Michel Lieben 🧠

Founder / CEO @ ColdIQ | Scale Outbound with AI & Tech 👉 coldiq.com

I’m (Michel) the Founder & CEO at ColdIQ, a sales prospecting agency (+ we compare the latest sales tech, too!).

We worked with 100+ B2B organizations (including SaaS & Agencies!) and are using Clay, Prospeo, FullEnrich, Instantly, Lemlist, Ocean.io - alongside other great sales tools - to run outbound campaigns that flood 🌊 our (and our clients’) inboxes with interested prospects.


We can help you:

• If you’re a B2B business leader who doesn’t have the time to handle your prospecting engine or to hire and manage salespeople… You can outsource your lead gen to us, and we’ll transparently show you the exact way we run your campaigns. (We’ll provide SOPs, too… if it works so well that you want to build your in-house team).


• If you’re a sales leader or an outbound agency owner: We’ll help you set up the exact systems & tools we use to run automated ‘trigger-based’ campaigns that convert like crazy. 


• And… if you simply want to improve your B2B sales automation skills or learn to run these campaigns yourself, we’ll teach you by building a campaign from scratch together with you —from ‘idea’ to ‘running campaign’ (we’ve done it more than 50 times already, and the rumour says people ❤️ed it).


We've launched hundreds of campaigns, so you don't have to.


Thus - if you: 
- are a B2B service/solution provider making > $50k/month
- provide solutions with Lifetime Value > $10k
- want to shortcut your outbound success


We can help.

Send a DM, and I'll share more details.

Alternatively, reach out to michel[at]coldiq.com 
or via the website 👉 coldiq.com 


__________



And if you're looking to build your top-of-funnel tool stack... 
Check our curated lists of the best outbound tools here 👇

👉 coldiq.com/tools 👈
👉 coldiq.com/ai-sales-tools 👈

Performance-based B2B lead generation 💥 | coldiq.com
→ We help you scale your prospecting activities by implementing outbound sales systems in your business. We take care of sourcing leads, researching your ICP, crafting the sales messages, automating sending and ensuring the high deliverability of messages. We let you focus on what brings money into the business: closing deals.

The anatomy of a ~$7M ARR acquisition funnel:

+ $534,000 ARR added so far in January

Step-by-step breakdown ↓

1️⃣ Lead Generation

We get 40,000+ monthly visits on ColdIQ's website.

Our best traffic sources are: 

A. SEO (~12,000 visits)

More specifically:

- Standard articles = typical SEO-optimised articles (this still works, while everybody mostly focuses on AEO)
- Meta Pages = we build some exhaustive resources (e.g: Tools Directories) that rank well on Google.
- Programmatic SEO = we use AirOps to deploy templated pages at scale.

Useful tech: AirOps, Ahrefs, Webflow


B. LinkedIn Posts (~10,000 visits)

As a team (250,000+ combined followers): 

20+ separate post a combined 150+ times per month around prospecting, AI & GTM.

Useful tech: Taplio, Scripe


C. Paid Ads (~4,000 visits)

We run ads across LinkedIn, Meta & Google.

We budget around $10,000/mo to experiment across these channels.

Useful tech: Fibbler, Usermaven


D. Cold Outreach (~3,000 visits)

We constantly run prospecting campaigns based on various plays:

- Value-based lead magnet campaigns
- Success stories lookalike
- Inbound-led outbound
- Social re-engagement

The goal isn't to generate traffic, but at scale, it does come back to our site.

Useful tech: Clay, lemlist, Instantly.ai, Apify, Common Room, PredictLeads, Prospeo.io, Wiza, FullEnrich.


E. Others (~11,000 visits)

Rest is a mix of YouTube, Webinars, Referral, Newsletter & non-attributable Direct traffic (which probably comes from the above channels as well).

Useful tech: vidIQ (YouTube), StreamYard (Webinars), beehiiv (Newsletter).


2️⃣ Lead Capture 

To convert this traffic into meetings, we have:

- one-field signup forms that automatically route & enrich prospects to the right person, via Default.

- email marketing sequences, built inside Customer.io, to push leads to meetings.

- de-anonymization technology, via Midbound | Vector 👻 | Instantly.ai | RB2B, to re-engage qualified visitors.

- free GTM mini-tools, built via Cursor & Claude, to capture email addresses.

- a lead magnet e-book that pops up after 1 min of browsing the site.


3️⃣ Lead Conversion

Most of our deals are sales-led.

They close via Google Meet conversations.

Usually, in 2-3 calls, given the package size ($5,000-10,000/mo).

Attention records our calls.
Leads are stored inside Attio.
We send proposals via Qwilr.

... and we process monthly payments via Stripe.

Ran out of space, so couldn't go as deep as I wanted.
Lmk if you need clarification on any of the below steps 👇

P.S: Any channel that's crushing it for you... 
that we should implement inside our funnel? 👀

Founder & CEO at ColdIQ | Tomorrow’s GTM Systems, Built for you 👉 coldiq.com

Valley’s GTM machine books more meetings than 10 SDRs with just 1 person.

Zayd, their CEO, is convinced every GTM can replicate it 👇

1. Content Machine

- Zayd does bi-weekly content interviews on Riverside & turns these into shorts.
- They record all his calls using Fathom.ai / Fireflies.ai and mine them for content.
- He posts 5x per week on LinkedIn & leverages tools such as Taplio & Bluecast for inspiration.
- Their LinkedIn company page mainly comprises social proof posts (e.g, live reactions of new users discovering their product).

He takes screenshots with Shottr and turns them into good-looking graphics.

His personal account focuses on a few content pillars, namely: his founder journey & GTM industry insights.


2. Signal-Based Outbound

Every week he extracts:

- His profile viewers.
- His company page followers. 
- His post engagers (personal & company).
- His website visitors (via Valley, RB2B, & Vector 👻).

Valley autonomously qualifies & tiers each prospect (high vs. medium vs. low fit), removes competitors and enriches contacts.


3. Personalized Messaging

For every high-fit lead, Valley:

- Conducts additional research
- Writes relevant messages.
- Delivers > 30% replies.

This amounts to 40+ positive replies every day in their LinkedIn inbox.


4. Lead Orchestration

When leads reply positively, but end up ghosting, they’re pushed to Slack, with their contact details, via a Zapier automation.

Then, Alex Nelson, Valley's Founding AE, calls to check if there’s still interest.


5. Deal Closing

- They send one-pager proposals via paage.io, which tracks what part of the proposal prospects spend most of their attention on.
- Payments are automatically processed through Stripe.

This entire setup books them > 150 qualified meetings per month.

....and can be reproduced by most B2B growth leaders!

P.S: What would you advise Zayd and his team to get above 200 monthly qualified meetings?

How to write top 1% cold emails:

(Frameworks we use for our $6.5M+ ARR agency customers)

1. AIDA Framework by Monika Grycz 💌 

2. AI Campaign Ideas by Dujam Dunato 

(inspired from Eric Nowoslawski)

3. Right person for Opportunity by Kenny Damian

4. Similar challenges by Patrick Trümpi

5. Observation | Call-Out | Proof by Nick Abraham

6. Trigger | Implication | Pain by Aaron Reeves

7. Trigger | Process | Symptoms by Tal Baker-Phillips

8. Champion Play by Brian LaManna

9. Rhetorical Question by Leif Bisping

10. Content Assets by Ethan Parker

11. "Quick calculations” by Thibaut Souyris

What's your favourite cold email template?

Share it with us 👇

P.S: We compiled the copywriting frameworks we used to book 14,000+ B2B meetings for > 250 orgs in a (pretty) big Notion document.

Do you want it? Let me know below and it’s yours :)

Write Top 1% Cold Emails

AirOps scaled from $2M to $15M ARR in 11 months.

Here's every tool that made it happen:

Their Head of Growth, Eoin Clancy and their Co-Founder Matt Hammel were generous enough to reveal their complete GTM tech stack ↓

1️⃣ ADS & CONTENT

AirOps's mission is to help brands boost their presence on AI Search / LLMs.

Naturally, the primary lever to accomplishing that is content. 
And their stack features:

- Descript, a transcript-based video editing solution, to fuel their webinar and content processes.

- Circle, a community/cohort platform that they leverage to run their 'content engineer' group.

- Figma for design, which now offers robust AI capabilities that make visual creation quicker.

- AirOps, their own platform, to monitor their brand presence in AI search and automate content creation workflows + identify which content gaps to fill to earn citations in LLMs.

For LinkedIn, they use Fibbler to identify which companies engage with their thought leadership.


2️⃣ OUTBOUND

Their outbound tech stack is streamlined but features some of the top prospecting tools in the market:

- lemlist to coordinate multichannel outbound campaigns across email & LinkedIn with personalisation.

- Clay for mapping target accounts, enriching data via multiple providers, and triggering sophisticated outbound workflows.

- Common Room to consolidate buying signals across channels, score contacts/accounts, and drive intent-based activation.

- Trigify.io to monitor ICP relevant social signals and trends across key networks.

- Smartlead to scale bulk email outreach while delivering high volumes of email in the primary inbox.

- Attention to capture sales calls, & power internal workflows, enabling them to extract insights from their satisfied customers.


3️⃣ PRODUCT

They use a few software programs for production data, which feature:

- Hex, an AI-enabled analytics workspace for exploring production data, dashboard & launches.

- Amplitude, a deep product analytics tool, to monitor new users' onboarding journey and for product insights.

- Metabase, a self-serve business intelligence solution for dashboarding and reporting.


4️⃣ WEBSITE & ANALYTICS

Their website is hosted on Webflow, which offers a CMS & site builder that integrates seamlessly with AirOps and their broader content stack.

For tracking & attribution, they use HockeyStack.


5️⃣ HIRING / COMMS

Finally, for team hiring & communication, they rely on:

- Juicebox, an AI recruiting platform for leadership-led sourcing & candidate engagement.

- Loom for async video communication, project walkthrough, and to maintain teams aligned.

That's most of it.

I was actually surprised to see how efficient their stack is.

Just over ~10 GTM tools to scale beyond 8-figure ARR in just a year.

That's remarkably lean if you ask me.


P.S: Anything you'd add to accelerate their growth even further in 2026?

Most companies bet their LinkedIn strategy on the Founder.

We turned 24 employees into LinkedIn influencers:

Which led to: 

- 581 posts
- 43 473 reactions
- 28 130 comments
- +34 023 new followers

But most importantly:

- +27 new clients
- +$153,000 in MRR

… in less than 90 days.

And prospects kept telling our sales team: “We see you guys everywhere”.

Here’s how we made this happen 👇


1️⃣ We ran an internal LinkedIn challenge for Q4

Your team might want to post on LinkedIn. But if their job responsibilities don’t include “LinkedIn”… good luck.

We ran a competition & came up with a scoring system with the following prizes:

🥇 $5,000
🥈 $2,500
🥉 $1,500

… and $500 for every person publishing > 20 times over the quarter.


2️⃣ We made it as effortless as possible to post

Successful LinkedIn posts have a “recipe”.

It’s typically a combination of:
→ Well-structured, breathable writing
→ A proven angle or trendy topic
→ A strong hook
→ Nice visuals

But: 

Brainstorming hooks can be hit-or-miss.
→ I encourage my team to reuse variations of mines that outperformed.

Identifying proven topics isn’t easy.
→ We put Taplio & Scripe at their disposal to help the team find outliers.

Designing nice visuals takes time.
→ We put designers at their disposal, so they can focus on the ‘writing’ vs. needing to work on the ‘packaging’.


3️⃣ We invested resources in training the team

Making this work required 1:1 sessions in which we:

- Rewrote entire posts & hooks.
- Brainstormed post ideas
- Built a content calendar

As well as group sessions in which we:

- Ran team-wide sessions sharing best practices.
- Brought LinkedIn experts (Lara Acosta & Pierre Herubel) to share their knowledge with our team.


4️⃣ We found people who wanted to grow their brand

We’d ask applicants whether they wanted to grow their brands.
But also, many new joiners heard from us via LinkedIn.

If WE attracted them, they were more likely interested to grow.

Kenny learned about ColdIQ from a post by Monika.

He was already posting on his second day.

He started below 1,000 followers in 2025.
He’s about to reach 10,000.


5️⃣ We led by example, & every success made the others easier

We granted $500 prizes to team members who published 20+ times.
But, I published > 60 times in the same timeframe.

If you’re going to ask your team to post,  do it yourself as well.

Being at 60,000+ followers makes me more believable when I’m telling my team that I’m convinced they can reach 10,000.

But we also have 9 team members above 6,000 followers:

- Mich: 63,000+
- Alex: 57,000+
- Melissa: 43,000+
- Ivan: 19,000+
- Yevhen: 16,000+
- Soheil: 12,000+
- Monika: 10,000+
- Kenny: 9,000+
- Mai-Lan: 6,000+

Every successful internal LinkedIn growth story builds conviction for the rest of the team.

… and I’m pretty sure we’ll see many similar ‘team posting‘ stories in 2026.

If you want to be among these success stories…

Our team can help, just reach out :)

I tried 200+ AI GTM tools in 2025.

Here are the categories I'm bullish on for 2026:

1/ Workflow Builders

Why?
↳ They orchestrate advanced workflows for marketing & sales teams.

Example use-case: Running a personalised outbound campaign via Clay, on autopilot.

Software you can use:

→ Clay
→ AirOps
→ Default
→ Relevance AI


2/ AI Video Tools

Why? 
↳ They repurpose & edit videos autonomously. Some even generate videos from scratch. They can be used for short-form clipping, ads or even creating short movies.

Example use-case: Generating 150+ UGC assets in < 120 seconds to A/B test as Meta Ads.

Platforms you can use:

Video Generation:
→ Pika
→ Runway
→ Synthesia
→ Google Veo
→ OpenAI Sora

Ad Generation:
→ Icon
→ arcads AI

AI Editing:
→ Descript
→ OpusClip


3/ AI Coding Tools

Why? 
↳ They enable you to write code in plain English. They can be leveraged to build complex workflows (or better… build mini-tools for lead generation).

Example use-case: Build a phone number finder to collect email addresses.

My personal favourites include:
→ Cursor
→ Claude Code

Other platforms include:
→ Warp
→ Cline
→ Replit
→ Lovable
→ Windsurf


4/ AI Content Ideation Software

Why?
↳ They help you find viral ideas to inspire high-performing content.

Example use-case: Using vidIQ to find outlier YouTube videos & repurpose the idea as a LinkedIn content piece

Platforms include:

For LinkedIn..
→ Taplio
→ Scripe
→ Kleo

On YouTube...
→ 1of10
→ vidIQ
→ Viewstats
→ Spotter Studio

On Instagram...
→ Sortfeed


5/ MCPs

Why?
↳ They let your AI agents take actions across your software stack. You can use them to perform tasks inside your most-used tools, without having to open them.

Example use-case: Prompting Claude to review your sales calls of the day, research the leads, and cancel for the unqualified ones... without even opening your calendar app.

Platforms include:

For prompting actions...
→ Cursor
→ Claude

To connect apps without native MCP integrations...
→ Zapier
→ Composio
→ Pipedream
→ Docker, Inc


6/ AI Sourcing Agents

Why?
↳ They source precise lead lists in natural language or simply given a few prompting instructions.

Example use-case: Building a list of Marketing Directors who work at AI-native SaaS orgs in New York... by simply prompting the tools in plain English.

Platforms include:
→ Exa
→ Clay
→ Apify
→ Tavily
→ Relevance AI

I ran out of space, but there's more in the carousel 👇

P.S: What GTM trend are you betting on in 2026?

AI GTM Categories

OK- this is going to sound ridiculous.

But, I’ve made well over $2M from posting infographics on LinkedIn.

… and Ada Beltrán created most of these for me.

So here’s the thing:

My LinkedIn journey started with ‘text-only’ publications.
(Like everyone, I guess).

But early on, I started adding some visuals that I’d make myself.

I’d spend 3 hours creating a 7-page carousel.
For it to not even look pretty.

But crazy enough, this ugly visual was getting me 2-3x the likes & the impressions.

So I figured: “if I can write the exact same thing, but get 3x the engagement by just adding an image… why not do it every single time, right?!”

And so this was the beginning of a journey that led me, & then my team, to flood LinkedIn with infographics of all sorts.

20M+ impressions later, it looks like these visuals are still going strong.

My best explanation for why this performs so well is that ‘text-only’ posts take up very little space in the feed.

What this means is that you only have the first 2 lines of your ‘hook’ to entice people into clicking the “see more” button.

But when you publish a 1050 x 1380 image, it takes up the entire space on the feed. People can’t not see the image, and you can actually use it as a second hook by writing a big title on the image. And if it’s detailed enough, it can stand on its own as a post…

But then, everybody started publishing infographics as well.

So I did something even more ridiculous, which was:

Posting ANIMATED infographics.

So here’s the thing:

An animated infographic serves the same purpose as a static one does.

But it holds attention even more, especially if you speed it up, as it loops on itself, making it look like people are watching it over & over (in LinkedIn's eyes, I guess).

So if you want to tap into extra impressions without much more effort, have a look at the infographic below, breaking down how to create animated infographics (#infographiception).

Then, take your best-performing text post ever.
Add a nice visual to it that ‘respects’ the rules laid out below.

And I’ll bet you’ll be thanking me for how well the post performs ✌️

What GTM tools power CEOs at $10M+ ARR?

Their stack costs less than you think 👇

I asked all the 7-figure CXOs & GTM operators I know about the tools they used.

Here’s what they answered:

TOOLS MOST OFTEN MENTIONED:

- Clay (included in 71% of the stacks)
- n8n (48%)
- HubSpot (39%)
- Instantly.ai (35%)
- HeyReach.io (35%)
- Apollo (35%)
- LinkedIn (32%)
- Attio (32%)
- Prospeo.io (29%)
- Lovable (29%)
- lemlist (29%)
- Ahrefs (26%)
- Loom (23%)
- Fathom (23%)
- Calendly (23%)
- FullEnrich (19%)
- Trigify (19%)
- Google Analytics (19%)
- Airtable (19%)
- Zapier (19%)


PEOPLE STACKS FEATURED:

- Charles Tenot (CEO at lemlist | $40M+ ARR)
- Eoin Clancy (Head of Growth at AirOps | $15M+ ARR)
- Jonathan M (VP of GTM Momentum | $13M+ ARR)
- Glenn Miseroy (CEO at Expandi | ~$9M ARR)
- Benjamin Douablin (CEO at FullEnrich | ~$7M ARR)
- Jaspar Carmichael-Jack (CEO Artisan | ~$7M ARR)
- Michel Lieben (CEO ColdIQ | ~$7M ARR)
- Frank Sondors (CEO at Salesforge | $5M+ ARR)
- Hugo Fredon (Co-Founder at Prospeo.io | $5M+ ARR)
- Kai Brandt (CEO Genesy | $3M+ ARR)
- Jules Davies (CEO Scalerrs | $2M+ ARR)
- Eva Johanna Egg (CEO Scripe | ~$1M ARR)
- Nick Masters (Co-Founder at Vector)
- Pierre Herubel (Co-Founder at ContentPath)
- Nikola Sokolov (CEO at Influencer.club)
- Roq Xever (Founder at PredictLeads)
- Kathryn Wu🤝 (Co-Founder @OpenMart)
- Eli F. (CEO @Midbound)
- Jérémy Grandillon (CEO at TC9)
- Noam Nisand (Founder at Leed Services)
- Ada Beltrán (Founder at Dara Studio)


More stacks: coldiq.com/tech-stacks ✌️

Any results surprise you? 

*Note: The total sample is 62 people. As a GTM Agency Founder, I know plenty of others in the exact same line of business, which strongly biases results. This isn’t intended to be a large-scale statistical study, but more so an indication/discovery of what’s out there.

P.S: Want us to add you on here? 
Send a DM with your tech stack :)

Tech Stacks of the Top 1% GTM Operators

The best B2B data is the one your competition can’t find

...and you can source it for less than $29/mo ↓

With just an Apify subscription & a bit of creativity:

Whether you want to target…

→ Prospects complaining about your competitors (by monitoring Reddit, Inc.).

→ Companies outgrowing their current tools (by monitoring G2 reviews).

→ Companies launching new products (by monitoring ProductHunt).

→ Technical buyers (via GitHub)

→ Agencies (via Clutch)

... there's an easy-to-setup workflow for it 👇

P.S: What's your favourite data sourcing use-case?

7 data sourcing use-cases

Introducing ColdIQ's GTM Free Tools:

Try every growth use-case, for Free 👇

There are 1000s of GTM software solutions across 10s of thousands of use cases.

Trying these out usually entails:
- Signing up for a bunch of random solutions
- Trying them out (with a free trial if you're lucky)
- Singling out the right solution for your use-case
- Repeating the process over & over.

So we wanted to solve that.

By building a centralised place that doesn't require credits or signing up, and that lets you experience tech for:

- Enriching leads
- Sourcing signals
- Finding phone numbers
- Finding email addresses
- Uncovering org. tech stacks

... & more.

You can already test out the following solutions to test out against our GTM use-cases:

1. A Free Email Finder
2. A Free Email Verifier
3. A Free Phone Finder 
4. A Free Spam Checker
5. A Free Lookalike Finder
6. A Free GTM Strategizer
7. A Free Tech Stack Finder
8. A Free Email Copy Optimizer
9. A Free Intent Signals Sourcer
10. A Free Campaign Ideation Tool
11. A Free LinkedIn Post Previewer
12. A Free Outbound ROI Calculator
13. A Free People or Job Title Finder

Along with step-by-step guides on how to properly leverage this tech.

It's here: coldiq.com/free-tools ✌️

P.S: Which Free Tool would be helpful to you? 
Let us know, and we'll get on it :)

Scale revenue with AI & tech

I decided to skip the traditional corporate path & start building in the AI x Sales space at 27. 
Here's the journey so far:

Age 18-21: Business school in Brussels, realized I needed practical experience
Age 22: Coding bootcamp + lucky Bitcoin exit gave me 50K to fund a world trip
Age 23: 12-country world tour learning new skills every month in a new country.
Age 24-26: Growth hacker roles at German startups, learned systems but felt unfulfilled 
Age 27: Co-founded ColdIQ with Mich
Age 28: Hit our first major milestones learning everything the hard way 
Age 29: Scaled to $6M ARR and became Clay's #1 global partner. Running a business that does $477K/month with 30+ team members across 4 continents.

It's been wild. Today through ColdIQ, we help B2B companies build AI-powered sales systems that work. 

We've run outbound for 300+ organizations and generated millions in pipeline.

The best part? We built this entirely remote with people I genuinely enjoy working with. 

Turns out you can have rapid growth AND life quality - you just need the right systems.

If you want to build your own AI sales agency, I teach everything in our ColdIQ Agency Accelerator, the exact playbook we used to hit $6M ARR in 2 years. 

From Clay workflows to hiring A-players to scaling without burning out.

If you're already doing $1M+ ARR and want help scaling your existing business, let's talk about our done-for-you services.

https://coldiq.com/

If you're not there yet, I share everything for free on LinkedIn and in our 7-day email course (in the featured section).

The AI x Sales opportunity is the biggest wealth creation event of our generation. The market is so massive that there's room for everyone to win.

Ready to start your agency? Join 130+ founders in our accelerator.

https://coldiq.com/accelerator-program

Alex Vacca 🧠🛠️

R.I.P. LinkedIn "experts".

↳ For 2026, I built this step-by-step guide + agents so you can get clients on LinkedIn.

Most LinkedIn "experts" only do two things:

Post generic motivational content.
Send cold DMs that smell like a pitch from the first second.

We decided to do something different.

We created a real system that combines AI + strategic positioning + intentional content:

- Generates consistent visibility without chasing anyone.
- Converts strangers into prospects.
- Works without a team.

What we achieved in 30 days:

→ +14,338,471 organic impressions without spending on ads.
→ +500 inbound leads without sending a single message.
→ +110 calls booked.
→ All using a guide that's already optimized for what's coming in 2026.

What's inside the guide?

→ How to use AI with specific prompts to build authority without burning out.
→ How to structure your content so it sells.
→ How to make LinkedIn work for you 24/7.
→ The exact execution system we use (and how you can replicate it).

Want access to the full guide to dominate LinkedIn in 2026?

Comment "2026" and I'll send it to you.

Co-Founder @ ColdIQ ($6M ARR) | Helped 300+ companies scale revenue with AI & Tech | #1 AI Sales Agency

Instantly analyzed 1M+ cold emails.

Campaigns getting 20-30% replies had one thing in common that campaigns getting ghosted didn't:

Hyperenriched data + micro-targeted lists.

Here’s the framework used by the companies that book the most meetings:

1️⃣ STRONG OFFER

Your ICP isn't just titles and company size.

It's:

- The outcome they want
- The specific pain keeping them up at night
- The language they use to describe their problem

Get this wrong, and nothing else matters.

2️⃣ HYPERENRICHED DATA

Going beyond name + email is non-negotiable.

Job postings. Tech stack. Recent funding. Case studies. LinkedIn activity.

The more data points you collect, the more relevant your personalization becomes.

3️⃣ AI PERSONALIZED LINES

"Hope you're doing well" → delete

"Saw you're hiring 3 AEs after your Series B" → open

Make them think you actually researched them. Because you did.

4️⃣ MASTER THE FUNDAMENTALS

Stop chasing 100 different angles.

Get obsessive about three things:

- Who exactly you're targeting (ICP)
- What specific outcome you deliver (Offer)
- How you communicate value (Copy)

Depth > width.

5️⃣ SMALLER, SMARTER LISTS

500 hyper-targeted prospects > 100,000 spray and pray

Smaller lists = more specific copy = better deliverability = higher reply rates.

6️⃣ FOLLOW-UP PROTOCOL

Most replies don't come from Email #1.

4-touch sequence:

Email 1: Personalized opener
Email 2: Short bump (3-5 days)
Email 3: Different angle (3-5 days)
Email 4: Breakup email (3-5 days)

Keep them short. Reference the original. Add new value.

7️⃣ VALUE-DRIVEN EMAILS

Stop asking for their time immediately.

Start offering value first:

- "Happy to share what's working best right now"
- "Would it make sense to send over a quick example?"
- "Can I send you something that could help with [specific pain]?"

Build trust. Then earn the conversation.

8️⃣ LONG GAME MINDSET

Cold email isn't a magic pill.

It's a compounding client acquisition system.

Quality > rushing. Presence > pressure. Pipeline > quick wins.

9️⃣ DELIVERABILITY

None of this matters if you land in spam.

- Multiple domains
- Multiple inboxes
- 30-50 emails per inbox max
- Proper technical setup
- 30-day warm-up minimum

Master deliverability or waste everything else.

The top 1% don't use tricks.

They master fundamentals, use better data, personalize at scale, and obsess over deliverability.

What's the #1 mistake you see people make with cold email?

If your outbound isn't working, it's probably not your copy.

It's your data. Here is how to find the best one.

Most sales teams are sourcing leads from the exact same places.

LinkedIn. ZoomInfo. Apollo.

Your competitor builds a list Monday morning.
You build the same list Monday afternoon.

Now you're both chasing the same person who's already drowning in pitches.

This is why outbound feels broken.

It's not your messaging.
It's that you're fishing in the same pond as everyone else.

We stopped doing that.

Instead, we started hunting in places nobody's paying attention to:

→ Product Hunt launches where founders list their email publicly
→ G2 reviews where buyers complain about your competitor
→ Job boards where hiring signals reveal budget and growth
→ GitHub repos where technical buyers reveal themselves
→ Reddit threads where people ask for alternatives
…and 57 other data sources.

All accessible and ignored by 95% of sales teams.

We built a breakdown of every underused data source for outbound.
What you can scrape from each.
The sales signal it reveals.

Drop "LIST" in the comments and I'll send it over in full resolution.

We scaled to $6M ARR without funnels.

This is why 90% of funnels don’t work anymore 👇

This is how most companies run their GTM:
 
Awareness → Decision → Conversion → Start over.

The problem with that is that every time you close a deal (or lose one), you start all over again.

Plus, you have 3 teams running 3 separate motions

→ Every hand-off creates friction
→ You learn things after it's too late to fix them
→ Your tools live in silos and never connect
→ Each team is optimizing for something different

We replaced all of it with a flywheel.

One system where Content, Ads & Outbound work as one.

Here's how it works:

Motion 1: Value-led outbound

We don't send pitches. We send value.

Every cold email offers something worth consuming:

- A personalized video breakdown
- An industry-specific strategy doc
- A downloadable Notion template
- A teardown of their current approach

The goal is bring qualified traffic into our ecosystem.

Motion 2: Multi-channel retargeting

Every interaction gets captured and scored:

→ LinkedIn profile viewers identified via Sales Nav + PhantomBuster
→ Post engagers tracked through Trigify.io and Common Room
→ Website visitors enriched via RB2B (US) and Snitcher (EU)
→ All touchpoints routed through Clay for lead scoring

One click or a reply to our cold email triggers:

→ LinkedIn + Google retargeting for 30 days
→ Automated email nurture sequence
→ CRM tags them based on intent
→ Sales gets instant notification
→ We track every profile view and post engagement

Motion 3: Tier conversion system

Not everyone converts the same way. So we built multiple paths:

→ High-intent leads book appointments by chat (email, LI DMs)
→ MQLs go into automated nurture sequences
→ Warm accounts get ad retargeting plus personalized campaigns

We use outbound to fuel the flywheel.

Cold email isn't dead. It's just no longer the full strategy.

It's the trigger for the real GTM engine behind the scenes.

Here's why this compounds:

Outbound creates curiosity → drives traffic to the ColdIQ ecosystem
Content builds authority → warms future outbound responses
Ads retarget engaged accounts → move them through the buying cycle
Great delivery → Better case studies → Better prospects → Better clients → Higher prices.

Everything strengthens everything else.

When your GTM engine runs in sync, growth becomes inevitable.

P.S. If you run an agency/B2B business and want to engineer the system that connects all three channels and add $10K-$100K to your MRR, comment "GTM".

Most cold emails get <1% reply rates.

Ours get 10%.

If I had to teach someone cold email from scratch, here's what I'd tell them:

For getting replies, focus on:

1. Real triggers
2. Specific pain
3. Proof that's actually believable

Too many people here just blast templates. But that's not enough anymore.

You need triggers to be relevant.
You need pain that connects to their actual situation.

Two examples you can steal:

"Saw you're hiring 10 SDRs. Usually means ramp time is killing quota."

vs.

"I noticed you work in sales."

One gets replies. One gets deleted.

For the ask, I'd focus on:

1. Giving value before asking for time
2. Making the next step super easy

"Do you have 15 minutes?" doesn't work anymore.

"Mind if I send over the 3-step process we used?" does.

Here's my actual template:

"Hi [Name],

Saw you're [trigger].

Usually that means [pain].

We helped [Company] go from [before] to [after].

They saw [result] in [timeframe].

Mind if I share how?"

That's it.

Everyone overthinks this.

Perfect subject lines. AI personalization. Fancy tools.

But if you nail trigger + pain + value, nothing else matters.

One more thing that works better than anything:

Free work.

"Mind if I build you a custom lead list for your new SDR team?"

That gets replies every time. You're solving their problem before they ask.

It's simple, I know... but it works.

What's your go-to cold email approach? Drop it below 👇

Most lists get 1-2% reply rates.

Ours get 5-15%.

Same frameworks. Different lists.

If I had to teach someone list building from scratch, here's what I'd tell them:

For coverage, focus on:

1. Multiple data sources (one source = missing 40% of your market)
2. Cross-referencing to fill gaps
3. Never trusting a single data provider

Too many people here just pull a list from Apollo and start blasting.

That's not a strategy.

For enrichment, I'd focus on:

1. Validating every email before sending
2. Adding context that makes it relevant
3. Scoring leads so you know who to prioritize

The difference is the work you do before you send.

For precision, I'd focus on:

1. Tiering your list (not all leads are equal)
2. Matching message to segment
3. Spending more time on fewer, better leads

Everyone wants the perfect cold email template.

But if you're sending to the wrong people, no template saves you.

The list is the strategy. Everything else is execution.

We put together a free masterclass on this:

→ Full guide (8 phases)
→ 15+ video lessons
→ 2 AI agents that build lists for you

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

list building masterclass

Andrew Carnegie sold his company for $480 million and became the richest man in America.

Thanks to a decision his partners called "the worst mistake of his life."

In 1870, steel was about to change everything.

Hundreds of entrepreneurs saw the opportunity.

"We need the mines. The railroads. The production. The distribution."

Carnegie made a different choice.

"What if instead of doing 12 things poorly, I dominate ONE?"

He picked production.

Every dollar. Every engineer. One single metric: cost per ton.

1875: Steel cost $100 per ton.
1900: Carnegie was producing it at $12 per ton.

Nobody could compete.

1901: J.P. Morgan bought everything for $480 million.

The "worst mistake" made him the richest man in America.

I'm watching the same mistake happen in AI right now.

Every week someone DMs me:

"I'm starting an AI agency. We do lead gen, AI workflows, chatbots, automation, and consulting."

That's five businesses. Not one.

In 2026, thousands of people will launch AI service businesses.

Everyone will have access to the same tools. Claude. GPT. Make. n8n. Clay.

The tools won't be your edge.

Expertise will.

One niche. One problem. One service. Done better than anyone else.

At ColdIQ, we spent 3 years going deep on GTM.

Not AI broadly. Not "automation." GTM for B2B tech companies.

That focus is the reason we're at $6M ARR.

Carnegie didn't win by doing more.

He won by doing one thing better than anyone else in the world.

Same playbook works in 2026.

Pick your one thing. Go deeper than everyone else.

That's how you win when everyone has the same tools.

the 480 million mistake 

Cold outreach stops feeling cold when you catch people at the right time.

The difference between "not interested" and "let's talk" usually comes down to timing.

We've tested dozens of signals over the past year.

These 5 actually tell you when someone's ready to have a conversation:

1️⃣ They visited your website

Someone from a target company just looked at your pricing page.

They read a case study. Clicked around your features.

They're not sold yet. But they're curious.

→ That's your window. Hit them before they forget you exist.

2️⃣ They just got funding

Fresh capital means spending mode. New hires, new tools, new infrastructure.

That window only lasts about 90 days.

→ Reach out before their growth stack is finalized.

3️⃣ They're hiring for a specific role

A company adding 5 SDRs needs a better sales stack.

A company hiring engineers needs dev tools.

Growth creates gaps. Gaps create budgets.

→ Position yourself before they've already picked someone else.

4️⃣ They're engaging with certain LinkedIn profiles

They're liking posts from thought leaders in your space.

Leaving comments. Saving content about problems you fix.

That's not scrolling. That's someone doing research.

→ Reference the topic. Start with value. Skip the pitch.

5️⃣ They're consuming content about a specific topic

Same idea, but broader.

They're reading about challenges you solve.

Watching videos. Joining conversations.

They know they have a problem. They just haven't found the answer yet.

→ Show up where they're already looking.

Stack two or three of these together and you're reaching out to people already in motion.

lemlist's intent signals tracks all 5 automatically and pings you when it’s time to reach out.

No manual tracking. No spreadsheets. Just real time signals.

Which one would move the needle most for you?

5 intent signals telling you who is ready to buy

He went from $10K to $80K/month with just one extra hire.

No ads and no big sales team. 

Samuel is one of our students inside our Agency Accelerator.

He runs a recruiting agency in Germany serving IT and construction companies.

Before joining, his client acquisition was 100% cold calling.
Dialing gatekeepers. Hoping to reach the CEO. 

It worked, but it didn't scale.

He wanted to grow revenue without growing headcount.

Here's what he built:

→ Scraped job platforms like Indeed to find companies actively hiring
→ Reached out 1-2 days after they posted (perfect timing)
→ Automated his Clay workflows to run evergreen
→ Personalized LinkedIn outreach to candidates with Clay


He went from $10K to $80K/month in less than a year.
Team went from 2 people to 3.
His employee's calendar is now booked with 40-50 candidate appointments per week.

I sat down with Samuel to break down how he achieved this.

You can check the full case study on Youtube.

We are working 1:1 with 5 agencies this month.

If you'd like to add $20-100K MRR in the next 90 days, send the word "Accelerator".

Cold outreach: 8% reply rate.

Warm outbound: 47% reply rate.

Same effort. 5x the responses.

The difference happens because you are reaching people who already know you exist.

Think about it:

-> Someone viewed your profile.
-> Someone engaged your post.
-> Someone followed your company page.

They already recognize your name.

But most B2B teams ignore these people and blast 10,000 cold emails to strangers instead.

Why?

Because capturing warm leads used to be a nightmare:

Sales Nav -> Clay enrichment -> ICP scoring formulas -> Claude for Copy -> Automation setup -> Daily manual work.

6+ tools just to reach people who were already interested.

Valley does all of it.

It captures:
→ Profile viewers
→ Post engagers
→ Competitor post engagers
→ Company page followers

Then it scores them, filters out bad fits, writes personalized outreach, and sends it.

Every day without the manual work.

The people who already know you convert better than strangers.

Now you can actually reach them.

What's your best strategy to convert leads on LinkedIn?

If you are in Cape Town 🇿🇦 and want to succeed in GTM.

This is for you.

On January 29th, ask us anything about building GTM systems with Clay.

If you've seen ColdIQ's posts, followed the work we do, or wondered how top teams actually use Clay to grow their businesses, you might want to join us.

This is your chance to ask real questions, get real answers, and learn how to apply Clay to your own business.

You’ll Learn:

- How ColdIQ uses Clay to power real-world GTM systems
- Signal-based outbound strategies and when to use them
- How to think about Clay if you’re just getting started
- Common mistakes teams make and how to avoid them
- How AI fits into modern outbound and GTM workflows

Stefan 🦁 Kollenberg (Head of Data Partnership) and I will answer the questions from Louis Van Wyk.

I'll be there to share how we've scaled into a multimillion-dollar agency building GTM systems for 300+ companies + sharing our plans for 2026.

We'll kick things off with welcome drinks at 6 PM, then move into a live AMA-style discussion.

Spots are limited.

Link to register ↓

He left Goldman Sachs to start an agency from scratch.

8 weeks later he hit $40K/month with zero ads and no sales team.

Daniel Salzner is one of our students inside our Agency Accelerator

He spent 1 year at Goldman Sachs 

He knew cold outreach worked.
It got him his first customers and his first investors for his previous startup

But this time he wanted to build something different.
An agency with an acquisition system that runs without a sales team.

Here's what he achieved:

→ Started on Upwork to nail his ICP
→ First 4 clients in 4 weeks ($15K MRR)
→ Switched to targeted outbound once he knew who to reach
→ Automated 40-50% of fulfillment
→ One LinkedIn post brought 130K impressions and 30 booked calls

The result?

$0 to $40K MRR in 8 weeks.
$80K collected in 10 weeks.

Still no sales team. Still no ads.

I sat down with Daniel to break down how he achieved this.

You can watch the full case study on my Youtube channel. 

We are working 1:1 with 5 agencies this month. 

If you'd like to add $20-50K MRR in the next 90 days, send the word "Accelerator".

364K to 1.7M impressions in 6 months.

Here's what I changed.

Most people blame the algorithm when LinkedIn doesn't work for them.

But the problem is almost never the algorithm.

It's your profile and content not being optimized to show up in the feed.

Here's the breakdown:

1. My headline

Your headline should scream exactly what you specialize in.

When someone lands on your profile, there's zero confusion about what you help with.

I use the formula: "I help X achieve Y through Z"

So your ideal client knows instantly you’re the right person for that.

Mine is: “Helped 300+ companies scale revenue with AI & Tech”

If your headline is vague, no one remembers you.

2. My content

I stopped posting what I wanted to talk about.

I started answering the burning questions my ideal clients already have.

If they struggle with lead generation, I break that down in detail.

How do you find those questions?

Ask yourself: What are they struggling with right now?

In my case, my ideal client was me 2 years ago.

So I spend time thinking: What kept me up at night when I was at that stage?

That's your content goldmine.

For me, those questions became my content pillars:

→ Workflows and automations
→ Tech stack breakdowns
→ GTM strategies (outbound, content, ads)
→ Operations and systems
→ Lessons from my founder journey

Every piece of content I create is focused on helping B2B business owners and teams increase revenue through technology.

The goal is giving away so much tactical value that people see you as their trusted advisor, before they ever talk to you.

3. My proof

It's not enough to say what you do.

You have to prove you can actually deliver.

- Testimonials
- Achievements
- Case studies
- Screenshots
- Real data

If you claim you get X results, show data. Show client wins.

People need evidence before they trust and invest in you.

Which of these 3 do you think moves the needle the most?

9 Truths I’ve Learned by 30 

(That I wish I’d known at 20)

1) Do > Consume

In 2020, I read 59 books in one year. I made 0$

In 2025, I read 2 books and our business generated multiple 7 figures.

In my early twenties, I was always the guy who knew everything about self-improvement and business.

I was reading books for CEOs when I hadn't even started a side project.

Consuming feels like progress. It's not.

You can spend a lifetime reading and never actually move forward.

2) You can't lose if you don't stop

I've spent 3 years in GTM now.

My goal: be known as one of the top people worldwide helping businesses grow with technology.

That takes years and there's no shortcut.

Businesses come and go.

But the authority you build in an industry? That stays with you.

It only disappears if you restart something new every 3 months.

3) You can only connect the dots looking backward

So many decisions didn't make sense when I made them.

But 10 years later, you look back and see how everything connects.

But for the dots to connect, you have to make decisions first.

4) Posting content is a luck mutiplier

Content has been the biggest hack in my life.

You just become a magnet for interesting people and interesting opportunities.

5) No one is coming to save you

People complain about the system. About AI. About their boss. About their upbringing. Their traumas because it feels comforting to have people feeling bad you.

Everyone got different cards dealt.

But no one will ever care about your life more than you.

You have to save yourself because no one else will.

6) Find your infinite games and your infinite people

For me the ultimate happines is finding great people to build great things with.

That is a game that is fun to play and that has no end.

That's what I'm optimizing for now.

7) Your growth is measured by the uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have

I've seen people stay stuck for years because they're avoiding one conversation.

The conversation they know they need to have but keep putting off.

The people who move fast in life have the hard talk today, not next month.

8) Micro Speed - Macro Patience

Most people are extremely impatient but have zero long-term vision.

Flip it.

Have a 10-year vision. But act fast today.

9) The world is changed by your action not by your opinion

Everyone wants to have impact and change things.

It's easy to comment and easy to have opinions.

But what really matters is what you do.

Not what you say.

—

Which one do you agree/disagree with?

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