who hasn't sent a cold email in the last 12 months.

Cold email has been pronounced dead so many times that I start to think it has biblical resurrection capabilities. Basically the Jesus of GTM channels.  

But what ACTUALLY  happened? 

Google just announced the AI Inbox. It summarises your emails and picks the most important ones. 

That's it. 

Nothing crazy new. 

The old inbox still exists; now you just have an additional tab "AI Inbox"

So nothing changes? 

Not really. 

Fundamentals are the same: 

→ Send from a solid infrastructure (low volume, warm domains)
→ Short and clear value proposition
→ Strong offer (you can't refuse)

It just highlights that SDRs are WAY too expensive to try to break past AI filters. 

So make 2026 the year you invest in an AI-led GTM motion.

Last year, my posts generated 2,150,517 total impressions - 178.4% more than 2024. I spent 4 hours analyzing what changed. Big surprise: Lead magnets stopped working (down 35%). Here's what works now.
 
The results surprised me - it's not what everybody tells you to do. 

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗔
 
→ Listicles & Rankings: 673,397 impressions (31%) 
→ AI GTM workflows: 485,545 impressions (23%)
→ Memes about AI: 425,607 impressions (20%) 
→ Lead magnets: 266,329 impressions (12%) 
→ Industry news: 165,549 impressions (8%)
 
Lead magnet posts get all the hype. You see these posts everywhere
 
"Comment X to get Y" 
 
You see the 1,431 comments and think "I should do this too"
 
Truth is they are FAR less important than you think 
 
They only account for 12% of my reach - and even less of my sales pipeline. 
 
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟯 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲𝘀

1/ Listicles & rankings

They crush it because I just answer the # 1 question I get asked every week: 

"What tools should I use?"

I've spent $100k+ testing tools - so I share what works in the real world. 

Why rankings work: 

People save them because they are practical
People trust you because you're a stance
People LOVE to tell you how wrong your list is. 

To create one, just ask yourself: "What FAQ can I turn into a ranking?"

Templates you can steal 
- "7 best questions to ask in your discovery call"
- "The best and worst GTM tools of 2025"
- "the 5 WORST cold calling openers"

2/ GTM Workflows 

People start to realise that buying a clay, n8n and instantly won't fix the problem.

You also need to have the right workflows to connect them. 

In the last 2 years, we generated over $50M+ in pipeline for our clients. 

I just show the exact workflows that made it happen. 

→ One workflow
→ One specific problem/use case
→ One measurable outcome (before/after)

Important: if your post does not include a measurable outcome, it's just theory - people can't tell if it actually works. 

Templates you can steal 

"Customer X reduced churn from 20% → 1%. Here are the 2 changes they made in their onboarding"

"We spent $300k on BDRs and closed 1 customer. We changed 1 tool and won 2 new logos in the first 4 weeks. Here's how:"

3/ Memes

Memes are risky. You either sound like a cringe boomer - or you go viral and close deals. 

In December for example,  1 meme closed 2 deals worth $20k MRR

The key? Use the meme to illustrate the problem you solve.


𝗧𝗔𝗞𝗘𝗔𝗪𝗔𝗬
Stop chasing viral lead magnet posts.

Start answering the questions your prospects actually ask.

Your content should solve real problems — not just collect comments.

These 5 post types created 2,100,000 impressions (2)

Claude analysed 1 million chats and 1 trillion API calls and put the findings into a report. I read the whole 54 pages, so you don't have to. Here are the 12 most interesting stats 

𝗨𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
1.) The top 10 tasks account for 24% of all Claude conversations

2.) 6% of ALL Claude usage is concentrated on ONE single task: Modifying software to correct errors.

3.) Computer and mathematical tasks represent 34% of Claude.ai conversations and nearly half (46%) of API traffic. Coding isn't just popular—it's the dominant use case by a wide margin.

4.) Claude usage breaks down as: 46% work-related, 35% personal use, and 19% coursework. Work dominates, but personal use is surprisingly substantial.

𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘃𝘀. 𝗔𝘂𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
5.) 52% of claude conversations are focused on “augmentation” (users iterate/chat with claude to get the job done). 

6.) API usage is totally different. 75% of interactions are for automation (task execution) and only 14% are augmentation. 

7.) There's a near-perfect correlation (0.92) between how sophisticated your prompt is and how sophisticated Claude's answer is. In other words, you get what you put in (Claude mirrors you)

𝗚𝗲𝗼 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
8.) The top 5 US states account for 50% of Claude usage - despite representing only 38% of the population. 

9.) Claude usage will equalise across the US in the next 2-5 years. That’s 10x faster than previous groundbreaking technologies (like the internet), which usually take 50 years. 

10.) 1% increase in GDP per capita correlates with 0.7% increase in Claude usage per capita. Wealth is THE predicator for AI adoption globally. 

𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁
11.) 49% of jobs now have AI usage for at least a quarter of their tasks—up from 36% in earlier reports. 
AI is penetrating the workforce faster than many expected.

12.) AI adoption could increase US labor productivity growth by 1.8 percentage points annually over the next decade. That’s productivity gains last seen in the late 90s/early 00s


Which fact surprised you the most?

Economic-Index_v4_2026.01.14_g

In 2026, the average B2B scaleup spends over $535,000 a year on GTM tools (Outreach, Zoominfo, Clay, etc.) - but nobody shows how you connect them into a true GTM system. 
 
The Old Predictable Revenue Model:

→ SDR gets Zoominfo seat, builds list manually
→ Prospects each lead 1:1 (or spray and pray)
→ Load it into Apollo / Outreach
→ Hope someone replies
 
This model stopped working 2,3 years ago. Now AI totally killed it.

Why?
 
Because everyone can create a list and send AI personalised emails in seconds.
 
But few build an actual system. Here's the flow we see working in 2026 (based on 100+ clients)  
 
IDENTIFY → ENRICH → ENGAGE → CAPTURE → LOOP
 
This is not a sequence.
 
It’s a cycle, and every part feeds the next.
 
01. IDENTIFY (track signals)
Buyers leave clues long before they submit a form or reply.
 
If you're reaching out without intent signals, you're guessing - and guessing kills reply rates.
 
WHAT TO TRACK
(1) Who visits your website
(2) Social signals (LinkedIn, Reddit, podcasts)
(3) People who viewed your ads
(4) Changes in leadership 
 
🛠️ Tools: Syft Data,Fibbler,Trigify.io, @teamfluence
 
02. ENRICH (Orchestration / Data)
 
When signals fire → triggers activate automations.
 
Not every signal is intent. Sometimes it’s just noise. Enrichments create context -right person, right time, right message
 
WHAT TO DO 
(1) Enrich the account (size, tech stack, persona)
(2) Use AI to score leads based on ICP fit 
(3) Get contact data (email, phone)
(4) Find relevant pain points 
(5) Add leads to CRM 
 
🛠️ Tools: Clay, OpenAI, Anthropic , Gemini

03 ENGAGE (with relevance)
  
If enrichment doesn't shape your message, you've wasted the step. 
 
WHAT TO DO 
(1) AI writes a personal message (based on enrichments)
(2) Create a personalised offer (lovable) 
(3) Add to multi-channel sequence
(4) Sync all activity to your CRM
 
🛠️Tools: Lovable, lemlist, Smartlead , n8n
 
04. CAPTURE (the demand)  
 
A reply isn't the finish line. It's the start of the human in the loop. Call straight away - If it takes more than 5minutes to call a lead, your connect rates drop to <5% (instead of 20-25%) 
 
WHAT TO DO 
 
(1) AI to classify replies (negative, neutral, positive)  
(2) n8n workflow to get the phone number 
(3) Slack notification to SDR to call lead  
(4) Send personalised Loom video     
(5) Book discovery call
 
🛠️ Tools: OpenAI, n8n, BetterContact , Slack , Loom, HubSpot 

05. LOOP (integrate learnings) 
 
Most teams stop here - but this separates a workflow from a system that compounds.

Every outcome feeds the system.

Feedback flows into:
 
Channel: What combo closed the fastest? 
Timing: Time from signal to outreach? 
Content: What triggered replies?
Persona: Who's converting? 

Your GTM starts to learn.
 
Every signal sharpens targeting. 
Every reply sharpens messaging. 
Every close sharpens the whole loop.
 
Stop buying more disconnected tools
Start building a system that compounds
 
This is GTM in 2026.

Boss to Alex (SDR): You can either prospect all your accounts manually in Zoominfo and keep Salesforce up to date...or free-solo climb a 500m tall skyscraper (and potentially di* while livestreaming)

Alex:

Chili Piper hit $30M+ pipeline with just 2 marketers in 2025 — while cutting costs by 50%. Now they leaked their 2026 budget (it's the opposite of what most tech companies do)

Back in November 2023, Founder Alina Vandenberghe 🌶️ was staring at spreadsheets with bloodshot eyes.
 
Every tab told a different story.
 
Sales leads in one silo. Marketing campaigns in another.
 
Deals were stalling. The quiet blame game had started.
 
The obvious fix? Hire more SDRs.
 
She did the opposite.

After looking at the data, she found one pattern:

- Deals from Marketing close in 243 days
- Deals from SDRs close in 300 days
- Combined they close in 192 days

That's 36% faster. 

And they were also bigger. 50% higher ACV

The problem was not headcount or marketing spend. 

The problem was the mindset

There is no inbound. No outbound

Only Allbound.

That's when she decided to shift the budget

Most B2B companies spend 6-10% of ARR on GTM. The budget looks like this: 

- 40-50% on programs (demand gen, content etc) 
- 10% on tools & tech
- 40% on people

Companies overspend on people because they still follow the "predictable revenue model" - and this requires a lot of people to run. 

That does not scale in an AI world. 

Chili Piper flipped it:
 
→ 60% on programs (demand gen & content)
→ 25% on tools (AI agents + orchestration)
→ 15% on people (GTME not SDRs)

Before: 10 inbound SDRs manually qualifying leads. 
Now: 1 GTM operator running AI agents.

Same pipeline output. Fraction of the cost.

Here's what the AI Agents do: 
 
→ Inbound qualification and routing
→ Meeting prep summaries 
→ Filter our spam leads
→ No-show follow-ups 

The result: 

→ Costs down 50% 
→ 30,000,000 in pipeline
→ 100% increase in ACV
→ Deals close 36% faster
 
The takeaway
 
2026 isn't about buying more AI tools or hiring more reps.
 
It's about two shifts:
 
1. Move budget from people to programs + tech
2. No inbound. No outbound - just Allbound
 
The teams that win won't have the biggest budgets.
 
They'll have the tightest alignment.

PS: Alina'sfull article in the comments

Alper Yurder 🤝

Co-founder & CRO of Flowla, interactive deal rooms your buyers LOVE 👉 Follow our podcast #salestherapy by Flowla 🎙️ on spotify

Most B2B founders at $500K-5M ARR hit the same wall. Great product. Scaled with founder-led everything. Now you need to enter new markets, get the word out, and build a system that scales without you at every step.I’ve been there. 

As a founder & as a CRO/CMO.

At Flowla, I was the co-founder who became the sales team then marketing. Hired twice. Failed twice. £30K gone. 

The problem wasn't the people - I hadn't built the system.So I built it. Scaled to $1M ARR with zero paid ads. Just founder brand, content, and systems that compound. Flowla became a sales tool used by hundreds of sales teams, so I understand GTM from both sides: selling and enabling sellers.

Before that: Accenture &; Bain → MindGym (employee #20 → IPO entering new sectors) → General Assembly Expansion to UK &amp; Europe (acquired) → Witco GM for International Markets (seed to Series A, scaled UK & US from scratch).

Today I advise VC portfolio companies and teach GTM at leading European accelerators.

I run Forte Growth. We help B2B SaaS founders go from GTM chaos to predictable revenue in 120 days - system and strategy first, then inbound and outbound execution with my team.

How? Modular GTM engines - positioning, content, outbound, sales process - built with you in 12 weeks, then transferred so it runs without you. 

Or we stay on for ongoing execution. 

Check out our case studies &; testimonials from founders we worked with to date.

For founders who want a partner, not just a playbook, I offer fractional CMO / GTM leadership.

If you've built a great product but the market doesn't see it yet, DM me.

If you're entering a new market and don't want to burn £100Ks on failed hires and big-cheque CROs/ CMOs, DM me.

If you're a VC or Accelerator and need someone to guide your portfolio. Let's talk.

Co-Founder

Hey there, I'm an ex-sales leader turned co-founder, and I spend all day sharing ideas, solving problems and having #salestherapy with sales professionals from every sector and level. If you're after sales and G2M advice, you've come to the right place! And believe me, I've been through it all - from building SDR teams to closing multi-million dollar deals and everything in between. So, let's have some fun and chat sales!

💪 French PropTech. Series A. Zero UK presence. 

8 months later: £1M pipeline in the UK.

Here's what happened.

5 years ago today, I was handed a first man on the ground job: expand a French proptech into the UK and US. 

The problem? Nobody there had ever heard of us.

Nobody knew who we were.

We tried everything: 
👉 PR agency at £5K/month 
👉 SDR outreach 
👉 Cold emails 
👉 LinkedIn ads

Nothing worked like we wanted.

Response rate: low, closing not yet.

THE BREAKTHROUGH:

I mapped the market. And realized our strategy was off.

My immediate addressable market was only around 1,000 commercial real estate buyers or so.

They all go to the same real estate events. They all read the same magazines. 

They all know each other.

Spray-and-pray wasn't going to work.

So I changed the approach:

👉 Be at those events in Leeds, Manchesyer 
👉 Be in those magazines they read 
👉 Build trust before selling 
👉 Let inbound warm the outbound

Every week, step-by-step, we built presence in THEIR world.

Not ours. Theirs.

AFTER:

8 months later: 
✅ £1M Pipeline in the UK 
✅ 20+ enterprise conversations 
✅ 6 channels operational 
✅ UK team hired and trained

First deals closed in 4 months then in 8 we went to + £200K ARR with a system built generating consistent pipeline. 

This is the real world. 

No non-sense to the moon numbers for a product where ACV is 20K and sales cycle was traditionally 12 months,

The lesson:

Before you scale your sales effort in a new market, map where your buyers actually are.

Go there. Be visible. Build presence.

👉 And more importantly. Keep doing the right things every week!

Every week iterate-improve- build further!

👉 What market are you trying to enter? Where do YOUR buyers hang out?

Alper Yurder

Founder @ Forte | Cofounder-level GTM for B2B founders scaling from $1M to $10M ARR | Former SaaS Co-Founder | 20 startups, $200M pipeline + $60M Revenue (1 IPO, 1 Exit)

🚀 8 months ago, Forte was a one-man show.
Me, a laptop, and a hypothesis that B2B founders needed GTM systems not more tactics. 

1️⃣ 12 clients 
2️⃣ 5 fractional engagements 
3️⃣ 7 founders in coaching
4️⃣ And dozens of founders I touched in some shape and form 

later, we're ready to rock 2026!

🚀 New products launching next week
🙏 Working with B2B founders across UK, EU, and US. 
🙏 Connected to some of the best VCs and accelerators in the ecosystem. 

Building something I'm genuinely proud of.

Still figuring a lot out. But the foundation is real now.

Which means... we need more people.

Alin, Fatih, Boris based out of London, Sofia, Istanbul and I - all over the place! are looking for our new colleagues to join us!

We're hiring for two roles:

Content Specialist - LinkedIn content, lead magnets, blogs, visuals, video. Master AI tools like Claude, Gemini, Napkin. Work directly with me and founder clients.

AI-Led SDR / GTM Engineer - Build prospecting workflows with Clay, Apollo, Sales Nav. Engineer outbound systems that actually work. Learn the AI sales stack before everyone else.

Both roles: Remote, part-time with potential to grow into full-time if you like.

You won't be watching from the sidelines. You'll be building this with me.

👉 DM me or email alper@fortegrowth.co

p.s. Grateful to every founder who trusted me early. You know who you are.

Cofounder-level GTM for B2B startups scaling from <​$1M to $10M+ | Former SaaS Co-Founder & CRO | 20 startups, $60M closed, 1 IPO, 1 Exit | First SQLs in 60 days, bespoke system that scales by month 4

Join us at Forte 

💡 There's an emerging pattern in VC right now.

I was at the HubSpot for Startups' GTM event last month with investors from early stage VCs 

Same priority from all of them:

Great product people. Strong technical founders. AI and deeptech expertise.

Sitar from Connect put it bluntly: "We're obsessed with product founders. Technical is ideal, but product is a must."

Luke added: "At Series A, at least one founder needs to deeply understand the customer. That's what creates defensibility."

Will made another point: "For GTM, it's much better if that experience comes from the sector. If you've sold to defense or chips before, you get it."

Their logic: GTM can be fixed. Product can't.

And they're not wrong.

Then Gamma's founder got on stage.

He shared the moment they had to choose: invest in marketing or double down on product.

They chose product.

His logic: "If people aren't talking about your product organically, marketing won't fix that."

It worked. Gamma is everywhere now.

So yes. Product comes first.

But here's where it gets tricky.

GTM can be fixed. But not with just any hire.

I've seen this play out too many times.

Technical founder builds something great.
Raises money.
Hires a "Head of Sales" or "Marketing Lead."
Expects them to figure it out.

6 months later: nothing.

Not because the hire was bad.
Because GTM at early stage needs co-founder level ownership.

Someone who's in the trenches.
Someone who can make decisions without asking permission.
Someone who treats GTM like product. Test. Iterate. Improve.

A hire runs a playbook.
A co-founder builds the playbook.

That's the gap most technical founders don't see until it's too late.

Product first. Always.

But when it's time to go to market, don't just hire for GTM.

Find someone who owns it like a founder.

Brilliant sessions from Sitar Teli, Luke Smith, Will Wells, Uthish Ranjan among others.

Thanks to Anna Gordon and HubSpot for Startups for bringing this together. One of the best GTM events I've been to in London.

🤖 I've been running GTM workshops for VCs and accelerator portfolios for a year now. 👉 And I realize: While we are obsessed with AI tools, the "human" sales leaders I talk to are struggling with:

- How do I get my team to turn relations into business?

- How do I get them to follow up consistently?

- How do I build a sales process that actually works for my team, AI or not?

Last week I ran a workshop with the Tenity team on exactly this.

Tenity connects corporates with startups across Europe and MENA.

I work with their startups on B2B sales, growth and GTM.

👉 But like most teams, they wanted a framework to do it with more intention. A refresh of what sales means, why it's not a dirty word, how to do it better.

A nice change for me, from mentoring startups to mentoring the mentors :)

We covered sales essentials in 2 hours with 40 slides. Bit much, I accept!

Here's what we covered:

✅ The 30-second pitch: Problem. Solution. Proof. Ask. No jargon. Practice until it's natural.

✅ Matching your message to awareness: Most people give an Unaware prospect a Product Aware pitch. Then wonder why it doesn't land.

✅ Each channel has ONE job: LinkedIn posts build trust. Comments build reach. DMs book meetings. Email creates awareness at scale. Stop using every channel for "lead gen."

✅ The daily habit that compounds 5 new connections. 5 meaningful comments. 1 real conversation. That's 15 minutes. Do it for 30 days. Watch what happens.

✅ Consistency beats intensity: If your TAM is 1000 buyers. Don't run spam campaigns. Know your buyer exactly and show up every day!
 None of this requires fancy AI workflows.

👉 Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of AI. We use 5-10 AI tools weekly for all our workfows at Forte

🤖 We build AI workflows for our clients to do GTM better and faster.

But first thing first, sales requires clarity on fundamentals and the discipline to execute.

👉 If you want the workshop slides, drop a comment or DM me. Happy to share.

👉 If you're a VC or an accelerator and would like me to run a workshop for your portfolio, send a DM

As usual great pleasure being in the company of you Tenity and thanks for inviting me to run this workshop for your team Eda Kaan Paolo Elif Ilayda Sabina Hilal Aysude

❌ Your outbound isn't broken. Your inbound is.
👉 And until you fix it, every cold email is fighting uphill.

Here's what I see constantly:

Founder at £1-2M ARR. Pipeline is inconsistent. Solution: "Let's scale outbound."

Hire SDRs. Buy tools. Send emails.

Response rate: 1-2%.

Then they blame the SDRs. Or the messaging. Or the tools.

But here's the truth: It's not your SDR or your messaging that doesn't work.

It's that nobody knows who you are.

You send messages, nobody knows you. It's cringe.

When you have inbound working:

Your name shows up in their feed before your email hits their inbox

They've already seen you solve problems like theirs

The cold email isn't cold anymore

When you send a DM, it actually works

The math:

Cold outbound to strangers = 1-2% response rate

Warm outbound to people who've engaged with your content = 15-30%

Same effort. 10x the result.

This is how you do it: Build your inbound. Build your presence. Then when you send that DM, it lands.

I did the same at series-A proptech Witco: 200+ enterprise conversations. Not spray-and-pray. Content that warmed the market first.

Inbound is the best outbound. 

Same system.

LinkedIn is cringe. 
Founder brand is cringe. Posting is cringe!
Until it's not 👉 Until your buyers discover you and book meetings.

And you build a $1M pipeline from it.

My friends tell me this all the time.

I used to think the same thing.

Then we built businesses on it.

At Flowla: £1M ARR pipeline. Zero paid ads. Just LinkedIn.

At Witco: We were paying a PR agency £5K/month. I started writing myself with one content person. Built £2M in pipeline in 180 days.

Here's what nobody wants to admit: It works.

Not the performative nonsense. The actual system.

20 likes? 5 comments?

Sure. If they're your buyers!

LinkedIn is a trust-building machine. Every post is a conversation with hundreds of potential buyers. Every comment is a relationship starting. Every piece of value compounds.

But most founders get it backwards.

They post company updates nobody asked for. 

They share "we're hiring!" announcements. 

They treat it like a press release channel.

Then after 2 weeks of crickets, they decide LinkedIn is cringe.

That's not LinkedIn failing. That's running tactics without a system.

Simple formula to build a pipeline on linkedin:

✅ Record your sales calls and what your buyers ask you
✅ Write your thoughts into posts -> which then become your blog -> your SEO -> engine for your paid ads!
✅ Turn it into thought leadership and content you share from this channel and others 
✅ Pick 3-5 topics you can speak to from real experience 
✅ Treat every comment like a warm intro

The best outbound is inbound. And LinkedIn is where unknown B2B companies become known.

❌ You don't need 1000 leads.
✅ You need a system that finds, converts, and multiplies the 5 buyers you have.

👉 Launching from zero?
👉 Entering a new market?
👉 Expanding to a new country?

Same system.

STEP 1: Message-Market Fit

Talk to 30 people. Don't pitch.

"I'm building something for [ICP]. Trying to understand [problem]."

Listen. Take notes. Use their words.

The goal isn't leads.

It's learning how they describe the problem.

That language becomes your website. Your outreach. Your pitch.

STEP 2: Demand Generation

Now you know the words. Use them.

Post content that speaks their language.
Comment where your ICP hangs out.
Send outreach that sounds like them, not you.

You're not generating "awareness."

You're generating trust.

STEP 3: Sales-Market Fit

Some will say "let me know when it's ready."

Others will say "can I see it now?"

Focus on the second group.

Close 5 paying customers.

Not pilots. Not free trials. Paying.

Money is the only real validation.

STEP 4: Build the Playbook

Document what worked.

Which message converted?
Which channel performed?
Which objection kept coming up?

Your first 5 deals are your playbook.

Now you can multiply.

THE SYSTEM:

Message-Market Fit → Demand Gen → Sales-Market Fit → Playbook.

That's how you go from 0 to 5.

And from 5 to 50.

This is what we build with founders in 12 weeks.

Check out the slides for the first phase, and drop a comment if you find this content useful

First buyers in a new market

🔗 I ran a GTM webinar with Ekky and Rob from Scribe. Link in comments

50+ early-stage founders joined. One question came up 3 times:

👉 "I sent this to 200 people and only 2 replied." "Noone replied" "What's a good reply rate?" and so on.

While we do have industry standards for reply rates. that's not the main issue.

So I ask: do you know why?

Is it the product? Is it your messaging? Your positioning? Your targeting?

The answer is almost always the same: "Not sure."

Here's the thing:

"Nobody likes my product" is almost never true.

So there's a GTM issue somewhere. You just can't put your finger on it.

3 things I shared:

1. GTM is more than sending 1000 emails hoping for 1 meeting
👉 Outbound only works with inbound 
👉 Trust is the basis of sales 
👉 Authority & credibility are the bases of product marketing 
👉 Treat your GTM like your product. Test. Iterate. Improve.

2. There's a buyer for every product
The problem is rarely your product. It's usually messaging, positioning, or targeting.

3. Product-market fit isn't a moment. It's a moving target.

It evolves. It sharpens. It gets clearer over time.

GTM is the same. You iterate on it just like product & tech.

Treat go-to-market like a product problem, not just a sales problem.

Drop a 1, 2, or 3. Which one are you struggling with?

Full recording in comments.

💰 There's $500K+ pipeline hidden in your LinkedIn.

No ads. No massive following. No cold DMs to strangers.

Here's the system we've built for 5 startups in the last 6 months.

Every one of them generated new pipeline within 90 days.

Quick tactics, and a strategy that compounds over time.

STEP 1: Fix Your Profile (It's a Landing Page)

👉 Headline: Who you help + how (not your title) 
👉 Banner: Branded visual, crisp messaging 
👉 About: Speak to your ICP's pain 
👉 Featured: Pin 1-2 key posts or wins 
👉 CTA: "DM me X if you want Y"

STEP 2: Comment First, Post Second

👉 Identify 5-10 creators your ICP follows 
👉 Comment daily with real takes 
👉 Your comments = borrowed reach 
👉 Warm up the algorithm before you post

STEP 3: Connect Like a Human
👉 View their profile
👉 Like + comment on something real 
👉 Send connection with context 
👉 Follow up with value, not a pitch

STEP 4: The Conversion Loop
👉 Post high-trust content (POV, proof, playbooks) 
👉 Comment under ICP posts 
👉 DM warm engagers 
👉 Offer value. Book call. Close deal.

The best outbound is disguised as inbound.

I put the full playbook in a Notion doc. Profile templates. DM scripts. Content calendar. The whole system.

Comment "pipeline" and I'll send it over.

What's the one thing stopping you from doing this daily?

👉 Entering a new market? Trying to find new buyers?
❌ Don't scale. Test. 

Most leaders I work with want to skip this step. They go straight to: 
👉 Hiring SDRs 
👉 Running paid ads 
👉 Building SEO content 
👉 Signing BD partnerships

6 months later: "It's not working."

Here's what they missed:

LinkedIn isn't just a posting platform. It's a GTM testing lab.

5 things to validate before scaling anywhere else:

1) Message-market fit → before cold email
2) Content themes → before SEO or YouTube
3) Outbound hooks → before SDR scripts
4) Partnership signals → before formal BD
5) Distribution allies → before paid amplification

Why LinkedIn?

24-hour feedback. Real buyers. Free.

Test here. Scale everywhere.

I made a carousel breaking down each one. ↓ Save it. Share it.

linkedin testin to enter a new market

👉 A founder asked me last week:
"How many LinkedIn messages should I send? 10 a week? 100?"

My answer: "What's working right now?"

"I don't know."

That's the problem.

Most founders doing outbound have no idea what "good" looks like.
👉 What's a normal reply rate? 
👉 How long before you change the message? 
👉 When do you scale vs. iterate? 
👉 How many touches before giving up?

They're not missing tactics. They're missing benchmarks.

Here's what I tell founders:
Send 50 messages with one approach. Track replies. Track objections. If reply rate is under 5%, change the message. If objections repeat, your positioning is off.

That's it.

The metric isn't "more messages." The metric is "signal per message."

Quick reference:
👉 Under 5% reply rate = change your message 
👉 Same objection 10x = change your positioning 
👉 No responses after 100 = wrong ICP or wrong channel 
👉 Good responses but no meetings = weak CTA

Stop asking "how much?"

Start asking "what's the data telling me?"

—

P.S. If you've sent 200 messages and can't tell me what the patterns are, you don't have an outbound problem. You have a tracking problem.

🚀 Let's make 2026 the year you stop wasting 18 months on GTM. Build a revenue engine in weeks, not years!

Hi, it's Alper. Happy New Year. Let's make 2026 the year you move from tactical wins to a GTM system that scales without you burning time, cash and yo

Open article: GTM Journal- January 2026 by Alper Yurder • 5 min read

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