Jake Abrams

I help 7-9 figure DTC brands with revenue & CAC | I write The Process, a newsletter about modern growth marketing | Sold 100K+ personal cooling devices

Consumer Marketing & Growth Leader.  

Brands I've worked with:

Caraway
Jones Road Beauty
Skylight
Canopy
Insurify
Naked Wines
Rugiet
Sundays For Dogs
Momofuku
Sunday Lawn Care

100+ others

Book a discovery call in the featured section below 👇

Founder

The lean DTC growth marketing partner that I wish existed when I was an in-house marketing lead. 

At Odyssey, we help 7 & 8-figure DTC brands increase revenue & ROAS by finding the right combination of:

- Messaging
- Audience targeting
- Media channel allocation
- Creative

https://www.growodyssey.com/

Over the last 90 days, I built a brand from scratch: category research, product formula, name, brand design, packaging, and website.

I used AI for probably 85% of the process. 

But here's what nobody talks about: the other 15% required humans. And that 15% made all the difference.

So I documented the process, and I'm giving away the breakdown for free.

What's inside:
- How I used Claude as a thinking partner for category research
- The naming process (including 2 failed brand names)
- How I used AI to develop the actual product formula
- Where AI's "yes-man problem" almost killed me
- The top 1% designer conversation that changed everything
- Why I spent 30+ hours on packaging with AI and still needed a human to finish 
- How I used Nano Banana Pro to generate my product imagery
- Where I'm drawing the line on AI-generated content vs human content

Bonus: A usable framework for knowing when to push AI harder vs. when to bring in a top 1% human to help.

I've been in DTC marketing since 2017 and run a creative agency working with 50+ brands. This doc is everything I learned the last 90 days trying to build my own thing with AI as my primary collaborator.

Want the full 2123-word outline and 16-minute Loom video?

Like this post and comment "BUILD" and I'll send it over 👇

♻️ Like & repost if this would help someone in your network ♻️

Creative-led growth for 8-9 figure consumer brands | Writing about AI & advertising | Sold 100k+ personal cooling devices

My 81 favorite BFCM/holiday ads from the past few years. 

This is not another "inspiration board" with random creatives.

It's a curated Foreplay.co collection of ads that actually work during peak shopping season.

Here's what makes these different: 

→ Written for people actively shopping right now 
→ Designed for bottom-funnel audiences hunting for deals 
→ Built for comparison shoppers evaluating your product vs. competitors 
→ Crafted for buyers comparing your solution vs. failed alternatives

PROBLEM THIS SOLVES: 
Most brands don't realize that BFCM / holiday creative is a completely different category of advertising.

Your audience isn't browsing. They're hunting. They're comparing. They're ready to buy but need the right specific reason to choose you.

Meanwhile, many brands are running the same top-funnel creative they use year-round, wondering why it fails. 

WHY THIS IS CRITICAL: 
The next 35 days aren't really about awareness or consideration. Your audience is in active shopping mode.

They're not asking "Do I need this?" They're asking "Should I buy this one or the other one?" and "Is this actually a great deal?"

So I built a Foreplay board with 81 of my favorite ads. Including a bunch of formats you could make with footage you're already sitting on.

Want the Foreplay board link?

1. Comment "BLACKFRIDAY" below
2. Like this post
3. Make sure we're connected so I can send the link

P.S. I'm sending the link to anyone who comments by Friday

We're hiring for multiple creative strategist roles (junior through senior). 

Honestly it’s because our strategists keep landing incredible roles at amazing brands that they can’t turn down (I’m proud of them).

Our people have been hired by Athletic Greens, Gruns, and other best-in-class DTC brands. 

You're a good fit for this if:
- You have a feel for making TikTok's that get lots of views
- You can work across data, taste, and creation
- You believe the next winning ad is 1 deep insight away
- You're AI native & use it as a strategic / operational partner

What we offer: 
- 100% remote work
- Make ads for best-in-class brands & build an elite portfolio
- Cutting edge creative strategy: AI, elevated shoots, native content
- In-person team event in January in Miami
- Insane growth potential, we promote fast

Links in comments 👇

JSESSIONID

(58) High Scale: People | LinkedIn

li_at

Talks about #dtc, #careeradvice, #growthmarketing, and #digitalmarketing

Matthew McConaughey's 'private LLM' idea is actually what every creative strategist needs in 2026. 

The people who are making fun of him for it are totally missing the point.  

My agency ships 2000+ video ads / month across 40+ brands.

Broad AI creative strategy tools are a waste of time. All they do is make it faster to generate a higher volume of mediocre content. Nobody needs that. 

What CS's actually need are narrower context kits:

- AI trained on ads they actually won, and why they won
- AI with vision into their ad account data
- AI that analyzes that data like an expert performance marketer
- Agent that knows exactly how to analyze customer reviews
- Micropersonas specific to the brand they are writing for
- Voice, and messaging guidelines specific to brand they are writing for

So that when a CS asks "how do I improve this skincare ad," the answer is actually valuable and based on a competitive advantage specific to them / the company they work for. 

McConaughey gets it. He wants an AI that thinks like him, not like everyone.

That's what we need as creative strategists.

I've been playing with Octo the last few weeks, and they are seriously onto something within this category of AI tech.

Dropped the link to the tool in the comments.

Need to hire a freelance TikTok Shop / Affiliate strategist. 

You're a good fit for this if:

- You've grown multiple TikTok shops to over $100k a month
- You're an operational psychopath who enjoys wrangling hundreds of affiliates
- You have an innate feel for making viral TikTok content
- You can build an incentive structure that drives creator participation 
- You're AI native & use it as a strategic / operational partner

I don't care about resumes. Just send me a well-written DM with the names of 2-3 specific brands you've grown on TTS and the exact role you played in making the growth happen. I'll double check your work on Kalodata.

21 ways to find your next $100K spend ad:

1. Build an Airtable database that organizes all of your existing winners, making it easier to turn 1 win into 10 wins.

2. Use N8N + Apify to capture TikTok creators who are consistently hitting 100K+ views in your category, then scrape their email addresses to do outreach.

3. Set up Claude Desktop and use that as your primary writing zone, with all of your data flowing into projects that are specific to each part of the creative process. 

4. Mine Amazon reviews with AI agents to find the exact trigger events customers use before buying, then turn those into hook concepts.

5. Use Wispr Flow to voice-note analyze every ad that made you stop scrolling this week b/c your subconscious knows what works.

6. Make it a habit of writing down the specific creators that you see amazing partnership ads from, and have a $10/hour offshore person do systemic outreach.

7. Use Motion (Creative Analytics)'s Social Listening Agent to process 500+ customer reviews in 3 minutes and extract the psychological frameworks that drove purchase

8. Start your ads mid-moment. 

9. Analyze your top-performing ads with the Audience/Angle/Offer framework.

10. Put your best 4-5 creators on $1K-$5K monthly retainers instead of chasing new talent. Make it easier on yourself.

11. Use Octo to analyze groups of ads together, and automatically build storyboards for new ads to make based off of the undeniable proof in the ads that worked. 

12. Just launch your ads as partnership ads, stop playing Meta on hard mode. 

13. Use Adology.AI's "god view" to watch every signal related to your brand on the internet.

14. Use Arcads to make a comedic podcast related to your product, using Nano Banana to place your product onto one of the podcasters.

15. Actually allow a good thought to pop into your head, write it down, then talk through it with Wispr Flow into Claude.

16. Take something that's already a winner and do format multiplication: normal UGC becomes a staged moment, podcast version, street interview version.

17. Give open-ended briefs to strong up-and-coming TikTok creators via TikTok Shop affiliate program - let them run wild with commission-only structure and cash bonuses. 

18. Use Sora 2 Pro to generate beautiful cinematic b-roll that allows you to create brand new concepts with existing footage. 

19. Build an agent that analyzes your customer support tickets for recurring pain points, then creates creative concepts that address those specific objections.

20. Create a systematic workflow where you feed viral TikTok transcripts to Claude and have it help you do script re-writes that don't suck.

21. Start posting TikToks yourself. You'll learn the importance of writing incredibly specific caption hooks that break through.

TLDR:
- AI workflow = a competitive advantage 
- Human taste = your strategic filter 
- Outrageous operating speed = market domination

so we're all just ignoring the fact that...

1. you can have AI analyze the top 1% of content in your niche and extract the exact frameworks, hooks, and structures that actually get engagement.

2. you can voice-record your thoughts with Wispr Flow and have Claude turn them into polished LinkedIn posts, Twitter threads, and newsletter drafts.

3. you can upload a single piece of winning content to Claude and prompt it to take that same idea and put it into 8 different formats. 

4. you can have AI watch viral videos in your space and give you detailed breakdowns of why they worked, then help generate similar concepts for your own story and area of expertise.

5. you can feed AI your best-performing posts and have it generate 100 variations in your voice and style.

6. you can turn any industry report, podcast transcript, or article into 20 pieces of original content with your unique take.

7. you can create custom GPTs trained on your writing style.

8. you can generate post-ready thumbnails, graphics, and visual assets without touching Photoshop.

9. you can take one 60-minute conversation and have AI turn it into 2 week's worth of content: posts, threads, newsletters, video scripts.

10. you can have AI analyze your audience's comments and engagement to identify exactly what topics and formats resonate most.

11. you can rip the structures of high-performing creators (in your niche or not) and plug in your own ideas and perspectives

12. you can literally just pick up your phone, record a TikTok with your raw thoughts, and TikTok will basically just handle the editing and captions.

13. you can have AI scrape viral content in any category and automatically organize it into your Airtable database with full analysis of what made it work.

14. you can set up N8N workflows that automatically find trending topics in your space and generate content briefs before anyone else catches on.

15. you can have AI agents specialized for different content types: one for LinkedIn thought leadership, another for TikTok scripts, another for newsletter storytelling.

16. you can take any boring industry insight and have AI help you find the contrarian angle that gets people talking.

Now is the single greatest time in history to join the 5% of humans who actually create content, instead of mindlessly consuming it. 

What are you waiting for?

My $1.2M BFCM disaster nearly got me fired from an 8-figure brand. 

So I created a 103-item checklist to make sure it never happened again. Drop a comment on this post and I'll send you the entire checklist. 

Now back to the story....

I was so obsessed with our Black Friday email campaigns.

But I ignored the 3 flows that drive the bulk of BFCM revenue:
→ Welcome flow 
→ Cart abandonment 
→ Browse abandonment

Be honest with yourself: When's the last time you locked yourself in a room and made every single email within those 3 flows as strong as possible?

Omnisend data shows that:
- Email automations account for just 2% of email volume but drive 37% of email sales.
- 87% of automated orders come from just these 3 flows

Most brands haven't touched them in months.

Looking back, I was leaving a massive pile of on the table because I wasn't making optimizations likes these for BFCM:

- Making our Black Friday offer crystal clear ATF in every email
- Ensuring cart abandoners saw their exact products + our discount
- Adding urgency with clear deadlines to every flow
- Personalizing welcome sequences based on how people signed up

Inbox competition during BFCM is brutal.

The time you spend making every single email within these 3 flows perfect is so much more important than forcing your team to take another design pass at your campaigns.

Omnisend is great for DTC operators & agency owners b/c it makes it simple to nail these 3 flows:

- Email + SMS + push all working together
- Dynamic product recommendations that actually work
- $68 ROI for every $1 spent

Your BFCM campaigns will get opened once. Your automations work 24/7.

Focus aggressively on the 2% of volume that drives the bulk of your sales. 

---

👉 If you want to try Omnisend for 30% off for your first 3 months, check the link in the comments. 

---

And to grab my 103-Item BFCM Preparation Guide:

1. Comment "BFCM" below
2. Like this post
3. Make sure we're connected so I can send the link

P.S. I'm sending the link to anyone who comments by Monday

#Omnisendpartner

99% of creative strategists confuse looking busy with real insights:

→ They group ads from different channels together
→ They compare testing campaigns against proven winners
→ They set identical CPA targets across Meta / TikTok / YouTube

Because of this, the "analysis" ends up being meaningless.

They're comparing apples to oranges to bananas.

→ Conversion campaigns mixed with awareness campaigns
→ New channel performance held to mature channel standards
→ Creative tests evaluated against scaled winners

The result is bad decisions based on weird data.

"This ad failed" - no, it was a test in a testing campaign.
"TikTok doesn't work" - no, you expected Meta-level ROAS on day one.
"This format underperforms" - no, you compared video views to conversions.

To actually generate insights, evaluate creative within its own context:

1. Group by objective first. Conversion campaigns together. Video views together. Awareness together. Never mix them.

2. Separate testing from scaling. Your testing campaigns should have 10-25 ads where you're taking big swings. Don't compare those against your proven winners running at scale. Different purpose, different benchmarks.

3. Adjust expectations by channel. A new TikTok test won't hit your Meta ROAS targets immediately.

This is why a media buying foundation is so critical for creative strategy.

And why I'm willing to pay for tools like Motion, because it makes it simple for junior / mid-level CS's to build these segments with filters and actually evaluate the creative properly.

The strategists who understand this will always out-analyze the ones just making pretty decks.

P.S. Motion is hosting a 2026 Ad Creative Trends event in a few weeks. If you want to stay ahead of what's coming, link to register is in the comments.

How to survive and thrive as a DTC brand in the age of AI:

First off, ruthlessly copying what works is a strategy. I'm not going to pretend it doesn't work. AI makes it way, way easier. 

If a competitor's hook is crushing, study it. Rip it. See what happens. "Lift & Shift" can be a percentage of your creative output. 

But if 100% of your strategy is copying, you're screwed.

The brands I see actually breaking through right now aren't the ones who copy best. They're the ones who push past the baseline from a point of originality.

TikTok is the cultural tastemaker for the internet right now. The brands I constantly see in my TikTok feed aren't playing it safe.

Hismile. Underbrush. Hiyo. Pete's Pasta. Stan Store.

These companies aren't ignoring what works. They're paying attention to proven ad structures and formats, but injecting something unmistakably theirs. 

People can sense the difference. They can sense the difference between a brand with a genuine point of view and one that's trend hopping.

The AI age makes copying easier than ever. Which means it's easier for anyone to make content that is "competent."

But that means the gap between "competent" and "extraordinary" is widening every single day. 

Brands that win in 2026 will have a portfolio approach.

Don't make copying 100% of your strategy.

2026 will be the best time in history to be a Creative Generalist. 

Because AI makes it possible to get your vision to 85% done, and as long as you have the network to take it the remaining 15%, you are unstoppable.

Don't let anyone tell you that you need to "pick a lane."

The future belongs to the people who can see the big picture and make it become a reality insanely fast.

Built an AI owl podcaster in ~20 minutes with Arcads & Nano Banana Pro.

Used Nano Banana Pro to generate the owl + podcast setup:

“A wise owl sitting at a podcast table in a cozy moonlit library, warm ambient lighting, vintage microphone in front of the owl, owl wearing this exact black sleep mask, leather-bound books in background, intimate podcast studio setting, cinematic lighting with soft golden shadows, professional yet cozy atmosphere.”

Then I used the Sora 2 in Arcads to make the 8-second demo video. Provided the script and some subtle motion notes.

Is it ridiculous and unserious? Yeah, and that’s the point. 

This is the category of AI-produced content I’m actually excited about. You can think of a wild idea, and then make a demo in like 20 minutes. AI tools like Arcads remove so much of the friction.

Comment "PROCESS" and I'll send you the exact tool stack and step-by-step process I used to make this demo. 

---

P.S. Arcads is running a BFCM promo where you get 50% OFF all annual plans, so now’s a good time to sign up and try this workflow for yourself. Link in first comment. 

#ArcadsPartner

70% of your creative time should be spent on the first 3 seconds.

I always knew that the hook mattered. But after growing my own TikTok from 0 to 19.2K in a few months, feel like I have a different level of understanding now.  

The hook actually is EVERYTHING. 

And the hook is 3 related elements, all working together:

1. The written caption
2. The voiceover
3. The visual action

Most people are lazy and make the caption the same thing the person is saying. 

The best creative strategists connect all 3 elements to make something that people won't scroll past. 

Seeing our team pay attention to the details and put this into action makes me feel awesome.

1,358 people commented on a STOLEN viral post about AI Kobe Bryant.

I jumped in to offer my perspective, as someone who writes about AI every day but also worked in real sports marketing with pro athletes. 

I don't love dunking on people, but here's the problem I had with that viral post:

First off, the guy stole the content word-for-word from someone on Twitter. It's not his video. It's not his workflow. It's not even his hook.

Now onto the content itself (which wasn't even his):

Even if Kobe Bryant were still alive, there is a 0% chance Nike would ever make a consumer-facing ad like the one this guy posted (that he didn't even make himself). 

The video was useful as a prototype video, but if they were actually launching something like that it would probably tank their stock price.

The writing was AI slop, it made no sense.
The voice tried to sound like Kobe, but didn't.
AI Kobe was dribbling and dunking all weird. Super glitchy.
People hate the AI-ification of everything.

In reality, here's what would actually happen if Kobe was still alive:

Nike would organize a shoot with the real Kobe Bryant. 
It would cost a lot of money. 
The writing would have soul. 
He would dribble and dunk like Kobe, because it would actually be Kobe. 
He would sound like Kobe, too, b/c it would be his actual voice.

The AI process that the poster described is actually a massive unlock for the pre-production process. They could use the prototype video to pitch a campaign to Kobe. Way more powerful than a storyboard + 3rd party references.

But the real Kobe Bryant would HATE the video that he posted. The team responsible for it would be fired immediately.

So to me: when someone writes a post about text-to-video replacing consumer-facing Nike ads with real NBA stars is disingenuous.

I'm laughing tat my desk right now b/c there are so many layers to this latest LinkedIn grift:

AI Overhype + Stolen Content + "Fire Everyone" Hook

- Marketer & massive NBA fan

388k people have watched my TikTok about why a brand backed by the Paul Brothers, Mr. Beast, and other massive influencers is totally failing.

Here are the spark notes for why I believe the sales are so underwhelming:

1. If your positioning is wrong, nothing else matters. It's a shaky foundation. Better ads, more spend, bigger influencers...none of it will fix a broken core message.

2. Celebrity without trust doesn't worked like it used to work. People are smarter now, and they value authenticity over pure celebrity influence.

3. You can't do problem-based marketing when the problem is an insecurity nobody thinks they actually have.

Follow me on TikTok for more breakdowns like this. Link in comments.

Co-founder @Growth Today | Building scalable GTM systems that drive predictable pipeline | 🚀 growthtoday.com

If you are selling B2B these days...

Building a consistent, scalable and predictable qualified pipeline is really hard. 

You've probably tried:
❌ Increase activity — doesn’t yield better results
❌ Build templatized “team” sequences — didn’t work
❌ Adding more headcount — doesn’t scale linearly

These methods "work"...

But these are costing you a LOT and don’t let you experiment quickly and in a systematic way to learn what works, bake these back into your GTM, and refine your sales strategy…

especially in today’s economy, where fewer people buy from you, fast copycats steal your leads with a $29 one-time offer, and AI is completely changing the game.

That's why we help our customers unlock their own repeatable outbound system:

In the next 180 days, our team will help you to:
✅ Ensure emails reach the inbox
✅ Reach out to the right people
✅ Send personalized, relevant messages 
✅ Boost sales effectiveness
✅ Understand what works on your market, and what doesn’t to refine pipeline generation

More than 30+ scaling B2B companies like Active Campaign, Bigblue, and Aftersell trust us with building, fixing, or scaling their pipeline generation.

Our clients typically see measurable improvements within 3 months in their sales efficiency and their pipeline generation.

And once we fix the fundamentals, all you (or your sales team) will have to do is give us another sales play to run, iterate, and scale. 

Here’s what 2 of our customers had to say:

“I have done outbound for 10 years but it changed a lot, become a lot more technical. Jani helped to figure out the right structure, the right tools, and the right systems and I was able to focus on closing the business” - Elena, Head of Sales

“Jani’s systems helped us to book 3 qualified sales calls within the first week of launch. We're launching new campaigns on other markets right now" Theo, BD lead in UK

Want to unlock a systematic way to run, iterate, and scale to drive a qualified pipeline?

I’ll audit your target account lists, and sales copy and help you with what’s next: 
https://calendly.com/growth-today/intro-meeting
 
See you there!

Jani Vrancsik

I've read more than 25 sales books in 5 years.

(yes, I counted them 😅)

Most were... fine, but some changed everything

So I made a list of 10 books that made sense for me

Not because they had the perfect framework, but because each taught me something I could test the next day.

Swipe the carousel & save the ones that speak to you 👇

Drop your favorite one in the comments
 
P.S. What's the one sales book that helped you a lot?

10 Books Every Salesperson Should Know 

Spent 2 years learning these 16 rules so you don’t have to 

There is one truth about outbound messaging which is…

Most of us learn it the hard way

- We send hundreds of messages that go unanswered

- We change subject lines obsessively

- Add personalization and hope for the best

But the replies don't come.
 
So we assume outbound is dead, or our ICP is wrong, or worse? We're just bad at this.

But the fact is, we're just missing the fundamentals.

So here I am sharing these 16 simple messaging rules that helped me get the replies

Including things like …

→ keeping it conversational, not corporate 

→ leading with curiosity, not clickbait 

→ being human, not a sales robot

Save it, reference it and make it yours

and skip the 2 years of painful learning I had to do

Cold Calling As a Movie Characters

You can run outbound.

But can you build a system that actually scales?

Things like:

● Multi-channel outreach that doesn’t burn reps out

● Reading intent signals and striking at the right moment

● Personalizing without doubling the workload

Most teams aren’t set up for this yet — and honestly, that’s okay.

Outbound got a lot more complex in the last few years.

That’s why I put this together 👇

Outbound Survival Guide (2026 Edition)

A simple roadmap for anyone who wants to grow in outbound, whether you’re an SDR, AE, RevOps, or running the whole GTM motion.

Here’s what’s inside:

✅ 8 outbound mentors worth following

✅ 10 skills that actually matter in modern outbound

✅ Clear career progression across Entry → Mid → Senior → Specialized roles

I made this because I kept getting the same questions from SDRs, founders, and GTM leaders:

“What skills do I need next?”

“What does career growth even look like now?”

“Where do I start without drowning?”

If outbound is your lane this year, this guide will give you clarity, direction, and a head start.

Want the PDF?

● Comment GUIDE

● Or DM me — I’ll send it over

And if you want more of these breakdowns, follow Jani Vrancsik for GTM & outbound strategy (minus the fluff).

Co-founder @Growth Today | Building scalable GTM systems that drive predictable pipeline | 🚀 growthtoday.co

I just hit 8k followers here - let me (re)introduce myself

I'm Jani

Founder of Growth Today, Clay Studio Partner, marketer, seller, GTM engineer, all morphed into one

I started this agency after a career in a wide array of B2B SaaS roles - CS, marketing, partnerships.

Today, I lead a world class GTM engineer team of 10 folks, having built Growth Today into one of leading Clay & lead gen agencies globally.

What we do?
We help scaling B2B companies design and implement repeatable GTM systems.

Simpler? 
Create predictable, scalable outbound sales engines.

Still too much fluff?
We do cold email outreach, cold linkedin outreach, cold calling.

We’re not for everyone.

But if your business is ready to scale properly, with structures, systems instead random ideas that never go further than your whiteboard, you’ll probably like how we work.

What’s next for us?
• All in on Clay and GTM engineering
• Growing the team
• have fun

If any of this resonates, don’t hesitate to reach out so we can connect
Thanks for being here.

Our first 50 customers came from a $200/month sales stack, not the $2K one everyone recommends

Here are 14 tools that can help you close deals

1. Clay +  BuiltWith for targeting

2. ChatGPT + Lavender + Notion for messaging

3. Smartlead + Instantly + Gmail for outreach

4. HubSpot + Slack +  Clay for Follow ups

5. Sheets + Notion + Fellow.app for learning
 
You don't need expensive tools to sell

You need the right tools for each stage.

What's one tool you can't live without as a founder?

Repost ♻️ to help another founder sell smarter

Your GTM team isn't failing.

You're just running a pile of tools pretending to be a system 😬

Imagine you have the best CRM, the shiniest ABM platform, and a martech stack that costs more than your sales team's quota...

But if they don't talk to each other?

They are just expensive subscriptions

→ marketing running campaigns in one tool 

→ sales tracking outreach in another
 
→ CS managing accounts somewhere else 

And leadership? That’s stuck in spreadsheets, trying to connect the dots every Friday, 🤷

They don't have a GTM problem, but a system problem

But the good part is…

You don't need to rip everything out and start over

Start with one factor. 

Fix the integration between two tools, add visibility to one dashboard, and document one handoff process.

Small fixes create compounding progress

P.S. What's one thing in your GTM stack that frustrates you the most? drop it in the comments, let's talk about it 👇

Raise your hand if this sounds familiar ✋

→ You messaging the same prospect
 
→ Replies buried in random inboxes 

→ No idea what's actually working on LinkedIn

Ngl, lived that situation for months

Our LinkedIn outreach had potential, but zero structure until we fixed the infrastructure

We were treating LinkedIn like a side hustle → manual tabs with scattered workflows

But the moment we started treating it like a proper system, everything started clicking

Let me explain what changed for us:

We started using Aimfox to centralize everything:

✅ Leads flow from Clay → Aimfox → HubSpot (fully automated)

✅ Campaigns run safely across multiple profiles

✅ All replies land in one shared Unibox

We built a system where automation supports our team and everything runs safely.

That's when LinkedIn finally became a real GTM channel for us 🙌

Swipe the carousel to see how we did it

Hope it helps someone out there 😉

Linkedin Outreach Doesn't Scale Until You Fix The System

Inbound vs Outbound? 🤷

That's the wrong question

You should be asking, When do I use each?

Use Inbound when

• You want prospects coming to you

• You're playing the long game

• You want quality over quantity

Use Outbound when

• You need pipeline this quarter

• You know exactly who to target

• You want control over your numbers

The best setups I've seen do both

→ Post content on LinkedIn

→ Then reach out directly to people who engaged

Your inbound makes your outbound easier and your outbound proves what inbound topics work

Take them as teammates not enemies 😉

So what's your move, team inbound, team outbound, or team both?

Outbound has changed more in the last 5 years than in the previous 20.

remember when we used to pull cold lists and just... send? 😅

Then came the era of basic filters

Now we're talking intent signals, job changes, tech stack triggers.

And honestly, most of us are still figuring out where we even sit in all this 🤷

So here's what actually works now

1. If you are doing outbound like 2015… please stop

Send smart emails instead of sending more

2. Know when someone's hiring, when a company just raised funding, when tech stack changes signal budget.
3. Pick one signal that matters to your ICP and start there

One layer, test it, and then add the next.

Follow Jani for more outbound stuff ♻️

Your team spends 60% of their day on tasks AI could do in 60 seconds 😅

And no your SDRs aren’t lazy

They’re just stuck doing “outbound-adjacent” work all day

Stuff like:

→ Researching prospects one by one
→ Checking if emails will land in spam
→ Cleaning messy CRM data
→ Rewriting the same intro 47 different ways

And the actual conversations?

Those get squeezed into whatever time is left 🤷‍♂️

Here’s the part most teams miss:

AI isn’t here to replace your reps

it’s here to give them their time back.

So they can do the part that actually moves pipeline:

real conversations with people who want to buy.

We’ve been testing this across teams and the pattern is always the same:

AI handles the grunt work.

Your team handles the magic ✨

So I put together 8 smarter ways to use AI in outbound

from finding your real ICP → to spotting intent signals before competitors do

If your reps are drowning in manual work,

this is going to feel like oxygen.

Save this, it’ll make next week a lot easier 🙌

If your LinkedIn outreach feels disorganized… You need to read this.

Usually teams do not struggle with outreach itself, but how messy and unpredictable it becomes over time

Here are 3 simple ways to fix it 👇

1️⃣ Put all your conversations in one place.

A setup where everything lands in one clean inbox, even messages from the extra outreach profiles we use.

Aimfox’s Unibox does this really nicely, and it instantly makes things more under control.

2️⃣ Run one campaign, not five different ones.

When every rep runs their own version of outreach, duplicates happen.
What works way better is having one campaign that quietly spreads the outreach across multiple profiles in the background.

3️⃣ Talk to people who already showed interest.

This is the easiest one

And you don’t have to manually scrape anything, drop in a link in Aimfox and build a warm campaign in seconds.

Super handy on busy days.

• Clean the inbox.
• Clean the workflow.
• Target the right people.

And everything gets easier 

P.S. Aimfox’s Black Friday sale is ending soon, so hurry up and save up to 50% on their popular plans

You know what's better than closing a deal on the last day of Q4? Closing it on day 45 👀

But this is what usually happens instead:

Start of quarter: ‘’I'm building pipeline’’

Then…"Deals are progressing"

At the end of the quarter? Full panic mode, and don’t know what’s happening

Then you close the deal with 6 hours left in the quarter.

Everyone celebrates, you feel like a hero and the dopamine hits hard
But let's be honest here.

That prospect was probably ready to buy in the 2nd week. They were just waiting for urgency or a discount, or maybe both

Meanwhile, you spent weeks: 

→ Chasing leads that were never going to convert

→ Delaying follow ups

→ Avoiding the tough questions that would've revealed true buying intent

Here is the better way…

✅ Do your hardest prospecting in the starting weeks

✅ Qualify early, if it feels off in week 3, focus your efforts elsewhere

✅ Ask the hard questions upfront… budget, timeline, decision process

✅ Create urgency throughout the quarter, not just when your clock runs out

So, if you're in quarter end chaos mode right now… I see you. That adrenaline rush is real.

Just ask yourself, Is this sustainable?

Because next quarter starts in a few days, and the cycle repeats unless something changes.

Trade the fireworks for consistency. Your future self will thank you. 🙌

Most founders automate when they should be scaling
Storytime…

I was obsessed with automation and spent months building the perfect systems.

- Email sequences? automated

- Reporting? automated

- Follow-ups? automated 🤷

But the problem was… There was no change in the revenue

That's when I realized that I was optimizing for efficiency instead of growth 
Automation makes you faster at what you're already doing

But scaling is something different. You do new things that multiply impact
Makes sense, right?

So this is what I do now

step 1: Automate the repetitive stuff 

step 2: Use that freed-up capacity to actually scale

step 3: Automate your admin so you can focus on: 

→ landing bigger deals 

→ testing new customer segments 

→ building partnerships

We need to see what growth opportunity we are missing coz we are busy
Check that and you'll know where to focus 💪

The best GTM teams aren't using AI to write emails

They're using it to rewrite their entire playbook

Here's what I mean:

Most of us use AI for speed → write this email faster or summarize this call.

Which is cool, but we've been testing something different for months now

Instead of asking AI to work faster, we started asking it better questions

→ How do we know who to talk to, not just guess?
 
→ How do we stay relevant without burning out reps? 

→ How do we identify market shifts before our pipeline goes cold?

That modification changes everything

So here are the 3 AI workflows that actually work for us:

1️⃣ AI Lead & Account Scoring 

Your ICP learns from every deal, updates in real-time

2️⃣ Automated Sequencing & Cadence 

Multichannel outreach that adapts to behavior, not timers

3️⃣ AI Market & Customer Insights 

Tells you what to do next… launch here, pause that, or double down here

And honestly? The coolest part is that these get smarter over time

Every reply, every closed deal feeds back into the system

Your GTM motion upgrades constantly, not once a quarter in a strategy doc

Moral of the story?

AI won't replace your strategy, but it will show you where you're grinding manually for no reason...

AI isn’t ruining outbound.

Using AI without judgment is.

Here’s what we’ve been seeing 👇

Bad AI outbound looks like:

→ Scraping 10,000 contacts with zero filters

→ Sending the same sequence to everyone

→ AI-written LinkedIn requests that all sound identical

→ No real follow-up strategy

→ Same pitch across every industry

Good AI + human outbound looks like:

→ AI helps you find signals

→ You check if timing actually makes sense

→ AI drafts the structure

→ You add the one line that proves you looked

→ AI suggests follow-up timing

→ You decide what’s worth following up on

AI gives you speed and scale.

Humans give you judgment and relevance.

Let AI handle the boring stuff — research, data pulls, drafting.

Then do the part AI can’t:

think, edit, and decide whether it actually makes sense to send.

AI should save you 2 hours

so you can spend 20 minutes making the message feel like a real human wrote it.

Hope it helps someone out there 😉

These 5 books are not just good reads. They are fueling my next business moves.

Every single one has pushed me to build a sharper agency - one that actually helps clients grow, not just talk about it.

Here’s what has shaped my thinking (and systems):

1) Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey 

You learn how to do deep work while everything tries to distract you. It changed how I block time and protect my key tasks daily. No more split focus - strong output only.

2) Stand Out or Die by Gareth Healy 

The title says it all. When you sound like everyone else, clients forget you. This book showed me how important true positioning is (beyond taglines) - you become someone clients remember.

3) Build a Kick-Ass Advertising Agency by Alex M H Smith
 
The most practical blueprint I found for building teams that hit deadlines and produce real work. I use the ideas to keep my team motivated and our standards high - minus burnout.

4) Profit First by Mike Michalowicz 

Revenue looks good, but profit keeps the lights on. This book opened my eyes. Today, every project gets a clear margin check. No more “growth” that’s just busywork.

5) Traction by Gino Wickman 

You need structure, not chaos. I pull EOS ideas straight into Growth Today for tracking progress and holding every person accountable. It kills confusion and boosts results.

Every book gave me a real tool to use - not theory.

Here’s what I do now:

• Build habits for focused work
• Set clear, memorable positioning
• Run a team that delivers on time
• Check profit before chasing deals
• Create clear systems for scaling

If you’re running a business or leading a team, these reads are worth your time

Beautiful decks don't close deals… Let me explain

The most polished pitch decks rarely win

I’ve seen people spending hours perfecting animation and slide transitions 

Yes, they nail the design and get compliments on the visuals

But then, get complete silence

On the other hand, someone with a scrappy 8 slide deck closes the deal

Here’s the explanation 👇

The beautiful deck tries to impress
The winning deck tries to connect

One talks about features and milestones
The other starts with pain and outcomes

I’m sharing 5 biggest pitch deck misconceptions (and what to do instead)

Swipe the carousel to explore all of them

What's the best pitch deck you've seen? Or the worst?
Drop it below 👇

taplio

The Battle

Jake Abrams

Jani Vrancsik

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJake Abrams's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJani Vrancsik's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Jake Abrams

Jani Vrancsik

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jake Abrams's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJani Vrancsik's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJake Abrams's LinkedIn Performance