Sales-Tech & GTM Systems | Head of Ops @ ColdIQ

Co-Founder @ Workflows.io | Content, Outbound & AI RevOps engines for hypergrowth startups.

With the experience from:

- Working with 200+ companies on their go-to-market motion
- Generating over +8M organic impressions on here
- Closing $5M+ as a full-cycle AE
- Testing 250+ AI sales tools

I noticed three main problems companies face:

- Not enough leads
- Not enough conversions
- No automated systems & AI

Our solutions:

- LinkedIn content 
- AI RevOps workflows
- Automated outbound systems

The best work in most companies lives in people’s heads, dies when they leave, and can’t scale.

I believe the future is structuring knowledge work with living code:

Productizing AI workflows that human experts are already building.

👉 Follow: Dan Rosenthal for AI growth playbooks

👉 Get in touch: DM me on LinkedIn or email me at dan@workflows.io for collaborations.

👉 Visit: workflows.io if you want help implementing end-to-end AI go-to-market systems for revenue growth.

GTM tech you should keep an eye on in 2026.

20 categories. 52 tools.

↳ CRM
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Attio

↳Marketing Automation
- ActiveCampaign
- Customer.io
- HubSpot

↳Company Database
- DiscoLike
- Ocean.io
- Exa

↳Contact Database
- AI Ark
- Apollo
- BetterContact

↳Intent Signals
- Seam AI
- LoneScale
- Clay

↳Website Visitor ID
- Warmly,
- Vector
- RB2B

↳Data Scraping
- Apify
- RapidAPI
- Octoparse

↳Data Orchestration
- Clay
- Cargo 🧱
- Freckle.io

↳Contact Enrichment
- Findymail
- BetterContact
- Clay

↳CRM Enrichment
- Clay
- Freckle
- Findymail

↳Automated Sequencers
- Instantly.ai
- HeyReach.io
- OutboundSync (to pair with the other two)

↳ Manual Sequencers
- Outreach
- HubSpot
- Salesloft

↳ Power Dialers
- Nooks
- Orum
- Trellus (YC W22)

↳LinkedIn Content
- MagicPost
- Trigify.io
- EasyGen

↳ LinkedIn Ads Tracking
- Fibbler
- ZenABM
- Usermaven

↳SEO/AI Search
- Ahrefs
- Nightwatch
- Profound

↳Deal Room
- Qwilr
- Aligned
- Dock

↳Sales Enablement
- Sybill
- Exec
- Momentum.io

↳ Channel Attribution
- HockeyStack
- Dreamdata
- Factors.ai

↳ Automations/AI Agents
- Lindy
- n8n
- Airtop

Any that you'd add to the list? 👇

Dan Rosenthal

Co-Founder @ Workflows.io | Growth playbooks using AI

The 2026 GTM Flywheel Playbook

This is how we think about mapping out funnels.


1️⃣ Traffic Generation Channels

4 main buckets:

Content:
- LinkedIn
- X
- Facebook
- Instagram
- YouTube
- TikTok
- SEO/AI Search
- Podcasts

Ads:
- Google Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
- Directories
- Meta Ads
- Reddit Ads
- Event Sponsorships
- Billboards/TV

Outbound:
- Cold Email
- LinkedIn DMs
- Cold Calls
- Warm Outbound
- Conferences (In-person)

Partnerships:
- Agency Programs
- Integrations
- White-label
- Referrals
- Influencer Marketing
- Joint Ventures
- Platforms
- Affiliates

This is your top-of-funnel.


2️⃣ Lead Capture

4 main ways to turn traffic into captured contact info:
- Landing Page Forms
- Lead Magnets
- Social Engagement
- Social Followers


3️⃣ Lead Nurturing

10 methods to nurture that captured audience:
- SDR Touchpoints
- Retargeting Ads
- Content
- Newsletter
- Community
- Webinar
- Dinner Invites
- In-Person Events
- Email Flows
- Gifts


4️⃣ Conversion

If you're sales-led, meetings are the goal.

If you're product-led, trials are the goal.

But leading up to this, buyers tend to inform their decision by consuming on-site content.

6 primary categories:
- Video Demos (e.g. how the product actually works)
- Testimonials (e.g. social proof quotes)
- Case Studies (e.g. editorial-style client stories)
- Product Marketing (e.g. feature deep-dives)
- Resources (e.g. useful content for niche)
- Free Tools (e.g. AI Generator)


5️⃣ Qualification

Sales process would need a whole other flowchart.

But I believe 90%+ of lead qualification processes can now be automated using AI. 

This is key across every type of signal workflow.


6️⃣ Retention & Expansion

Great CS is a giant moat.

Investing into keeping your customers for longer and having them spend more money with you, is just as important as net-new revenue.


TL;DR

This is a flywheel because every channel feeds into eachother.

- You run outbound to hand-raisers from content. 
- Your best-performing organic content becomes your ads. 
- Your ads target the same accounts in your outreach lists.

And by capturing 1st-party signals.

Top-of-funnel traffic gets nurtured at scale.

Not every path in this playbook needs to be activated.

But at least 1-2 should be.

Most people bashing signals don't know how to use them.

This is the 2026 Signal Playbook.

These are the 5 main ways to use "intent signals":

- Awareness scoring
- Trigger automated outreach
- Slack/CRM notifications for manual outreach
- Customer expansion monitoring
- Build targeted lists for ABM

Here's a breakdown of the 3 signal categories,

and the sub-categories within them:


1️⃣ 1st-Party Signals (Your internal data from your tools)

→ CRM- Data already in your CRM.
[HubSpot, Salesforce, Attio]

→ Product Usage- Product analytics triggers.
[Mixpanel, Amplitude, PostHog]

→ Meeting Forms- Demo bookings or form drop-offs.
[Chili Piper, Default, Calendly]

→ Gated Content- Opt-in content/lead magnets.
[Webflow, Distribute.so, Gamma]

→ Marketing Sequences- Engagement with email flows.
[beehiiv, Customer.io, Kit]

→ Webinar Attendance- Attendees of online events.
[Luma, LinkedIn events, Goldcast]

→ Website Visitors- Deanonymized web traffic.
[Warmly, RB2B, Instantly.ai]

→ Outreach Replies- Sales engagement tool prospects.
[OutboundSync, Instantly, HeyReach.io]


2️⃣ 2nd-Party Signals (Exclusive data from external tools)

→ Partner Signals- Shared data from integration partners.
[Crossbeam, PartnerStack, WorkSpan]

→ Warm Intros- Common connections with prospects.
[Commsor 🦕, The Swarm 🔆, LinkedIn]

→ Review Sites- Intent from software review sites.
[G2, Capterra, TrustRadius]

→ Champion Tracking- Previous customer job changes.
[LoneScale, Champify, Clay]

→ Ad Insights- Engagement from ad campaigns.
[ZenABM, Fibbler, Factors.ai]

→ LinkedIn Engagement- Interactions on LI posts.
[Clay, Teamfluence, Trigify.io]


3️⃣ 3rd-Party Signals (Public data from external sources)

→ Technographic Data- Changes in tech stack.
[BuiltWith, HG Insights, TheirStack]

→ Job Openings- New postings on job platforms.
[Clay, PredictLeads, People Data Labs]

→ Firmographic Data- Company demographic changes.
[Apollo, DiscoLike, Ocean.io]

→ People Data- Staffing changes.
[Sales Nav, Clay, Apollo]

→ News- Company announcements.
[Clay, Google News, Perplexity]

→ Advertisement Activity- Media buying behavior.
[Adyntel, Adbeat, Apify]

→ Web Data- Data scraped from the web.
[Clay, Apify, ZenRows]

→ Social Signals- Engagement on socials.
[Clay, PhantomBuster, Trigify]

→ Search Analytics- SEO changes.
[Semrush, Similarweb, Ahrefs]

→ Funding- Recent fundraising events.
[Crunchbase, Owler, Pitchbook]


Every marketer's dream would be to know exactly who is ready to buy, and which qualified buyers already know your brand.

Signals are the closest proxy to this.

Doubling down in 2026.

This is the best way we've found to set up ABM in 2026.

It's been molded through tons of iterations from previous projects, but I whole-heartedly believe in after seeing it help:

- Sales and marketing teams finally work in unison.
- BDRs double their volume and smash their quota.
- LinkedIn ads influencing 80%+ of deals.

I don't believe in "traditional ABM" that's only for small TAMs.

ABM is for anyone selling high-ACV to anything less than a giant TAM.

30 steps to modern ABM:

1. Closed won + lost analysis.
2. ICP + account tiering model.
3. Backtest model against closed won.
4. Broad TAM map from multiple providers.
5. Trim list using qualification agents.
6. Aggregate + dedupe + enrich in Clay.
7. AI account research for every company.
8. Score accounts: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3.
9. Look-up companies against CRM.
10. Create CRM property map.
11. Create/update companies in CRM with rules.
12. Run ABM ads to qualified accounts.
13. Source contacts at qualified accounts.
14. Split into: decision-maker, champion and influencer.
15. AI persona research for every contact.
16. Look-up contacts against CRM.
17. Create/update contacts in CRM with rules.
18. Track signals for every contact/company.
19. Split into 1st party, 2nd party, and 3rd party.
20. Sync signals back to CRM as custom objects/events.
21. Route signals to reps based on territory.
22. Create CRM tasks + Slack notifications.
23. Roll-up 1st + 2nd party signals into awareness score.
24. Split into: Aware, Interested, Considering, Selecting.
25. Automatically update awareness using workflows.
26. Use tiering + awareness for account planning.
27. 1:1 demand gen for priority accounts (e.g. gifting).
28. 1:many demand gen for others (e.g. content).
29. Push channel data back to CRM.
30. GTM flywheel orchestration.

Comment "ABM" if you want the full graphic

LinkedIn has been the primary acquisition channel that grew us from 0-$2M ARR in 7 months.

I am breaking down exactly how we did it. 

Here's the Workflows.io Content OS:

1️⃣ Content Strategy

I've found these to be the most important practices:
• Schedule interviews with your team to brainstorm ideas
• Always look out for what is performing in the niche
• Analyze your post performance to understand what's working
• Use AI for research + concepts, not writing

Tools: Sybill, Favikon, MagicPost, Claude, Perplexity, Shield

2️⃣ Winning Formats

The best creators don't chase trends. 

They double down on formats.

Find a concept they can rinse-and-repeat.

These are our winning formats:

TOF
• Personal stories
• Quarterly milestones
• Industry stories

MOF
• Resource giveaways
• Workflow infographics
• Carousel breakdowns

BOF
• Feature demo GIFs
• Media from case studies 
• Product launch videos

3️⃣ Content Team

To properly scale content, you need a team.

Here's how we structure ours
• Writer
• Designer
• QA/Editor

4️⃣ Content Pipeline

We mainly collaborate in Notion:
• Kanban stages for content production
• Comments for feedback
• Link back to idea sources
• Preview our posts with our own embedded tool 

5️⃣ Content Calendar

You won't stay consistent if you don't plan in advance.
• Block off Sundays to plan out the week
• Build up a backlog of posts in Notion to choose from
• Try tools like Ordinal to help with scheduling
• Stick to the same posting time

6️⃣ Lead Capture

6 main ways you can capture leads:
• Track engagement [Trigify.io]
• Track profile views [Teamfluence]
• Lead magnet opt-ins [beehiiv]
• Download connections [LinkedIn]
• Website visits [RB2B]
• Direct bookings [Tally]

7️⃣ Enrich + Score

We funnel leads from these sources into Clay.

From there we:
• Enrich
• Score
• Sync to HubSpot
• Setup retargeting flows

8️⃣ Retargeting

We've primarily focused on two retargeting channels:
• Outbound
• Newsletter

Now we're investing in:
• Retargeting ads
• Email flows

Tools: Instantly.ai, HeyReach.io, Nooks, Customer.io, beehiiv

9️⃣ Dialed Sales Process

Fivos, Lorenzo and I all come from sales.
 
Since our sales motion is consultative, we spend a lot of time doing:
• Process breakdowns
• Business cases
• Live demos
• Custom offers

---

We work with GTM + AI founders to build out their Content OS.

DM me if you want to chat it through!

"People get lucky on LinkedIn." I disagree.

After posting 500+ times for ourselves + clients, we started obsessing about the small details that the best creators take into account.

- Post structure + line breaks
- Mobile optimization
- Packaging

I've always used "LinkedIn Post Preview" tools because LinkedIn's UI is very limited.

But each tool had their own drawback.

That's why we decided to over-engineer the best LinkedIn previewer ourselves, with every useful feature we could think of:


- Create a unique link for every post to send to friends for feedback.
- Fix line spacing when copy-pasting from external sources.
- Preview posts on exact app dimensions across all devices.
- Accurate preview of every visual asset type on LinkedIn.
- Embeddable anywhere e.g. Notion
- White + dark mode toggles.


Made it free for anyone to use with no log-in.

Comment "Preview" if you want to get the link.

"AI SDR" Artisan got banned on LinkedIn (incl. founders).

And I see a lot of GTM tools kicking them while they're down.

Promoting their own tools.

Now for the record, Artisan doesn't support the types of GTM motions I am interested in building. So I haven't used it.

And I'm also not saying they didn't deserve the ban if they were breaking LinkedIn TOS.

But quite frankly, I think many people harped on this because they were threatened by Artisan.

There is an emerging market for out-of-the box AI GTM tools/agents, and Artisan were one of the leading horses.

Controversial at times? Yes.

But as a business owner, it is your fiduciary duty to find methods of distribution.

Artisan took the path most B2B business are afraid to take.

And it paid off.

If you're in tech + B2B, LinkedIn is without a doubt the most important social channel.

Artisan isn't as big as Apollo.

This will be a huge hit.

Friendly reminder to diversify your GTM channels.

11.8k emails sent. 10.2% reply rate. 178 opportunities.

Still managing to find ways to cut through the noise.

---

When I first started doing automated outbound in 2023, the results were insane.

Most people were still sending manually.

And numbers like these were more common.

Nowadays, it's so much easier to get started.

But the bar to crushing it is higher than ever.

Today, 1 positive response: 333 contacts is a decent benchmark.

But we're not settling and continue to level up our game.

We found a winning strategy for this client using:
- Psychologically compelling copy + offer.
- AI personalization that made the emails sound human.
- Creative list building.
- Dialed deliverability.

Not every Instantly.ai campaign we run is a winner.

But your GTM alpha is out there.

Just have to find it.

Today we'll ship the 7th issue of "Workflows Weekly".

The concept of our newsletter is simple.

Every Friday:
- 1 Featured GTM workflow
- 1 AI tool to check out
- 1 GTM resource to read
- AI news of the week

2 min read with the option to go deeper.

Small initiative but very proud of how it turned out.

Took inspo from Tim Ferriss.

But with a twist for AI + GTM.

https://lnkd.in/esizPvCW

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