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.

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

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.

I've sent over 3,000,000 cold emails since January 1st. Here are my 25 rules for deliverability every outbound marketer needs to know in 2026:

Infra:

1. Always use Google or Microsoft accounts, never SMTP. SMTP providers consistently fail after a few months when spam filters update.

2. Domain endings don't matter much. Use .com when possible, but .org, .info, .co, and .biz work fine because they're cheaper.

3. Warm up domains for minimum 2 weeks, ideally a month for better performance and longevity.

4. Use an A/B rotation strategy. Buy two sets of infrastructure per client - use set A in month one, set B in month two, then rotate.

5. Keep emergency non-branded domains ready as backups when main infrastructure goes down.

6. Use proper naming conventions: Client_Campaign_Industry_LaunchDate_Group to identify performance issues.

7. All providers will eventually mess up DNS settings at scale. Always send yourself a test email and check headers before launching campaigns.

Campaign setup

8. Don't track opens. Open data is unreliable and hurts deliverability.

9. Plain text only. No fancy formatting.

10. Send Monday-Friday, 9-5, but randomize the exact time daily within a 30-minute window using Smartlead's API. Saturdays work well for SMBs and mid-market targets.Keep campaigns running on holidays because business owners check email every day.

Lead list management

11. Format company names properly, but ideally don't use them at all. Campaigns perform worse when they include company name or title.

12. When using titles, normalize them with AI (e.g., "CEO" not "Chief Executive Officer").

13. Remove all email security from your list. Use Google's DNS endpoint to identify anyone with Proofpoint, Barracuda, Mimecast.If removing security emails makes your list too small, put them at the end instead.

14. Don't isolate ISPs. Mix Google, Outlook, and SMTP recipients or your domain gets flagged.

15. Always validate with any tool right before launch, regardless of what data providers claim.

16. Separate catch-all campaigns from regular campaigns because catch-alls have higher bounce rates.

Copywriting

17. Spintax everything, but review all variants yourself. AI creates variants that sound unnatural.

18. Keep it simple. No images, PDFs, or links in the first email.

19. Two tests for copy: Can a 10-year-old understand what you're selling? Would you actually say this to someone in person?

20. Make copy conversational, not complicated with technical terms and corporate language.

21. Strong offers > personalization. Focus on making the offer better instead of building complex personalization workflows.

Continued in the comments.

Name drop campaigns make 100% automated emails look like warm referrals. But most people execute them wrong and kill credibility. Here's how to do it right:

The concept: You reference a colleague at the prospect's company in your cold email. This makes it look like you sat there, did your research, and wrote the email normally. When done right, these convert 2-3x better than standard cold outreach because you've lowered their automated email guard.

The mechanics:

- Pull colleague names by identifying their senior leadership (Find People → Department → Seniority) within the company.

- Reference the colleague in your first line ("not sure if you're the right person or if I should be speaking with [[ColleagueName]]")

- Optional: Add a PS that ties back to the colleague reference

- End with a soft CTA

The entire email should almost read like someone at their company gave you a warm intro.

Common execution mistakes:

- Generic opening lines that don't reference the colleague
- Formatting that exposes it as automated (inconsistent spacing, broken variables, obvious merge fields)
- Not cleaning your data before sending (colleague left the company, wrong person entirely)

The prospect should almost think a coworker mentioned them. When they open the email and see their colleague's name, their guard drops. That's when your message actually gets read instead of deleted.

We’re seeing incredible results with this right now…let me know if you want to hear more on it.

undefined undefined

Hey, thanks for replying. 

Here's the guide:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ogdq83o7sRMARFopD_t_-nqHF0XIOPsD/view?usp=share_link

Leadbird

P.S. If you’re an established agency or SaaS with a GREAT offer and want leads — Leadbird can help

… and we’ll do it on a Pay-Per-Lead basis.

Book today: https://www.leadbird.io/book-a-call

Spintax Guide

Tool

Article

Message

yuri

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.

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.

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.

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.

Almost every day, I get a cold email referencing my engagement on a social post I didn't think twice about. Cold emailers are using this signal the wrong way, and it's ruining their reply rate. Here's how to fix it:

People engaging with content in your space are actively researching the problem you solve right now. These lists convert at 3-4x higher rates than standard cold outreach because of recency and intent.

The wrong way:

"Saw you engaging with [Creator's] content about cold email..."

This feels like surveillance, not relevance. 

The right way:

"Noticed you've been engaging with content about outbound lately..."

Reference the intent and topic, not the creator. The intent matters, but usually the specific creator doesn't.

How to run this properly:

1. Identify 5-10 creators with your ICP audience (look for competitive overlap and high engagement).

2. Build a DNC list before scraping (generate competitor domains and exclude them so you don't email creators directly)

3. Scrape engagement weekly with Apify (pull last 7 days of engagers to keep lists fresh)

4. Deduplicate against a master database (dedupe by LinkedIn URL first, then at ingestion and pre-campaign)

5. Enrich and route channels (email first, if open profile → send InMail, then connection requests)

6. Use intent-based copy, not creator name drops

Common mistakes that kill these campaigns:

- Scraping once instead of weekly (make the campaign evergreen)
- Not excluding competitor domains (you email the creator and other competitors)
- Name dropping creators in copy (feels invasive)
- Not deduplicating (hitting same people repeatedly)

Quantity of prospects usually isn’t high (especially after filtering down), but the quality is solid if hit right. Strongly recommend!

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.

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.

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.

"We don't chase customers if they don't get back to us after the first reply, mark them as closed lost." That’s a real quote I heard from someone trying to get leads from outbound.

Short take: Some people just don't want it.

Long take: Outbound marketers everywhere are complaining that reply rates are down, deliverability is getting harder, and meetings are scarce, to say the least.

Prospects are fatigued from being hit with the same cold email template variants and are only replying to the emails that are strong, relevant, and have good offers.

So to effectively “waste” a good lead because you had to follow-up with them more than once is simply irresponsible.

In fact, I think the winning outbound teams of the next few years will:

1. Get back to positive replies borderline instantly.
2. Be extremely regimented about maintaining their CRM.
3. Prioritize strong, tasteful, relevant follow-ups until Closed Won or Closed Lost.

People who are disciplined about chasing positive replies will run circles around those that don’t follow up more than once because they “don’t chase leads”.

I can’t believe this is even a take.

The easiest and fastest way to write more relevant, personalized email copy with 0 extra work is to let your list write the copy for you. Let me explain:

I recorded a podcast episode with 🦾Eric Nowoslawski a while back, where he explained this perfectly. He explains that marketers often go too broad with their targeting, making relevance much harder to achieve.

He goes on to share that you can simply tighten up your list with certain filters that make it easier to write copy that’s relevant to everyone on that list.

Perfect example: Let’s say you’re a bookkeeping service.

You can reach out to CEOs of companies in the USA with <20 people, and say something like:

“We help small businesses in the USA close their books within 5 days at the end of each month.”

…OR you can reach out to:

- CEOs of companies in the USA with <20 people
- Who founded their company less than 2 years ago
- Are a first-time founder
- Don’t have a finance and accounting person on their team

And say something like:

“I saw that you guys were recently founded, and congrats, it's your first time running a business like this. 

How are you thinking about your finance operation? Asking because we help…”

Do you see how simply filtering down the list makes it easier to write more relevant copy with no extra work? You of course give up some volume in doing so, but the tradeoff is often there.

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.

I’m convinced every B2B service provider should reach out to churned clients at the 30-day post-churn mark to win them back. As unconventional as it sounds, it’s been working well for us. My thesis:

Clients churn because they think the grass is greener on the other side (another vendor that’s cheaper, running the process in-house, etc.). In our experience (including vendors we’ve churned from) this often isn’t the case. 

Especially with regards to lead generation agencies: if an agency can get you some* leads (even if it’s less than you anticipated), that little bit is better than zero leadflow.

All that to say:

We’ve learned that clients aren’t always happier post-churn. Because they’re familiar with you and your process, you’re ripe to reach out again (unless you ended on bad terms, of course).

There are simple, non-intrusive ways to do so for every B2B service business. For a lead generation agency like us, for example, the messaging might say:

“Hey - noticed you never asked for your domains back. We could spin up infra today and relaunch a campaign if you’re still open to it.”

I’m not saying this has a 100% success rate. I am saying it’s worth doing.

Building unstoppable pipelines | Get free sales opportunities with our no-cost, no-risk pilot campaign | Founder @ C17 Lab

Most outbound agencies take your money and deliver nothing - zero meetings, zero learnings.

I do the opposite - you see results before you pay a dollar.

I launched Square in France and was the top growth performer at Booking.com for two consecutive years, driving over $50M in GMV. After realizing I could earn more by owning even 1% of the value I created, I started C17 Lab, the first revenue engineering firm focused on outbound-led growth.​

Who I help

You’ve built a solid business through paid media, inbound, and referrals, but growth has plateaued.
You know outbound can work - you’ve seen others scale with it - but every agency you’ve tried delivered excuses instead of pipeline. Maybe you tried DIY outbound and ran into technical complexity, deliverability issues, or data problems. You’re done with the “trust us, it takes 6 months” narrative.

How I help

C17 Lab engineers outbound systems that consistently generate pipeline for:

1. Manufacturers
2. B2B SaaS selling into traditional industries
3. Professional services firms doing $2M+ in annual revenue

My team of GTM engineers and SDRs will run a free pilot campaign that books you 3-4 qualified meetings. No payment required.

If we can generate pipeline when we barely know your business, imagine what happens once we deeply understand your product and market.

Ready to see what high-performance outbound actually looks like?

Book a free pilot campaign at c17.ai.

Enzo Carasso 🧲

Marketers call it an investment.

CFOs call it an expense.

And when money gets tight, the CFO wins.

Marketing gets paused. And then this happens:

Weeks 1-4: "See? Nothing's changed."
Weeks 5-8: "Hmm. Calendar's looking a bit thin."
Weeks 9-12: "Where did the leads go?"
Week 13: "Turn it back on. Everything. Now."
Weeks 14-20: Spending money to fix the money they were trying to save.

Congratulations. You just ran the most expensive experiment in your business.

The result? You proved that turning it off was a bad idea.

You didn't save money.
You just paid twice.

You could have just... not turned it off.

The real issue isn't budget.

Marketing isn't a Netflix subscription you cancel when you're not watching.

You can't pause what took 6 months to build and expect it to restart in a week.

The CFO sees a line item.

The marketer sees a system.

The founder sees both and cuts the wrong one anyway.

Don't be that founder.

Apply for our pilot instead: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

We build it, prove it works with real meetings, then hand you a system that stays on.

Repost if someone in your network is about to cut their marketing budget.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for systems that treat outbound like infrastructure, not a nice-to-have.

Skipping strategy and going straight to execution is a fast way to fail in business. 

That's why so many companies have an inconsistent pipeline. 

So they hire more SDRs, switch tools, and rewrite the copy. 

None of it works because the foundations aren't in place. 

Instead, follow this flow: 

1. Define the target
→ Start with a revenue goal
→ Get specific on who you sell to
→ Pick the metrics that actually tell you if it's working

This is a founder decision, not something to delegate on day one.

2. Understand the buyer
→ Talk to recent customers
→ Go back through deals you lost
→ Find the pattern of why people say yes or no

It's already there. You just haven't looked for it yet.

3. Study the competition
→ How are competitors positioning themselves?
→ What are they charging?
→ Where are they weak?

Most companies skip this and end up sounding the same as everyone else.

4. Build a strong offer
→ Define the result you actually deliver
→ Keep the scope tight
→ Price it based on the value it creates

A bad offer doesn't get fixed by better copy or more sends.

5. Align before you launch
→ Who you're targeting
→ What you're offering
→ How you're talking about it

Founder, marketing, and sales need to agree on all three before execution starts. If they don't, you're wasting time and budget.

6. Build the GTM plan
→ Choose your channels
→ Set weekly activity targets
→ Define what a qualified lead looks like in writing
→ Track pipeline in one report everyone can see

Before any campaign goes live, verify your contact data. Dirty lists destroy deliverability and lead to wasted efforts. 

We use BetterContact, a data enrichment tool that cross-checks 20+ data sources to find and provide you with the most accurate contact information. You only pay for verified data.

7. Run marketing
→ Cold email, cold calling, content
→ Measure what's driving replies and meetings
→ Cut what isn't

8. Run sales
→ Train the team on the offer before they're on calls
→ Qualify hard and early
→ Review close rates every week, not every quarter

9. Retain and expand
→ Get results in front of the customer fast
→ Track their outcomes
→ The best upsell opportunity is a client who's already seen ROI

Most companies jump straight to marketing and sales.

Missing steps 1 through 5 is why steps 7 and 8 never convert.

We build this end to end at C17 Lab.

Apply for a free pilot campaign here: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost for other founders building. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for frameworks that work.

Your product isn't selling because your offer's weak. 

Everything else is a distraction.

Here's how to actually build one that works:

1. Get specific on who you're selling to

→ Not "founders" or "B2B companies." 
→ Who exactly? What size? What revenue? What do they care about? 
→ The tighter your ICP, the easier it is to make an offer they can't ignore.

2. Understand what they're actually losing

→ Not surface-level pain. Real economic pain. 
→ What's it costing them to not have what you sell? 
→ If you can quantify that number, you've already won half the battle.

3. Research before you write a single word

→ Talk to your best customers. Read reviews of competitors. 
→ Find the exact words people use to describe their problems. 
→ Your offer should sound like it was written by the person buying it, not the person selling it.

4. Make the value obvious before the sale

→ If someone has to get on a call to understand why they should buy, your offer isn't clear enough. 
→ They should see it and immediately think: "I need this." 
→ That clarity comes from specificity, not clever wording.

5. Remove the risk of saying yes

→ Most people don't say no because they don't want what you sell. 
→ They say no because they're not sure it'll work for them. 
→ We proved results before signing a single contract. 
→ A guarantee, a pilot, a sample - whatever removes the friction from yes.

Want to see what this looks like in practice?

Apply for our free pilot: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

We'll get you 3-4 qualified meetings in your calendar and you can see if you're happy with our service before making any commitments.

Repost to help other founders build better offers. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more.

Our client just fired us.

Not because we weren't getting results... 

Because they can't keep up with the leads we're sending.

Their exact words: "We have far more demand than we can handle right now."

This is what happens when you build outbound correctly.

Most companies pause agencies because:

❌ Reply rates drop
❌ Leads don't qualify
❌ Nothing converts

We paused because their sales team is drowning in qualified meetings.

The system:

We rebuilt their offer from scratch.

Cold audiences don't respond to the same value prop that works for inbound. 

So we designed something specific for people who've never heard of them.

Then we built the infrastructure to send volume without breaking:

→ Email deliverability that holds at scale
→ Cold calling workflows that don't rely on one rep
→ Data systems that keep campaigns running when lists run dry

Most agencies test at low volume and call it done.

We built for scale from day one. 

Result: quality leads filling their calendar faster than they can work them.

If demand outpaces capacity → your outbound worked.

Most companies never get there.

Want outbound that creates this problem? 

Apply for our free pilot campaign at https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost to help others build infrastructure before they need it. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for systems that survive scale.

You can do everything right in sales and still get nothing.

More reps, better sequences, tighter copy - and the numbers still don't move.

The issue is usually one of three things - or all three at once:

1. Reaching the wrong buyers
2. Leading with the wrong message
3. Sales motion doesn't match how buyers actually decide

When those three are broken, you get activity without outcomes.

When they connect, everything changes.

Here's where it gets interesting:

Market approach + value delivery = real conversations

→ Not demos booked out of curiosity. 
→ Actual conversations with people who have budget, a problem, and a reason to move.

Market approach + sales execution = alignment

→ If your SDRs are setting meetings your closers can't convert, that's a handoff problem - not a closing problem. 
→ The ICP, the economics, the promise made in outreach - it all needs to carry through to the close.

Value delivery + sales execution = proof your offer works

→ Close rates that hold across segments. Positioning that doesn't get discounted away. 
→ An offer that converts because it solves something that already costs the buyer money.

When all three overlap:

✅ Predictable results
✅ Qualified buyers
✅ Unit economics that make sense
✅ A system that holds when you push more through it

That's what we build at C17 Lab.

Want to see what it looks like before committing to anything?

Apply for our free pilot https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

No risk. No obligation. We prove it works first.

Repost to help a founder stop guessing and start building.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for B2B sales and GTM systems built on real execution.

Far too many agencies promise the world (for a fee). 

They pitch precision targeting, expert copy, and qualified leads on autopilot.

What you get:

→ 3 meetings in 4 months
→ Two no-shows
→ One who wasted 30 minutes then ghosted

Sound familiar?

Their excuses:

"We need better data."
"Your ICP is off."

Not once did they ask: 

"Why would someone who's never heard of you agree to meet?"

They just took your inbound pitch, slapped on a personalization token, and hit send.

That's not outbound strategy.

Here's the real issue:

→ Most agencies are selling your existing offer to a cold audience.
→ They're not designing offers specifically for outreach. 
→ They're repurposing what already works for warm leads and getting no results. 

If your agency isn't engineering the offer, the targeting framework, and the entire outbound system, they're just sending emails.

You're paying for distribution, not strategy.

And that's why you keep getting stick figures instead of meetings.

Tired of agencies blaming your data when their offers don't work?

Apply for our free pilot campaign: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

We build the offer, prove it converts with real meetings, then you decide if you want to continue.

♻️ Repost for someone in you network.

🧲 Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for outbound systems built to scale, not break.

Cold emails not getting results?

Here’s 7 ways to 10x your performance.

1/ Strengthen the Offer
→ Low reply rates are often a result of weak offers.
→ Lead with a measurable outcome tied to a real problem.
→ If your prospect can’t picture the result in 10 seconds, it’s not strong enough.

2/ Narrow Your ICP
→ Tighter targeting = cleaner replies.
→ Use revenue range, role, and intent signals.
→ Broad ICPs dilute your message before it lands.

3/ Improve Data Accuracy
→ Bad data kills deliverability before you start.
→ Verify emails and phone numbers before launching a campaign.
→ Clean data means you actually reach the right inbox.

We use BetterContact, a data enrichment tool that cross-checks 20+ data sources to find and provide you with the most accurate emails and phone numbers.

4/ Write Direct, Specific Emails
→ One problem. One outcome. One next step.
→ If your email could apply to any company, it’s not strong enough.
→ No generic statements. Be specific about the pain you’re solving.

5/ Increase Speed to Respond
→ An MIT study found responding in 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes = 21x better qualification.
→ Slow response = lost deals.

6/ Qualify Before Booking
→ Not every reply deserves a meeting.
→ Qualify role, urgency, budget, and authority before you book.
→ Unqualified meetings tank your close rate.

7/ Build Infrastructure for Scale
→ Warm domains. Multi-touch sequences. Reply workflows.
→ If your system breaks when you increase volume, you can’t rely on it.
→ Performance improves when infrastructure can handle pressure.

Ready to get results from your outbound efforts?

Apply for our free pilot campaign: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost for anyone running outbound.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for outbound systems that work at volume.

7 Ways to 10 X Your Cold Email Results

Bad habits will kill a good business faster than bad competition.

Covey mapped out exactly how to fix that. Here's the breakdown.

Many founders chase tactics.
Better tools. Better hires.

Covey's argument is simpler and harder to hear: the constraint is you.

Results aren't random. They're predictable.

Your habits are your infrastructure. What you build daily is what you grow from.

1. Be Proactive
↳ Your results are on you. Not the market, not the economy, not your team.
↳ Stop explaining why things didn't work and start controlling what you can.
↳ Complaints are just excuses with better packaging.

2. Begin With the End in Mind
↳ If you don't know what you're building toward, every decision feels urgent and nothing is strategic.
↳ Define the outcome first. Work backwards from there.
↳ Busy people are everywhere. Deliberate ones aren't.

3. Put First Things First
↳ Your calendar is either a reflection of your priorities or proof you don't have any.
↳ The high-impact work gets pushed when you let everything feel equally important.
↳ Protect the time that actually moves things forward. Say no to everything else.

4. Think Win-Win
↳ Short-term leverage kills long-term relationships.
↳ The best deals are the ones both sides want to repeat.
↳ Align the incentives upfront and you won't need to chase accountability later.

5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
↳ The average person in a conversation is just waiting for their turn to talk.
↳ The ones who actually get results are the ones asking better questions.
↳ You can't solve a problem you haven't fully understood yet.

6. Synergize
↳ A room full of people who all agree isn't a team. It's a risk.
↳ The best decisions come from people who are willing to challenge each other before committing.
↳ Different perspectives, properly used, compound. Groupthink just compounds blind spots.

7. Sharpen the Saw
↳ You can't run a high-performance operation on a depleted engine.
↳ Sleep, health, and skill development aren't soft - they're inputs.
↳ What doesn't get maintained eventually breaks. That includes you.

The difference between a founder who burns out and one who grows?

One reacts to the week.
The other builds the system that runs it.

♻️ Repost for other founders looking to grow. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more breakdowns on business, performance, and execution.

You have 50 warm leads in your CRM.

How many have you actually called?

You know you need to call them.

You've known for 2 weeks.

The phone sits there.

You know how it works.

But first you need to:

- Rewrite that subject line one more time
- Watch one more video on "tonality"
- Reorganize your CRM by industry (very important)
- Make another coffee
- Check LinkedIn
- Suddenly remember you need to update your email signature

You're not avoiding, you're "optimizing."

Anything except dialing.

Congrats. Your leads are still sitting there.

Meanwhile, someone less qualified than you called them yesterday and booked the meeting.

Cold calling sucks.

Until it doesn't.

→ Call 1: You sound like a hostage reading a ransom note.
→ Call 10: You're still bad, but faster.
→ Call 100: You stop caring and start qualifying. It works.

The fear is worse than the rejection.

Prospects don't care if your voice cracks.

They care if you're wasting 30 seconds of their day or solving a real problem.

The math is simple:

100 emails = 10 replies.
10 calls to those replies = 8 conversations that move forward.

Email finds them.
Calling qualifies them.

One without the other is leaving pipeline on the table.

Your warm leads aren't getting warmer.

Call them today.

Or don't, and watch your competitor close them.

At C17 Lab, we run cold email at volume and turn replies into pipeline.

Want to see how we engineer outbound systems that actually book meetings?

Apply for our free pilot: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost this for those avoiding the phone. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more cold outbound reality checks.

Most founders track activity, 

not what actually drives revenue.

That's why most GTM efforts feel busy but produce nothing predictable.

Here's everything you should actually be tracking for GTM success:

1. Pipeline
→ Qualified pipeline per month
→ Pipeline coverage ratio
→ % from outbound
→ Pipeline by ICP segment

Consistent pipeline is the leading indicator for everything downstream. 

If you don't know where it's coming from, you can't control what comes next.

2. Meetings
→ Meetings booked
→ Show rate
→ Qualification rate
→ Meetings per SDR

Booked meetings are not a success metric. A full calendar of the wrong people is just waste. 

Show rate and qualification rate together tell you whether your pipeline is real or inflated.

3. Offer Performance
→ Reply rate by segment
→ Positive reply rate
→ Conversion to discovery
→ % value delivered before the meeting

High reply rate with a low positive reply rate means your hook works but your offer doesn't. 

If you're not tracking value delivered before the first call, you're missing the thing that separates good GTM activity from average.

4. Sales Reality
→ Close rate
→ Sales cycle length
→ Revenue per rep
→ Win rate by ICP

A long cycle with a low close rate is usually a positioning problem, not a sales problem. 

Win rate by ICP tells you which segments you're actually built for.

5. Unit Economics
→ Fully loaded CAC
→ CAC by channel
→ LTV on fully loaded margin basis
→ LTV:CAC ratio

Most companies undercount CAC by ignoring tool costs, management time, and failed hires. 

Anything below 3:1 LTV:CAC and you're not building a business, you're buying revenue.

6. Infrastructure Health
→ Deliverability rate
→ Bounce rate
→ Domain reputation
→ CRM data accuracy

Even the best offer gets zero results with broken infrastructure. 

Most teams only check this after something breaks.

7. Retention
→ Revenue from returning customers
→ Retention curve
→ Expansion revenue
→ % revenue from customers over 12 months

Acquisition costs are front-loaded. Retention is where the margin lives.
 
Expansion revenue is the clearest signal you're delivering real results, not just closing deals.

Looking to scale your business with outbound and GTM? Apply for our no-cost, no-risk pilot. 

We'll run a live campaign so you can see real results before committing.

Apply here: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost for the founder who needs to see this.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more on GTM systems, offer design, and revenue execution.

I've sent 13M+ cold emails for manufacturers and professional services companies last year.

Most teams optimize messaging. 

Almost nobody optimizes the foundations:

1/ Offer Design
→ If your offer needs a 30-minute call to make sense, it's a pitch deck.
→ Buyers should know what they're getting in 10 seconds.
→ If you're explaining value on the discovery call, your outbound was already dead.

2/ Market Selection
→ Precision is useless if you're precise about the wrong people.
→ Don't build perfect lists of people who need 6 approvals and 9 months to close.
→ Outbound works when buyers have budget pressure and a reason to move now.

3/Control Systems
→ Most teams let every reply become a meeting.
→ Build gates that separate interest from intent.
→ Remove bad fits before they reach sales.
→ Make access something prospects earn, not something you give away.

Without control systems, everything falls apart:

→ Bad fits flood the calendar
→ Sales gets buried in junk meetings
→ Qualification rates tank

Volume doesn't fix a broken system.

It just breaks it faster.

Build the gates first 
→ Prove the filter works 
→ Then scale.

The hardest part of outbound isn't the copy.

It's building infrastructure that survives contact with reality.

Want to see this framework in action?

We run a no-cost pilot campaign at C17 Lab. Generate outbound leads and show the system working before you commit.

Apply: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

♻️ Repost this if you know someone scaling outbound.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more on building GTM systems that actually work.

You're writing cold emails wrong.

Actually, you shouldn't be writing them at all yet.

Most founders start with copy. 

They workshop subject lines or hire agencies to "fix the messaging."

Then they send volume and get nothing.

The problem isn't the email.
It's the approach. 

Here's what to do instead: 

1/ Craft an irresistible outbound offer

→ Not your pitch. Not your product description.
→ An offer built for cold audiences.
→ Valuable enough that saying yes feels like a must. 

2/ Select an ICP where the economics make sense

→ If your LTV is under $7K, outbound economics break fast.
→ Long cycles and low close rates will kill you.
→ Pick accounts where a single deal justifies the effort.

3/ Design value that lands before the meeting

→ Most outbound promises value during the call. That's too late.
→ Deliver insight, analysis, or something tangible upfront.
→ Make the meeting a continuation, not a starting point.

4/ Package it into a simple outbound message

→ Now you write the email.
→ You're explaining what you're sending and why it matters.
→ Keep it clear. Then send it.

5/ Review for clarity, then send at volume

→ Read it once. Cut anything that doesn't support the offer.
→ Then scale it.
→ Volume shows what holds up.

Outbound isn't a copywriting problem.

It's an offer design problem that gets tested at scale.

Ready to see if your offer holds up?

Apply here for a pilot campaign.: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost for anyone running outbound campaigns.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for outbound systems that actually work at volume.

Sending more emails won't fix your outbound.

Engineering a reliable system will.

The gap between random outbound and systemized outbound:

When outbound runs on random instinct:

❌ Every drop in replies → new tool purchase
❌ Every slow month → "let's try cold calling too"
❌ Every campaign → complete restart, not an iteration

You're not building a system. You're collecting tactics.

When outbound runs on systemized infrastructure:

✅ You know exactly who converts and why
✅ Your offer is designed for cold audiences
✅ Your deliverability survives at scale, not just the first 1,000 sends
✅ Your sequences educate before they ask for time
✅ Your pipeline data shows what's breaking before revenue does

The difference isn't effort.

It's whether you're optimizing campaigns or engineering outcomes.

If you rebuild your outbound every quarter, you don't have a tactic problem.

You have an infrastructure problem.

Systemized outbound is built to scale from day one.

Want to see the difference between random and systemised outbound in action?

Apply for our free pilot: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost for someone rebuilding their outbound right now.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for outbound that's built with infrastructure, not guesswork.

Three reasons your outbound efforts are failing you: 

1. Volume.
2. Validity.
3. Value.

Volume 
→ Not reaching out to enough people.
→ Infrastructure is broken or never built for scale.

Validity 
→ Not reaching out to the right prospects.
→ Your list is filled with accounts that can't or won't buy.

Value 
→ Not providing enough value upfront.
→ The offer doesn't give them a reason to respond.

When any of these break, the system stalls.

Here's how to build a reliable outbound system that keeps all three working: 

1/ Define the core problem
If the problem isn’t obvious, buyers hesitate.
When hesitation appears, everything downstream slows.

2/ Lock the target market
A tight ICP creates focus.
It also removes accounts that were never going to buy.

3/ Analyze demand and competition
You need to know what buyers already believe.
And where existing options fail to deliver.

4/ Set positioning and messaging
Good messaging doesn’t persuade.
It makes the decision obvious.

5/ Map the buyer journey
Every step should reduce friction.
Confusion and effort stall decisions faster than price.

6/ Choose distribution channels
Channels must be controllable and measurable.
If you can’t diagnose them, you can’t scale them.

7/ Design the sales motion
Sales should match how buyers assess risk.
Not how the team prefers to sell.

8/ Define metrics that matter
Activity shows motion.
Pipeline and revenue show control.

9/ Review and iterate
What works early will break at scale.
GTM only holds when it’s revisited consistently.

Most teams skip the early steps and try to compensate later.

The teams that scale do the opposite.

They build the system first.

Then they turn up volume.

Want to see how this works end to end?
That’s what we do at C17 Lab.

We: 

- Run a no-cost pilot campaign, 
- Generate outbound leads, 
- Show the system working before you commit.

Apply here: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost this for someone who needs help building GTM systems.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more on outbound and GTM execution.

I've sent millions of cold emails.

The teams that fail all waste energy on the same variables.

How most teams operate:

→ 50% writing and rewriting cold emails
→ 30% tweaking copy and subject lines
→ 20% asking for meetings

You're optimizing for precision in a commodity offer.

Better copy won't fix a broken system.

What Actually Drives Results:

1. Offer design for cold audiences
If it requires explanation, it's not built for outbound.
Your value prop should make sense to someone who's never heard of you.

2. ICP based on economics
Pick targets based on LTV, buying power, and deal size.
$8K average deal with $3K CAC = No room for error.

3. Deliverability infrastructure
Your copy doesn't matter if emails never reach the inbox.
Domain health and sender reputation are the foundation.

4. Systems built for volume
500 emails works. 5,000 breaks everything.
Manual intervention = you built a job, not a system.

5. Outbound as qualification, not persuasion
Meetings confirm fit, they don't create it.
Filter for intent before you book the call.

6. Meetings that convert
Show rate means nothing if deals don't close.
Optimize for quality, not quantity.

Outbound fails when teams treat it like just a copy problem.

C17 Lab builds systems that survive at scale. 

Apply for our free pilot campaign here: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost to help others in your network do outbound properly. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for systems-first outbound.

Most B2B strategies aren't bad.

They're just incomplete.

Doing the basics gets you started. 

Going beyond them is what builds a pipeline you can actually rely on.

Four areas. Benchmark yourself honestly:

1/ Offer & Market Fit

Good → You have a pitch that makes sense to people already familiar with the problem.

Better → You've narrowed it down to one segment and one painful, costly problem.

Best → Cole prospects respond without needing context or a follow-up explanation.

2/ Outbound Execution

Good → You have activity. Emails going out, calls being made.

Better → That activity is converting into meetings with people who actually fit.

Best → You can dial up pipeline whenever you need it without degrading your infrastructure.

3/ Sales Alignment

Good → Your reps know what they're selling and chase every lead.

Better → They spend their time on the right opportunities because bad fits are filtered early.

Best → The handoff from outbound to close is a system, not a hope. Leaks get fixed in real time.

4/ Infrastructure & Economics

Good → You know what you're spending to acquire a customer.

Better → You understand the full cost and what each customer is actually worth over time.

Best → You've built for pressure. More volume doesn't break what you've built.

------

Most companies are sitting at "good" across all four.

Good keeps the lights on. It won't build something worth owning.

Want to scale your business with outbound?

We run a no-cost pilot at C17 Lab. 

You'll see exactly how we approach offer design, execution, and infrastructure before you commit to anything.

Apply here: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost to help others improve their B2B marketing. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more.

Your targeting is fine. Your messaging is fine.

So why aren't you getting sales?

The problem is probably your offer. 

Alex Hormozi's book, $100M Offers, breaks down how to craft an offer too good to say no to. 

1/ Find a Starving Crowd
Pick problems people are already paying to fix. 
If demand doesn't exist, you're looking in the wrong place. 

2/ Build the Value Equation
Increase the dream outcome. Add proof and guarantees. 
Shorten time to results. Remove friction from the experience.

3/ Stack the Offer
Bonuses aren't features. They're answers to hesitations. 
Each component should solve a pain someone is dealing with. 
Anchor the price to a high-value outcome.

4/ Deliver on the Promise
The offer gets them to buy. Execution keeps them. 
Standardize delivery and track outcomes, not activity.

The strongest offers don't compete on price.

They remove price as a variable entirely.

What most people get wrong:

→ They add features instead of removing objections
→ They promise outcomes instead of engineering likelihood
→ They optimize messaging instead of fixing the core offer
→ They focus on tactics instead of the value equation

If the offer is weak, no amount of marketing can save it.

If the offer is strong, everything else gets easier.

Repost to help others build stronger offers. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for what works in outbound at scale.

GTM has a language problem.

Founders throw around "growth" and "pipeline" like they're the same thing. 

They're not.

20 definitions every founder should know in 2026:

1. GTM Engineering
Go-to-market built as a system. 
Offer, targeting, infrastructure, and execution - connected and repeatable.

2. Offer-Market Fit
A cold prospect reads your message and immediately gets it. 
Low replies means the offer is off.

3. Outbound Infrastructure
Domains, inboxes, data, CRM, workflows. The foundation it all runs on. 
Ignore it and the rest falls apart.

4. Volume Reveals Truth
Low volume hides problems. 
That's where weak offers and fragile systems show up.

5. Qualified Pipeline
Prospects with budget, authority, and a reason to buy. 
Booked calls without this waste everyone's time.

6. Positive Reply Rate
Prospects responding with real interest. 
Low number means an offer problem, not a copy problem.

7. Pre-Call Positioning
What a prospect knows before the meeting. 
Lifts show rate and shortens the cycle.

8. Economic ICP
Targeting built on margin, LTV, and buying capacity. 
Job titles won't tell you who can actually pay.

9. Fully Loaded CAC
Acquisition cost including headcount, tools, data, and infrastructure. 
Most calculations are missing half the numbers.

10. Margin-Based LTV
Lifetime value on actual margin, not revenue. 
Strong top-line numbers can mask a business that barely breaks even.

11. LTV:CAC Discipline
Not expanding until the math supports it. 
Pushing before the ratio makes sense burns margin fast.

12. Deliverability Control
Consistent inbox placement at scale. 
When emails stop landing, your pipeline stops flowing.

13. Domain Health
Your sending reputation. Slow to build, fast to lose. 
Most teams notice it only after the damage is done.

14. Revenue Per SDR
Revenue per rep. 
Cuts through activity metrics. Shows if the team is actually producing.

15. Offer Conversion Rate
Close rate by offer and segment. 
Shows where your offer lands and where it doesn't.

16. Infrastructure Break Point
Where your systems fail under load. 
Most find it after they've already passed it.

17. Value Before the Call
What you deliver before any conversation happens. 
This separates you from everyone else in their inbox.

18. Commodified Messaging
Letting copy do the work your offer should. 
Works early on. Falls apart under pressure.

19. Pipeline Controllability
Qualified pipeline on demand, not just when conditions are good. 
If you can't switch it on, it's not a system.

20. Outbound Durability
How your systems hold up over time without burning infrastructure, exhausting your market, or wrecking unit economics.

If you can't define it, you can't measure it. 

If you can't measure it, you can't fix it.

-----

Looking to scale with outbound? 

We build the offer, run the campaign, and book qualified meetings before you spend a dollar.

Apply here: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more on B2B growth.

Sending the same message to everyone is not a strategy. 

It's a way to look busy while nothing converts.

If you're doing this, you're not marketing. 

You're guessing. 

And guessing is expensive.

Here's how to actually reach your audience and get them to buy:

1. Lock in a real ICP
➔ "Anyone who could buy" is not a target. It's a list.
➔ Get specific: industry, revenue, LTV, team size, sales capacity.
➔ The tighter the profile, the easier everything else becomes.

2. Build an offer designed for that person
➔ Most people copy-paste their inbound pitch into a cold email. It doesn't work.
➔ Cold audiences need an offer that removes risk and delivers value upfront.
➔ If they have no reason to respond, they won't.

3. Get accurate data
➔ Bad data kills campaigns before they start.
➔ Wrong emails, outdated titles, dead companies - all wasted effort.
➔ Clean data means your message actually reaches the right person.

We use to validate contacts before anything gets sent. It finds and verifies emails and mobile numbers across 20+ data sources. You only pay for accurate data.

4. Get in front of them with cold email and SMS
➔ Once the ICP and offer are set, execution is straightforward.
➔ Cold email and SMS, sequenced correctly, to the right person.
➔ That's what fills a pipeline.

5. Qualify hard and book meetings that matter
➔ A reply is not a win. A qualified meeting is.
➔ We focus on ICP-fit meetings, not raw response rates.
➔ If they don't fit, they don't move forward.

Most outbound fails before a single message is sent. 

The work happens in steps 1 and 2. 

Get those right and the rest takes care of itself.

Repost to help your network with their ICPs

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 to build outbound that knows exactly who it's targeting.

B2B growth only happens by design,

and every stage of it has to hold up.

If you have:

- A weak offer.
- Bad data.
- Emails with poor copy.

You'll quickly see things start to dry up.

Here's how you build a strong system from start to finish.

1/ Design a cold-ready offer

→ Use the structure to guide your approach: outcome + timeframe + proof.
→ If someone needs a follow-up question to understand what you do, you've lost.

2/ Lock the buying criteria

→ Set a minimum revenue and deal size.
→ Target the person who owns the problem.
→ If you're not specific, you're filling a calendar with conversations that go nowhere.

3/ Build infrastructure before volume

→ Use separate domains and warm inboxes for two to three weeks before running a campaign.
→ Track bounce rate, spam placement, and reply decay from day one.

4/ Run Email to Qualify, Not Convince

→ Focus on one trigger and one CTA.
→ Find out if there's interest, then either progress or move on.

5/ Control data quality at the source

→ Verify role, company fit, and email validity before anything goes out.
→ Bad data kills deliverability.
→ Clean it before you scale, not after the numbers drop.

At C17 Lab, we use @BetterContact, an enrichment tool that finds mobile numbers and emails. It cross-checks 20+ data sources to find and provide you with the most accurate data. You only pay for verified data.

6/ Layer SMS only after context exists

→ Only use SMS after getting a reply or a confirmed click on an email.
→ Keep it under 160 characters and focus on one action.
→ If you haven't earned the context, it's just an interruption.

7/ Gate meetings before sales touches them

→ Confirm the prospect's problem and authority before booking a meeting.
→ Show rate and qualified meeting rate tell you if your top of funnel is working.

Every stage feeds the next.

Miss one and the whole system underperforms in a costly way.

Looking to scale your business with outbound?

Apply for our free pilot campaign and get 3–4 booked meetings so you can see if we're a fit before making any commitments:
https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost to help other B2B founders grow.
Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more.

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