🐯Nick Sproul

SDR Operations Leader | 2023 Top 25 SDR Leader I Autobound Strategic Advisor I GPT fan | Empowering Future SDR Superstars Through Personal & Thoughtful Leadership | Faith & Family ✝ Autism Advocate 💙

As a GTM Systems Engineer at Apollo.io I design, automate, and optimize an AI-native revenue tech stack—integrating Salesforce, HubSpot, Apollo, and data-warehouse workflows to drive efficiency, data integrity, and scale for hyper-growth go-to-market teams.

Sales Development Operations Leader

Scale up your sales coaching with Second Nature's sales coaching software. It provides a "virtual pitch partner" that uses conversational Al to have actual discussions with sales reps, score them, and help them improve on their own, so they can ace every sales call.

As the Head of Sales Development Operations, I built out & lead our SDR team (100% female), aka ‘Jenny from the Block’. In addition, I oversee our Sales & Marketing tech stack - from Hubspot, SalesLoft, LinkedIn Sales Navigator to ZoomInfo, Seamless.ai & Regie.ai. Helping our revenue org build funnel & pipeline through qualified meetings. Leveraging my SDR leadership network to learn what are the pain points from SDR leaders right now, and how Jenny can help.  

Imagine if there was an easy way to see all of the exact customer information you needed in one place. That's what Immersa does.

Sales leader with a strong foundation in mathematics and a passion for driving results through strategic outbound sales initiatives. With a proven track record in pipeline generation, coaching, and multichannel outreach, I've successfully built and mentored high-performing sales teams across various SaaS companies. My experience includes implementing AI-based automation, developing effective sales processes, and delivering training that has generated significant pipeline growth. 

Before entering sales, I was a mathematics teacher, where I honed my skills in problem-solving and critical thinking. Notably, my team tied with Harvard in a prestigious math contest sponsored by the NSA. 

Visit my website www.thejoyce.net to schedule some time and discuss sales coaching and subscribe to my newsletter at thejoyce.substack.com

Patrick William Joyce

This is my daughter. She is the reason I keep going, even on the days when everything feels stuck.

I have worked for a lot of people over the years.

Some great. Some not so great.

Some situations where the timing, the market, and the leadership all lined up.

And some where nothing did.

When you work for someone else, there is always a ceiling on how much control you actually have.

You can do the work.
You can show up early.
You can stay late.
You can try to fix problems that are bigger than your role.

But sometimes the stars just are not aligned. And no amount of effort changes that.

Those situations are draining in a way that is hard to explain.

You start to feel like your future is tied to decisions you do not make, in rooms you are not in.

That feeling is what pushed me to build something of my own.

Not because it is easier. It is not.

There are weeks where it feels ten times harder than any job I have ever had.

But when things get tough now, I look at her.

And I remember why I am doing this.

I want her to see someone who kept moving forward.

Someone who took risks.
Someone who built something instead of waiting for permission.

Business is not just about revenue or pipeline.

For a lot of us, it is about control over our time, our energy, and our future.

And sometimes, it is about the little person watching you from the sidelines.

If you are in a tough stretch right now, keep going.

You might be building something bigger than a company.

You might be building a life someone else will learn from.

Outsourced Cold Calling for B2B That Actually Works | CEO @ Outboundless

I am looking for 2 new B2B SaaS clients.

If you are a founder or sales leader and outbound is one of these:

Inconsistent
Overcomplicated
Underperforming
Or not live yet

That is what I work on.

I help B2B SaaS teams build and execute outbound systems that actually produce meetings. Cold calling. Cold email. Clear segmentation. Tight messaging. Simple execution.

No bloated stacks.
Bias toward action.

Most teams do not have an effort problem.

They have a clarity and execution problem.

If you are:

Pre-Series A to Series C
Selling $10k to $100k ACV
Trying to create predictable pipeline

We should talk.

Comment or send me a message and I will reach out. Will also pay referral bonuses if you know anyone looking!

#sales

B2B SaaS Founders: We’ll help you book qualified demos with your EXACT ICP every week using the Outboundless Lead Engine™. First meeting in 14 days or you can walk.

Proof:
 • $200M qualified pipeline in 90 days (Global IT services client)
 • $6M pipeline increase in 6 weeks (Payments SaaS)
 • Founder asked us to slow down due to meeting volume
 • Demo booked with a national pet retailer for Ekom.ai in their first week

Most founders try:

Hiring an SDR → 90-day ramp + $100K gamble
Offshore agencies → low quality, no visibility
Email-only → saturated, ignored
Doing it themselves → unsustainable

Outbound doesn’t fail because cold calling is broken.

It fails because it’s slow to launch, talent is inconsistent, and there’s no transparency.

Here’s what changes:

You get a seasoned US based sales rep making 200+ calls a day for you.

We're EXTREMELY transparent in the sales process -- I will not tell you something I know we can't do.

You get actual interested prospects in your exact ICP

That’s the difference between hiring experiments and hiring execution.

If you’re wondering whether this works in your niche or if the rep will actually be strong on the phone, let’s map it out.

Book a 30 minute strategy call -- leave a comment or send me a DM.

We’ll break down your ICP, show you the 7 day launch plan, and match you with the right rep.

First meeting in 14 days. Easy exit if it’s not working.

Build outbound the right way.

If anyone needs a cold caller, hit me up! We're cooking with gas over here!

Salespeople probably shouldn’t be worried (yet), but people who’s entire job can be automated should. I’m it convinced the AI hype means anything in sales, other than the whole SaaS industry contracting onto itself. I saw one guy build his own internal slack for their team. Spending is down, it seems the wellspring of profiting on subscription based software may be sputtering a bit.

Obviously software isn’t going anywhere, but the 10000 versions of 100 different apps thing can’t continue when you have non programmers spinning up bespoke bootleg versions of the same stuff. 

Bootleg will never be mainstream, but it will take a chunk out of the existing paradigm and eventually the Netflix effect will happen to us, too. 

Hard to see into the future. I don’t think it involves prompt engineering an outbound sales motion with voice agents. I do think a bunch of paper and pen businesses will go the way of the whaling industry when electric lights came out though.

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I do not use ZoomInfo for early outbound. Most teams overspend on data before they even know who they want to target.

Instead, I run a simple workflow with:

LinkedIn Sales Navigator
PhantomBuster
Clay

Why?

Lower upfront cost.
More control.
More flexibility.

The short version:

Start with a company list you actually care about
Use Sales Navigator to filter the exact roles you want
Export those contacts via PhantomBuster
Bring everything into Clay
Enrich emails and phones using a small waterfall of vendors

The cost stays variable, targeting stays tight.

You are not locked into a massive annual contract just to experiment.

The video walks through this step by step so you can copy it:

How I upload companies
How I pull contacts
How I enrich
And why this beats relying on a single database

Comment "#sales" and SAVE this post (3 dots, click save) and I will send you the Loom video.

DiscoLike just bailed me out again - in addition to lookalike lists, now you can search ICP with natural language/keywords.

So for example if you want specifically SaaS companies, they have an actual industry tag associated with each company.

Historically difficult with every database, zoominfo and even sales nav etc. the industry tags are always all over the place.

Crunchbase has the best ones, but they charge so much money and only allow 2k exports on the base plan. 

With discolike, I got my 2k exports in about 3 seconds, export to CSV and the I can slice it from there.

Kellen Casebeer Christian Oland Enzo Carasso 🧲 🦾Eric Nowoslawski you guys should check this out, last update they pushed is 🔥

Why does cold calling still work in the age of AI?
Because AI increased noise.
It did not increase trust.

Anyone can now:

Generate 1,000 “personalized” emails in minutes
Rewrite subject lines endlessly
Spin up automated sequences at scale

Buyers know this.

Their inbox is full of messages that sound thoughtful but feel synthetic.

Cold calling works because it is scarce.
A real human.
In real time.
Willing to handle pushback.
There is friction in a phone call.
Friction creates signal.

You immediately learn:
If the problem is real
If the timing is wrong
If you are talking to the wrong person
If your message actually lands

AI optimizes distribution.
Cold calling tests reality.

The companies winning right now are not replacing humans with AI.

They are using AI to improve targeting and prep, then putting a sharp human on the phone.

Speed to execution is the most underpriced advantage in B2B sales.

Most teams lose deals before the first meeting because they move too slowly:

Weeks to finalize messaging
Months to hire
Endless debate about tools
Perfect plans that never meet reality

Meanwhile, the buyer’s world keeps moving.

In B2B, timing creates leverage. The first vendor to show up clearly often sets the frame.

Fast teams:

Launch with a narrow wedge
Test before they optimize
Learn from real conversations, not dashboards
Change direction weekly, not quarterly

Slow teams:

Overbuild
Overthink
Wait for alignment
Confuse preparation with progress

Execution speed does not mean chaos. It means shortening the distance between idea and feedback.

A bad message you test today beats a perfect message you ship next month.

Ten real conversations beat a hundred internal opinions.

If your sales motion cannot be executed this week, it is not real. It is a plan waiting to be disproven.

Save this if your team is stuck “getting ready” instead of selling.

Speed is not reckless. It is respectful of reality.

Have worked for so many people that don’t get this👇

Be realistic with your expectations about the people who work for you

Stress, to me, is simple. Stress happens when there’s conflict between what you want to happen and what is actually happening.

That’s it.

You wanted the leads to be better. Ops left you hanging out to dry.
You wanted the hire to work out. Someone else mis-hired and you have to deal with it.
You wanted the promotion. Someone who didn't deserve it got the nod.

Now you have two ways to process it.

Option 1:

Get frustrated.
Point the finger.
Build a case in your head about why you’re right and everyone else is wrong.

You start collecting evidence.

“This should have been obvious.”
“I told them this would happen.”
“They dropped the ball.”

It feels justified. Sometimes it even feels powerful.

But it doesn’t change the facts.
The deal is still lost. The numbers are still the numbers. The situation is still the situation.

What does change is how people experience you.

When you default to blame, you become heavy to work with.

People get cautious around you. Nobody wants to bring you bad news. Now you’ve added a second problem on top of the first one.

—

Option 2:

Assume everyone means well.
Assume they’re doing their best with the information they had.
Assume they’re rational, even if you don’t understand their reasoning yet.

This doesn’t mean you avoid accountability.
It doesn’t mean you lower standards.
It doesn’t mean you ignore reality.

The facts are still the facts.

But your posture changes.

Instead of “Who screwed this up?”
It becomes, “What did we miss?”
Instead of “Why didn’t they listen?”
It becomes, “Where did the communication break?”

Same external situation.

Completely different internal experience.

And here’s the kicker:

The second approach feels better.

You think more clearly.
You stay constructive.
People stay open with you.

Over time, that compounds.

In leadership, in sales, in marriage, in parenting, in startups, in anything high pressure, you are constantly living in the gap between expectation and reality.

You don’t control the gap.
You do control how you interpret it.

Every product is suddenly an “AI product.”

AI note taker.
AI CRM.
AI outbound platform.
AI SDR.

Especially the AI SDR. This is the one that confuses me the most. 

Because the whole point of an SDR is judgment.

Who is actually worth pursuing?
When to push and when to back off?
What to say?
What not to say?

These decisions come from context, experience, and understanding how businesses actually operate.

What I’m seeing instead is a lot of automation wrapped in an AI label.

Messages that look personalized, but aren’t.
Sequences that technically run, but don’t create real conversations.
Activity that exists, but doesn’t produce pipeline.

It reminds me of every bubble. The label gets ahead of the outcome.

Capital floods in.
Everyone rushes to attach themselves to the trend.
Buyers adopt hoping for leverage.

Then eventually, reality sorts it out.

The tools that actually help people do their jobs survive. The rest quietly disappear.

Replacing the core human function of creating trust and starting real conversations is a much harder problem than it’s being sold as right now.

Curious how others are seeing this play out.

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🐯Nick Sproul

Patrick William Joyce

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The Battle

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Patrick William Joyce

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