Let AI do the heavy lifting for your Revenue.

Most sales teams still operate like it's 2019: manual prospecting, messy CRMs, and reps spending 80% of their time on tasks that don't make deals.Meanwhile, winning companies have built something different.They've built GTM engines. Systems where AI handles the research, the enrichment, the cleaning, the scoring, and the routing, so their team focuses on what actually builds pipeline: conversations.That's what I do.I'm the founder of TC9, where we design and build AI-powered GTM engines for B2B companies. We connect the dots between your data, your CRM, and automate the 80% that shouldn't need a human.But my work doesn't stop at execution.In my content, you'll find: → How AI is reshaping the way companies sell→ Which strategies are working right now (and which are already obsolete)→ The systems, tools, and frameworks behind modern revenue teamsIf you're a founder, VP of Sales, or revenue leader trying to figure out what the next era of GTM looks like: you're in the right place.

Jérémy Grandillon

OpenClaw hit 100,000 GitHub stars in 3 weeks.
OpenAI just hired its creator to lead their AI agent division.

Here's why every GTM team should be paying attention.

OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent that runs 24/7 on your machine. 

It connects to WhatsApp, Slack, your CRM, your email. 
Anything.

It doesn't just answer questions. It executes tasks autonomously while you sleep.

It has persistent memory, a built-in scheduler, and anything to use your entire tool stack.

ChatGPT waits for you to open a tab. 
OpenClaw checks what needs doing, and does it.

Now think about what an SDR actually does all day.

→ Research a prospect: 10 min
→ Log info into HubSpot: 5 min
→ Write a personalized email: 10 min
→ Follow up on stale deals: 15 min
→ Repeat 30x

For every hour of selling, nearly two hours go to admin, research, and data entry.

OpenClaw can already scrape a company's website, pull LinkedIn data, summarize recent news, draft personalized outreach, update your CRM, and schedule follow-ups. 

All from a single message.

This isn't replacing SDRs. It's removing the 60% of the job that never required a human.

The reps who adopt this will outperform entire teams. 
The ones who ignore it will spend their days doing work a $20/month agent handles better and faster.

Honest caveat though: it's early. 

Security researchers flagged real concerns. 
Exposed instances, prompt injection risks, etc. 

Not enterprise-ready (yet).
But the trajectory is obvious.

We're 6 to 12 months from sending one message to an AI agent: "Build me a campaign targeting Series B fintech companies in Europe." 

And it researches the companies, finds the contacts, writes the sequences, schedules the sends, monitors replies, and books meetings.

The full SDR workflow. Automated. End to end.

Sam Altman said it himself: "The future is going to be extremely multi-agent."

I'm considering installing OpenClaw, connecting it to a real GTM stack, and putting it to the test. 

Would you be interested in such an experiment? 
Let me know in the comments! 🦞

Can OpenClaw replace Sales Teams

Claude Code is becoming inevitable.

But 90% of sales and marketing teams haven't touched it yet.

I spent weeks testing resources, courses, and repos to find what actually matters for revenue teams.

Here's the full list:

(Save this post. You'll come back to it!)

📖 Official Anthropic Resources

→ Claude Code Docs & Installation (the starting point)
🔗 https://lnkd.in/erW_rUrD

→ Claude Code GitHub (open-source repo, plugins, community contributions)
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eNS_huU6

→ Claude Code Best Practices (CLAUDE.md setup, custom commands, multi-instance workflows)
🔗 https://lnkd.in/e2w8tCAe

→ Context Engineering for AI Agents (why context structure matters more than the model)
🔗 https://lnkd.in/es5HWkH7

→ MCP (Model Context Protocol) (connect Claude Code to your CRM, enrichment tools, and data sources)
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eWaxd7PQ

→ Claude Code in Action (Free, official Anthropic course). Context management, custom commands, MCP servers, planning modes.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/ejb4sn2n

→ Claude Use Cases for Marketing & Sales
🔗 https://lnkd.in/e_ZebcAc

🎧 Watch & Listen

→ AI Engineer: Barry Zhang and Mahesh Murag from Anthropic
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eZN9uuGi

→ Greg Isenberg + Ras Mic: "The Most CLEAR Explanation of Claude Code"
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eqGgVT9c

🛠️ Repos, Skills & Tools

→ Anthropic Official Skills (69K+ stars). Docx, pptx, xlsx, PDF creation, and more.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eCpuP6HJ

→ Superpowers by obra (9K+ stars). Brainstorming, spec writing, TDD, subagent-driven development. Turns Claude Code into an autonomous engineering teammate.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eZib-p7F

→ Claude Code Guide by Cranot (2,360+ stars). Most complete community reference. Auto-updates every 2 days.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eQYiAVKu

→ Awesome Claude Code. The definitive community list. Slash commands, CLAUDE.md files, agents, skills, hooks, plugins.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eXzWUxgw

→ Skills.sh. 55,000+ installable skills. Search marketing-relevant ones like copywriting (12K+ installs), SEO audit (17K+), social content (7K+).
🔗 https://skills.sh/

→ AI Templates (aitmpl.com). 30+ pre-built Claude Code agents, skills, commands, hooks, and MCP configs.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eRgRPK_s

→ OneWave-AI Skills Collection. 100 production-ready skills for sales, business automation, content creation.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eam8FR9k

I'm already using Claude Code to build custom tools and workflows for GTM.

The GTM teams that learn this now will have a 12-month head start.

What's the first GTM workflow you'd build with Claude Code?

Most salespeople send one email and move on.

Lemlist analyzed hundreds of thousands of outbound emails on their platform.

The pattern is clear: multi-touch sequences consistently outperform single sends.

Not by a little. By a lot.

Here's what's actually happening when you follow up:

→ Your prospect gets 100+ emails a day. 
One email is invisible. Three emails make you exist.

→ Timing is random. 
Your first email lands during a board prep. Your third lands when they're actively looking for a solution.

→ Following up isn't "being pushy." 
It's removing friction. Most people don't ignore you because they're not interested. They ignore you because they forgot.

The reps I see booking the most meetings all have one thing in common.

They follow up more than their competitors.

Not with "just checking in" emails. With new angles, new value, new reasons to reply.

The fear of being annoying costs more pipeline than persistence ever will.

What's your follow-up sequence look like right now? 2 emails? 5? More?

4 Reasons Why You Need Follow-Up Emails

Most sales teams are chasing the latest AI feature.
Meanwhile, fundamentals are broken.

No tool will save you if you can't answer three questions:

→ How am I relevant to my targets?
→ How do I reach out at the right time?
→ Is my technical setup delivering my messages?

Everything in outbound reduces to these three variables.

The rest is execution.

And execution goes wrong when you stack 5-6 tools and lose yourself in complexity.

Or, you can focus on one good tool that covers it all.

I’ve been using lemlist for almost 10 years, and I consider it one of the best tools in the outbound stack.

Here's what makes it work:

→ Built-in lead database. 
When I define my ICP, I build the list directly inside the tool. No exporting CSVs. No enrichment subscriptions. Just one workflow.

→ Signal detection. 
Job changes, website visitors, LinkedIn activity. You know when the timing is right before you hit send.

→ AI features that make sense.
Automatically cleaning names, classifying leads in relevant buckets, company latest news. No AI for the sake of it, only what you’d have done anyway. 

→ Multi-channel sequences. 
Email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp. Deliverability monitoring, warm-up included, all channels in one workflow.

Get the strategy right first. 
Then pick the tool that matches your resources.

After that, you'll have plenty of time to evaluate the next shiny feature the lead gen bubble is selling you.

What does your current outbound stack look like?

Stop overcomplicating outbound - Fix the basics

8 years of cold email. Many things changed.

But 3 principles never moved.

I've sent millions of cold emails since 2018.

Open rates went from easy to earn to nearly impossible if you skip the fundamentals.

Here's what still works, no matter what Gmail or Outlook throw at you:

→ Targeting
If you're emailing anyone outside your ICP, you're burning domains for nothing. Tight lists convert. Broad lists destroy your sender reputation.

→ Infrastructure 
SPF, DKIM, DMARC, domain rotation, inbox warming. In 2018, I set this up manually. Today, it's too complex and too costly to DIY. 

I use Mailpool for all my email infrastructure. Domains, inboxes, spam checks, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and SFTP. All handled. No going back.

→ Messaging 
Landing in the primary inbox is step one. Getting a reply is what keeps you there. Low volume. No spammy words. Relevant copy only. Replies signal to Gmail that you're a legit sender.

Most teams fail at cold email because they skip straight to copywriting.

Copy doesn't matter if your emails land in spam.
Deliverability doesn't matter if you're emailing the wrong people.

The order matters: targeting → infrastructure → message.

Get these 3 right, and cold email still outperforms every other outbound channel in cost per meeting.

And I highly recommend using a trustworthy provider like Mailpool to handle your infrastructure!

Which of these 3 is the hardest to get right for your team?

3 key principles after 8 years of cold email

I used to be "the cold email guy."

For years, that was my identity. Automating prospecting. Optimizing deliverability. Building sequences that actually get replies.

I was good at it. But at some point, I started feeling stuck.

I was solving the same problems over and over. Open rates. Reply rates. Infrastructure fixes. The tactics kept evolving, but the scope stayed small.

I wasn't thinking about revenue. I was thinking about replies.

And I kept asking myself: is this it?

The companies I admired were doing more. They had marketing, RevOps, sales, and data teams all working toward the same goal. Every piece of the revenue engine was in place.

But here's what I noticed: those pieces weren't connected. They were running in parallel, not as a system.

Then 2023 happened.

AI. Clay. 

AI-powered enrichment. Intelligent automation. Suddenly the tools existed to do something new.

Not just automate prospecting. But connect everything.

Signals feeding scoring. Scoring feeding routing. Routing feeding outbound, ads, and nurture. One system. One data layer. Every motion working together.

That's when it clicked.

The winning companies had all the pieces. What they didn't have yet was the glue.

AI + automation wasn't just the next chapter of outbound. It was the way to connect what the best companies were already doing separately.

So I made a choice.

I stopped positioning myself as an outbound specialist and started thinking like an engineer.

Not just "how do I send better emails?"
But "how do I build a revenue system where every piece compounds?"

→ I started mapping 100+ buying signals
→ I connected outbound, marekting, and CRM
→ I built scoring models that route leads automatically

Most importantly, I stopped thinking in campaigns and started thinking in systems.

Cold email is still in the playbook. But it's one play in a system of 75.

The real game is GTM Engineering. Building the glue that makes revenue engines work.

If you're feeling stuck in one skill, one channel, one identity, maybe it's time to zoom out.

The best version of your work might be bigger than what you're known for today.

What skill are you evolving beyond right now?

The SDR role isn't dying. 
It's being redesigned.

Humans doing robot work was never the play.

Sales is hard. I've lived it for years. 
But hard doesn't have to mean miserable.

And your growth doesn't have to suffer either.

The GTM Engine changes everything. 
I've seen it firsthand.

Here's what a day in the life of an SDR should look like in 2026:

𝟵:𝟬𝟬 𝗔𝗠 
❌ 12 open tabs. Manual scraping. Copy-paste chaos. 
✅ You log in. Warm leads are already waiting.

𝟭𝟬:𝟯𝟬 𝗔𝗠 
❌ LinkedIn + Google detective work. 
✅ Intent data is enriched, scored, and sorted for you.

𝟭:𝟬𝟬 𝗣𝗠 
❌ Staring at a blank screen, writing cold emails from zero. 
✅ Smart outreach is drafted. You refine. You don't rebuild.

𝟯:𝟬𝟬 𝗣𝗠 
❌ Manual follow-ups falling through the cracks. 
✅ Behavior-based triggers handle it. CRM stays clean.

𝟱:𝟯𝟬 𝗣𝗠 
❌ 40 touchpoints. 1 decent conversation. Soul-crushing. 
✅ Fewer hours. Better conversations. Real momentum.

Same title on the business card. 
Completely different reality behind it.

AI isn't here to replace SDRs. 
It's here to cut through the noise that was burning them out.

♻️ Reshare if this resonates. 
➕ Follow Jérémy Grandillon for more!

SDR Life Before VS After Automation

SDRs don't fail because of effort.
They fail because of infrastructure.

Most SDR teams spend 80% of their time on research, CRM updates, and admin.

The top-performing ones spend 80% on conversations and strategy.

Here's what separates them:

→ Lead research: 
Manual tab-switching vs. automated enrichment through Clay or Builtwith.

→ Personalization: 
Writing every email from scratch vs. AI-generated messaging based on intent signals.

→ CRM hygiene: 
Repetitive manual updates vs. auto-synced workflows in HubSpot or Salesforce.

→ Targeting: 
Static lists with zero context vs. signal-qualified prospects scored by job changes, funding rounds, tech installs.

→ Onboarding: 
Weeks of shadowing vs. prebuilt sequences and playbooks ready on day one.

The SDR role isn't dying.

But the SDR operating system is being completely rebuilt.

What's the one manual task your SDRs still waste the most time on?

I just made our entire GTM Engineering Playbook free. 20+ pages. 300+ operational assets. 

Everything we use to build signal-based revenue engines for B2B companies.

After 8+ years in Sales, Marketing, and RevOps, every framework, scoring model, database, and workflow we run lives inside this playbook.

We use it to:
→ Define TAMs and qualify accounts at scale 
→ Detect 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party buying signals
→ Score and route leads to the right channel
→ Launch outbound plays triggered by real-time signals
→ Build entire GTM motions from audit to full speed

102 signals. 75 plays. 9 workflows. 300+ ready-to-use assets.

Here’s what’s inside:

1️⃣ Signal Detection

102 intent signals mapped to source, strength, and response window
82 scraper triggers for automated signal capture via Apify and Phantombuster
3-layer signal taxonomy: 1st party, 2nd party, 3rd party

2️⃣ Lead Scoring & Routing

Dual-axis scoring framework: Account Score + Lead Score on a 1-10 scale
Lead Treatment Matrix that routes leads to 6 outreach channels automatically
6 AI qualification prompts with JSON scoring rubrics ready for Clay

3️⃣ Outbound Execution

75 ready-to-execute outbound plays organized by funnel stage and effort level
6 day-by-day cadence templates with message frameworks and benchmarks
Complete cold email infrastructure guide: domains, DNS, warm-up, deliverability

4️⃣ Automation & Implementation

9 end-to-end automation workflows with trigger logic and routing rules
90-day implementation roadmap: from discovery to fully operational in 12 weeks
ROI calculator with formulas, benchmarks, and leadership-ready reporting

I know, that's a lot. 

Every piece compounds. 
Your signals feed your scoring. 
Your scoring feeds your routing. 
Your routing feeds your outbound. 
Your analytics extract what converts and feed it all back.

And the good news is that we'll keep updating it as we experiment new plays.

(Claude Code is coming). 

This is the exact methodology we deliver to clients. Now it’s free.

→ Connect with me
→ Comment “GTM”

I’ll send it straight to your DMs.

The SDR role isn't disappearing. It's splitting in two.

One path leads to GTM Engineering.
The other leads to burnout.

Most SDR teams still run the old playbook.
Manual lead research. Static sequences. Activity metrics.
Hours spent on data entry instead of selling.

That model is collapsing.

The teams winning right now look completely different.

→ They use Clay to enrich leads from 10+ sources automatically.

→ CRM updates itself through HubSpot workflows and system triggers.

→ Outreach adapts in real time based on intent signals, not arbitrary cadences.

→ Follow-ups run on autopilot until human judgment is actually needed.

One GTM Engineer replaces the chaos of 7 disconnected tools with a single orchestrated system.

The shift isn't AI replacing SDRs.

It's AI removing everything that was never selling in the first place.

Lead research. Data entry. Sequence management. Activity logging.

That was 70% of an SDR's week. Now it's zero.

What's left is the work that actually moves pipeline.
Strategic conversations. Pattern recognition. Creative problem-solving.

The SDRs who adapt become the most valuable people on the revenue team.

The ones who don't get outpaced by a Clay table and 3 Zapier automations.

What's the first part of your outbound workflow you'd hand off to automation tomorrow?

Clay just launched Ads. 
And most people will miss why this matters.

Here's the short version: 

You can now build ad audiences directly from your CRM data and buying signals, then sync them to LinkedIn, Meta, and Google ads.

Same enrichment engine that powers your outbound. Now powering your paid media.

Let me break down the workflow:

→ Pull a high-intent list from your CRM
Not a generic audience. Your actual pipeline. Your actual target accounts.

→ Layer Clay's enrichment on top
Job changes, funding rounds, tech stack signals, website visits. The same data you already use for outbound.

→ Clay enriches contacts 
Emails and identifiers to maximize match rates. They're claiming up to 95% on LinkedIn and 65% on Meta. Way above standard CRM-to-ads sync.

→ Push those audiences directly to LinkedIn, Meta, or Google. One sync. No CSV exports. No manual uploads.

But here's where it gets interesting.

You can target the exact accounts your sales team is working. Not lookalikes. The actual people.

You can exclude customers, employees, and out-of-ICP contacts dynamically.

You can shift budget based on live intent signals. 
Tier 1 accounts on your pricing page: they see your ads first.

This is CRM-powered precision advertising built on the same engine that runs your outbound.

And this is exactly why I keep saying GTM Engineering is not just about sales automation.

The same data layer that powers your lead scoring, your sequences, your CRM hygiene now also powers your ad targeting. 

Same signals. Same enrichment. Same logic. Applied across channels.

When your sales team works 200 high-intent accounts and your marketing team runs ads to a completely different audience, you're burning money. 
Clay Ads makes those two motions run on the same data for the first time.

For teams that already have GTM automation in place, this is an immediate multiplier. You're extending your existing system into a new channel with zero additional data work.

For teams that don't... the gap just got wider.

Clay keeps shipping features that prove the same thesis: GTM is a system, not a set of disconnected tools.

What channel would you connect to your CRM data first if match rates were actually reliable?

If you're still sending cold emails from 2-3 inboxes in 2026, you're landing in spam.

Spam filters got brutal last year.

Blasting hundreds of emails from a single domain gets you flagged in days.

The fix is to scale horizontally.
More domains. More inboxes. Lower volume per inbox.

But setting this up manually through Gmail or Outlook is expensive, slow, and a technical mess.

You don't want to deal with SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and all the funky letters on your own.

That's why I use Mailpool for my clients and my own outbound.

Here's the setup in 3 steps:

→ Connect your domains (or buy them directly). 
DNS setup is guided. No more guessing which TXT record goes where.

→ Spin up inboxes across Gmail, Outlook, and SMTP. 
Mix providers for better deliverability and keep volume low per inbox. 
This is what actually keeps you out of spam.

→ Plug into your favorite outreach tool. 
Mailpool connects with most cold email platforms, so you don't rebuild your workflow from scratch.

The whole thing takes minutes, not days.

The difference between a clean infrastructure and a messy one is the difference between 40% open rates and landing in junk.

I've been in the cold email game for years, and I'm glad I found a provider I can trust. 

I definitely recommend checking out Mailpool for the best infrastructure!

Your CRM is quietly draining your pipeline.

Not because the tool is broken.
Because nobody owns what's inside it.

I've audited dozens of CRMs. The pattern is always the same.

→ 30-40 of contacts have no valid email.
Enrichment ran once, 18 months ago. Never again.

→ Lead routing is based on fields nobody updates.
Reps get assigned accounts they've never touched. Territories overlap. Deals fall through the cracks.

→ Duplicates everywhere.
Same company, 4 records, 3 owners, zero accountability.
The "source of truth" is a source of confusion.

→ Pipeline reviews built on stale data.
Forecasts are fiction. Leadership makes decisions based on numbers that were wrong weeks ago.

The real cost isn't inefficiency.
It's the deals your team never even sees.

A dirty CRM doesn't just slow you down. It makes automation impossible.

You can't build AI workflows, lead scoring, or signal-based outreach on top of garbage data.

The companies shipping real GTM automation right now all started the same way.

They fixed the foundation first.

What's the first thing you'd clean up in your CRM if you had a full week to dedicate to it?

Pushy selling is the fastest way to kill pipeline.

I've seen outbound teams burn through hundreds leads a month with zero results.

Not because the leads were bad.
Because every touchpoint screamed "BUY NOW."

Buyers don't respond to pressure. They respond to psychology.

Here's what actually moves deals forward:

→ Reciprocity 
Give before you ask. Share a relevant benchmark, a teardown, a custom insight. Our best-converting sequences all start with value, never a pitch.

→ Social proof 
"We helped 40+ B2B SaaS companies cut cost-per-meeting by 60%" hits harder than "we're the best at outbound." Peer wins beat promises every time.

→ Loss aversion 
Quantify the cost of doing nothing. "You're spending €18K/month on SDRs generating 12 meetings" is more powerful than any feature list.

→ Micro-commitments 
Don't ask for a 30-min call on the first touch. Ask for a reaction. A reply. A small yes that opens the door to a bigger one.

→ Authority
Credentials and case studies close more than objection-handling scripts. Be the advisor buyers trust, not the seller they avoid.

→ Emotional anchoring 
Start with their goal, not your product. Tie the solution to where they want to be before you address what's broken.

Most outbound fails because it leads with pressure instead of trust.

Trust, logic, and emotion close deals. 

Sequences built on psychology outperform brute-force volume every single time.

What's the one psychological trigger that works best in your outbound sequences?

Most sales teams are still hiring their way out of problems.

More SDRs. More seats. More fixed costs.
Then wondering why margins shrink and turnover spikes.

Here's what the shift actually looks like:

The legacy playbook:
→ 12-month contracts on tools nobody fully uses.
→ 15 SDRs grinding 200 calls/day against outdated lists.
→ 40% annual turnover. Constant ramp cycles.

The modern playbook:
→ 1-2 GTM Engineers replacing entire outbound teams.
→ Pay-as-you-go stack: Clay, enrichment APIs.
→ Automated lead scoring, routing, and sequencing.
→ Pipeline grows. Headcount doesn't.

The difference isn't "working smarter."
It's architectural.

One model scales with people.
The other scales with systems.

I've seen teams cut outbound costs by 60% while tripling qualified meetings. Not by optimizing scripts. By rebuilding the engine underneath.

The companies pulling ahead right now aren't the ones with the biggest sales floors.
They're the ones where a single GTM engineer runs what used to take a team of 10.

What's the first thing you'd replace with automation in your outbound stack?

The best automation in the world is worthless if your CRM is dirty.

You can have the best Clay workflow.
The best HubSpot scoring model.
The best outbound sequence.

If the data feeding it is wrong, the whole system loses its impact.

Same thing with AI.

A perfect prompt with garbage context gives you garbage output.
An agent connected to an unenriched CRM is an agent spinning its wheels.

The real lever isn't the tool.
It's the quality of what feeds it.

→ Data enriched in near real-time
→ Standardized fields
→ Duplicates eliminated
→ Routing built on reliable information

When all of that is clean, every layer you add (workflow, agent, scoring) runs at full power.

Otherwise, you're stacking tools on broken foundations.

What's the first field in your CRM you'd clean up?

Certified Clay Expert & Agency owner | I'll help you build a scalable outbound engine that gets meetings booked on autopilot in the next 180 days | Visit Youtube: @growth-today to see how

Growth shouldn’t feel random.

Most of the B2B companies hit the same walls:
Inbound leads that don’t convert

Outbound that burns reps out without results

Partnerships that look good on paper but never drive pipeline

A CRM full of noise instead of reliable data


I’ve seen it across founders, sales leaders, and marketing teams. The problem isn’t effort, it’s the lack of a repeatable, scalable GTM system.
That’s what we build at Growth Today.

Instead of disconnected tools or random campaigns, we design and implement repeatable GTM engines across sales, marketing, and partnerships that…

✅ Enrich and qualify data
✅ Activate inbound leads into real opportunities
✅ Automate outbound prospecting
✅ Keep CRMs clean and reliable
✅ Orchestrate multi-channel campaigns
✅ Make BDR teams more effective or fully replace them
✅ Align marketing + partnerships with sales for compounding growth

Recent wins:

 → Built a clean, automated CRM that doubled conversion rates
 → Launched a content-driven demand gen engine that 3x’d inbound lead quality
 → Systematized partner outreach → pipeline from alliances grew 40% in 6 months

Growth doesn’t come from more outreach or more tools.
It comes from building the right system once and scaling it.
If you’re a B2B founder or revenue leader serious about building predictable pipeline, let’s connect.

Book your call: https://calendly.com/growth-today/intro-meeting

Brigitta Ruha

Efficiency is part of building any company. I get it.

But the problem starts when GTM spend goes down… and revenue expectations go up.

Being disciplined about CAC makes sense. But reducing spend removes the crucial part of building, scaling GTM - all the reach, experimentation, and ultimately - staying visible on the market ✌️

all of which eventually influence the CAC, the efficiency….

Predictable pipeline usually sits on top of a lot of unglamorous work:

- Ongoing testing
- Consistent market presence
- Regular feedback from the team, customers, and prospects

When those inputs shrink because we cut down on costs on revneue team, the impact doesn’t always show up immediately. It shows up a quarter later (fewer deals, thinner pipelines, longer sales cycles, etc)

Revenue rarely grows when the effort behind it shrinks. Reducing costs can absolutely work

but only if the system itself is improved, not just scaled back

P.S. How do you balance cost discipline with maintaining momentum?

Co-Founder@Growth Today | We Build Repeatable GTM Engines Across Sales, Marketing & Partnerships 🚀

Before you spin up another outbound campaign this quarter, please:

Do not start by writing new copy.

You’ll end up polishing something that was never the real issue. I promise you.

It’s completely normal to see outbound look like this:

• Emails going out every day
• Activity numbers looking healthy
• A few replies trickling in
• But pipeline still questionable

Some weeks look promising. Others not.

If you’re about to reset outbound (or you’ve been tweaking campaigns but nothing really moved the needle), here’s a simple 7-day reset we use:

Day 1 – Fix the list
Day 2 – Fix deliverability
Day 3 – Fix the offer
Day 4 – Fix the CTA
Day 5 – Fix personalization
Day 6 – Fix sequencing
Day 7 – Fix measurement

(my design team put together this image)

Track these automatically:

Inbox rate (did your email land in the inbox?)
Reply rate + positive reply rate (was your message relevant to them?
Meetings per 1,000 sends (was your follow up timely enough to book them?)

Yes, you want more meetings. But consistency usually comes from fine-tuning the fundamentals

& outbound has a LOT of those levers so first, take a look all these levers.

if i were you: I’d update the offer first!

How can I be SO irresistibly helpful to my prospect?

→provide that value in the email : ) & that can be anything from an audit to checklist to a designer bad

hit the 🔔 on my profile if you want more actionable, no fluff, BS tips like this

best decision in 2025: stopped trying to sound like everyone else.

"Cold emails are all the same."... I lost count of the times I heard someone say this.

not because outbound is broken. 😄

but because everyone is writing from the same invisible rulebook:

- sound professional
- follow the template
- don't say too much
- don't say too little either

I did that too.

signal-based hooks. the 3W frameworks. "best practice" sequences.

results:

- decent reply rates
- sometimes w low energy conversations
- leads that never really felt aligned to how we work/what we're selling

the shift happened when I stopped optimizing for perfect and started writing in my actual voice:

👉 my story, how I'm different + radical transparency

suddenly, copywriting felt SOO much easier.

I got way more responses (I actually had to pause the sequence during our GT offsite in ✨ Bali ✨ because the team couldn't keep up with replies)

because I played a little bit differently. in my own way. ✨

turns out, a lot of “outbound hate” is just fear.

(because telling other people how to do it is always easier than doing it 😉)

Fear of standing out.
Fear of sounding different.
Fear of being rejected as yourself.

Cold email copy doesn’t need more tricks.

It needs more honesty. and YOU.

What helped me:

1️⃣ I write to my favorite prospect: I picture one person who could be my ideal client, writing email copy in the same words and tone of voice as I'd talk to them.

2️⃣ I say what I actually believe about what we can and can't do: we're not good for everybody. We also cannot help everybody, & I try to be super transparent about what is realistic or not.

if it resonates and expectations are set right, engaging people who share the same mindset is totally worth it.

(plus I don't need to deal with unrealistic "10X my sales overnight" situations, which anyone who ever achieved anything in sales or marketing would know is BS)

3️⃣ I use AI to amplify my thinking: what to say, how to reach out, when to follow up (although, thanks to HubSpot, lemlist, and our fancy Make automations, I couldn't realistically forget anyway…)

so I'll never be "cold email guru number 3847".

⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ my team at Growth Today also tries to be as authentic with our customers' copies as we can be.

We're big fans of using ChatGPT to translate product bullshit into something tangible, short and sweet, while keeping the best practices from the space that we believe in. ✨

but sometimes, you just gotta play the game a bit differently…

would love to hear how you describe your cold email copy/different methods you use right now. ;)

Co-Founder @Growth Today | We Build Repeatable GTM Engines Across Sales, Marketing & Partnerships 🚀

We've ALL made every GTM mistake in the book

I’m sure you noticed it is never about the tech itself 

it's getting people actually to use them 

And we learned this the hard way… 

→ change management matters more than the system itself 
→ not everything needs to be automated 
→ bad data is way more expensive than you think 
→ outbound without relevance is just noise 
→ partnerships need as much system as the sales team (this team is often swept under the rug)

.. a few tips that can go a long way 👐

DM me if your team needs some expert guidance, hands-on execution

5 THINGS WE WISH WE KNEW

Woah, this is happening right now.

Clay is officially here in London 🎡 !

I remember 2023 when I first spoke to Varun Anand.

I felt !! FINALLY !! a tool built for growth.

for Growth teams.

for high-growth companies

Who are all SOO keen to use the data, but what if more business ppl could use it instead of just relying on techy guys from sales engineering backgrounds?

Suuuupperr excited to be here at Clay’s EU/London office and Europe.

& grab some ☕ with Jani Vrancsik Tyler Swanson, Ziqi Deng, Juan Ravagli, and Michael Vitak

We’ve been experimenting with AI in our GTM systems recently 👀

There are 3 different scenarios when you want to build autonomous systems:

chat w ChatGPT or Claude (e.g.: threads)
autonomous workflow (i.e Hubspot or agentic workflow)
ai agent that executes something very specific end-to-end

Let’s say you want to schedule a quarterly check-in with a client.

The first version looks something like this:

1. Assistive setup

So you open the CRM. Check your calendar. Ask ChatGPT to draft the email. Edit a line or two. Send it. AI helped you write it.

2. Automation-based

Now the system does most of it. After 90 days, the workflow runs. It checks the calendar. Writes the draft. Sends the email. Simple. Less work for the team. But it still follows a script. If something unusual happens, it doesn’t adapt. Your ops team needs to debug and fix it.

3. Autonomous Agents

Instead of telling the system, “Send the email.” You just provide the overall goal: “Alert if a customer stopped leveraging the product.”

It watches how the client is using the product using the data from your Snowflake/AWS database. Notices when something looks off. Sends a follow-up to prevent churn. Flags the account for potential churn if the Account is customer Success managed. Provides a summary for the CSM to prepare the conversation. Now the system isn’t just completing a task. It’s working toward an outcome.

& that’s a very different thing!

im gonna share our agentic agents as well, we build internally across sales and marketing ✌️
Where are you experimenting right now? 👇

I was thinking about this over coffee this morning ☕

Most GTM teams don’t struggle with ideas anymore.

The playbooks exist.

Targeting logic is solid.

Sequencing frameworks are mapped out nicely.

The weak point is the execution and/or strategy layer.

Most stacks today are deeply connected: CRM, enrichment, ads, content systems, sales tools.

Everything talks to everything. But connected doesn’t mean autonomous.

Someone still has to write an email
Someone still has to decide when a workflow should run.
Someone still has to follow up and follow through.

That’s where things get fragile.

I’ve been testing FlashLabs SuperAgent recently because I wanted to see what happens when that decision layer is automated.

What works here isn’t that it writes emails. (Plenty of tools do that.)

It monitors public and social signals, understands curiosity vs. buying intent, and then triggers predefined GTM playbooks 👀

Which means:

– detecting early evaluation signals
– launching the right outreach sequence
– generating landing pages or ad variants
– updating CRM fields
– preparing follow-ups using meeting intelligence

End-to-end. Without someone babysitting the workflow. (or the team)

& it won’t be 100% pixel perfect

But it does get the job 80% of the time

which is AWESOME

Because if you do 80% best version out of yourself/system

You can buy back SOO much time

With consistency, which will give you a * huge * compounding result over time

This is like the early versions of an autonomous GTM layer.

Still experimenting with it. ✌️

But if you’re a GTM leader thinking about how execution scales

…not just how strategy looks on slides, FlashLabs SuperAgent is worth checking

Link pinned in the comment 👇

random question ☕️

When was the last time you actually trusted EVERY (or any?) field in your CRM? 😅

Not in theory.

But like… truly trusted it.

When you go to the CRM, you start to notice these small things piling upppp 👀

- Titles slightly outdated.
- Mobile numbers missing.
- Company names that don't even exist anymore (rebranded, acquired)

& that’s enough friction to slow things down. 

So instead of planning another BIG CRM sprint, we connected prospeo.io to auto-enrich all companies and contacts directly inside the CRM.

Now, when a new contact comes in:

- Default fields get filled out
- Email address is verified through multiple providers
- Details are refreshed when the person gets promoted, moves to a new employer

(Automatically.)

we still review things occasionally

we still care about governance (LeanData is great for auto-de-duping companies/contact btw!)

but we’re not exporting CSVs back and forth anymore. 🙃

It’s just… CLEANER + EASIER + MORE MANAGEABLE by default.

& saves a lot of time w/o second-guessing the data all the time.

CC’ing Matthew Putnam you can reach out to him in DM directly if you need more 👀

I ran my first outbound campaign 6 years ago. Drove 75 demos/mo for 2 E-Commerce SaaS as their growth leader, and then my cold email agency from 0 to $2M+ ARR. Here are 7 things I wish I knew before starting:

(1) Truly nail down your lead list

Sending your outreach messages to the right person matters more than anything else:

→ Precisely figure out what problem you're solving.
→ Find companies struggling with this problem.
→ Identify relevant individuals in these orgs.

(2) Give as much value as you can

You’re stepping into someone’s inbox uninvited.
& the fastest way to earn attention is to be USEFUL.

Give give give > ask

A simple approach:

→ Identify their problem
→ Share one practical solution for free
→ Do this as many times as you can on all channels where you are.

(Think through: why are you reading this LinkedIn post, right? EXACTLY!)

(3) Pick only one prospect and write for him/her

Many people try to write for 500k+ people.
Start with one instead.

Pick one prospect you’d genuinely want to work with.
& write as if they’re the only person receiving that email.

Then do the opposite:

→ Find 20 similar personas
→ Find similarities in their challenges, org size/org challenges
→ Then automate all these at a bigger scale

(4) Take care of the deliverability

Good deliverability doesn't guarantee your campaigns will succeed. But...

Bad deliverability guarantees your campaigns will fail.

Make sure to...

→ Send a few emails per mailbox (< 20 per day)
→ Set up MX, DMARK, SPF, DKIM records.
→ Disable open tracking.
→ Warm up mailboxes (bare minimum 14 days)
→ Weekly run inbox placement tests
→ Daily run domain blacklists checks

(5) Take the extra mile!! 

Any GTM channel is somewhat hard to crack. The same goes for cold email.

Make sure to go above and beyond when reaching out to your prospects:

→ Look at triggers, signals, current events, org. charts.

→ Reference insights from the job descriptions.

→ Don't stop at 1-2 email variations. At Growth Today, we frontload 8 variations

(6) Complement cold email with other GTM channels

Cold email is my favorite channel because it's cheaper to get started, and you can find what works a lot faster than with any other channel.

But it works even better with other channels.

→ Run ads to the same people you're cold emailing. warm them up! ♨️

→ Make great, authentic, and genuinely useful content and use email and LinkedIn to distribute it

→ Use cold emails to distribute valuable lead magnets.

(7) Don’t just use technology, leverage it to SYSTEMIZE

→ Have a look at growthtoday.co/sales-tools (or my fav one: our blog posts that include copy-pastable email templates)

→ Do a few tests manually to see what is the most interesting angle on the market to pitch your prospects.

→ Before hiring more people, ask: “Could I achieve the same with technology?”

→ Before doing more, ask: “Could I build a repeatable, scalable SOP or system instead of me doing this again and again?”

7 TIPS TO GENERATE MEETINGS WITH COLD EMAIL

“I think we’re losing more deals to bad data than bad messaging.”

If that is true,

I can feel you!

The usual process of getting good and accurate data somewhat requires this:

- One tool to find them.
- Another to verify.
- Another tool to find more because the previous ones didn’t find enough
- Export. Upload. Repeat.

It works, but unnecessary very tedious.

& never really knew which source actually found the valid email.

This is what I like most about BetterContact:

Instead of: “Let’s try provider A first…”

1- its email waterfall runs automatically
2-  through 20+ providers 
3- at scale, through the API (through Clay, or your CRM, AWS/DB) so you don’t need to import/exports

If one doesn’t return a valid email → it moves to the next. If it fails verification → it keeps going. Until it finds something actually usable. & you’re only charged IF the email address is actually found and valid.

If you’d like to save time on using 5+ different tools with 3 CSVs whenever you need an email, def try out BetterContact. ✌️

It’ll save you SO MUCH time.

p.s. how are you running enrichment right now?

4 things I did because I trusted my gut (not the people around me)

1-Started building programmatic prospecting in 2020 (way before Clay was cool)

No one understood why I'd struggle with no-code tools and Python when you could "just hire BDRs

After doing it full-time at a company and through consulting, when Clay popped up on my feed, I felt like I could create something different to help more people succeed with outbound.

Way easier than before, BUT leveraging all the experience I gained over the years.

2- Posted frequently on LinkedIn when everyone said it takes forever to see results

By the end of year 1, I was consistently building a pipeline from inbound, which eventually led to building Growth Today (and still keeps us going when the market gets tough).

Now I have CSM, GTM engineers, a team who assist me with content, and with sales, and freelancers helping me build what we believe in every day.

3- Let custom RevOps projects go

The team closed a few deals with enterprise customers.

On paper, it's awesome: no churn, high expansion, upfront payment…

But in the end, it didn't fit our ICP or the service we wanted to build at the time.

Letting go of some customers is hard, but necessary in the long run, depending on what route you choose to build your company.

4- Hired people who didn't have the skills yet, but had the potential

I always get DMs, and sometimes I make exceptions.

There was one person I almost fired in her 2nd week. I told her upfront: if we're both not getting value, it's hard to bring positive outcomes, and none of us will enjoy this work relationship.

I was candid, she was too. She mentioned she should leave herself if she won't hit my expectations.

She did it.

A-players are important, but sometimes your gut tells you to take exceptions.

Eventually, some people float to the top, and some just can't get you to the destination.

What about you?

What are the things you did because you knew better?

what we changed to fix their outbound

One thing I love about outbound is how quickly the truth shows itself.

If the system is off, the results will drag. If the system is right, everything clicks.... even if nothing else changes.

Last week we worked with a services company whose outbound “felt flat.”

But once we dug in, the problem wasn’t just list or the copy
…it was that their system was fighting against them.

Here’s exactly what we changed:

1️⃣ We stopped selling the service at scale only a few people respond to

They have 3 services.

All great.
But one is a terrible conversation starter.

Cold prospects don’t wake up thinking:

“Wow I really hope someone offers me a 40-page report today.”

Their prospects literally respond ~2× better to the other 2 services, but outbound wasn’t aligned to that.

So we repositioned around their two strongest conversation starters

2️⃣ We fixed the invisible killer → deliverability

Their audience = mid-market + enterprise.

Enterprise = Microsoft.

Microsoft = “I will evaluate your entire family tree before letting your email through.” 😅

So yep… we’re have a different mix Google + Microsoft inboxes and all these inboxes are purchased to multiple resellers, so we can continously monitor which ones are performing the best and use the data from our inbox placement tests to make adjustments to keep hitting the inbox.

3️⃣ We replaced the “quick chat?” CTA with value

Their CTA used to be a meeting request. (in a soft way which is GOOD).

But (especially in the agency space), you’re likely selling something that is “easy” to execute, so the barrier to entry is low.

So we introduced CTAs that give something instead of ask for something:

- campaign ideas
- roundtable theme maps
- insight drops
- quick audits

Concrete example if you’re running an ad agency:

→ “I have analyzed your ads published in the last 90 days. Can I send over a quick audit to decrease the CPL?”

→ “Would you be open to exploring how we can help you decrease the CPL on your Meta ads?”

GIVE → GIVE → GIVE → before you ASK.

4️⃣ We added intent + timing signals instead of guessing

Before: outbound went out in usual prospecting campaigns
Now: outreach triggers when something meaningful happens.

Signals we added:

→ new senior hires
→ hiring for marketing roles
→ aggressive ad spends
→ thought leadership indicators
→ content activity

5️⃣ We refreshed the messaging (just enough)

Not a rewrite — a refresh.

We updated angles based on:

the market’s current priorities
2026 plans
current challenges in their space
This avoids message fatigue

The fun part?

We didn’t change:

❌ the ICP
❌ the TAM
❌ the channel
❌ the core offer
❌ the send volume

Takeaway:

When outbound stops performing, people jump to copy first.

But the real leverage is almost always in:

→ targeting
→ timing
→ positioning
→ offer
→ infrastructure

Once the system is right, the copy suddenly becomes “amazing.”
Even if it’s the same copy you thought was the problem. 😅

Whenever sales slow down, the first instinct is usually:

Automation won’t fix a broken GTM system:

- Wrong ICP.
- Weak market signals.
- No clear value.

Before we automate anything at Growth Today, we run one test. We call it the Manual 30.

(like Forbes U30 but Manual U30 ✌️)

Open a simple sheet. Add 30 accounts you genuinely want to work with. Not random prospects. Not scraped lists. Companies you’d be proud to call clients.

Then go deep.

Layer 1: Buyer signals. Promotions. New mandates. Ad infos, 10-K report, and their initiatives. What they’re consistently talking about. What’s top of mind for them?

Layer 2: Company signals. Hiring insights. Expanding into new markets. Fresh funding. Sales leadership changes.

Layer 3: Thought leadership context Search their name + “podcast.” Search their name + “interview.”

Long-form conversations reveal operational tension people never post about.

Layer 4: Their GTM stack. CRM. Routing. Scheduling flow. Form logic.

Just by looking at their tech stack, you’ll know so much about how they operate and what GTM context their potential challenges are.

Layer 5: Process gaps. Job descriptions. Reviews. Case studies. Tells you what they’re focused on and what they’d like to actively solve

Layer 6: Job posts. Look at the language they use:

If this doesn’t generate real conversations, doing this at scale (by leveraging automation) will just help you fail faster.

& ONE MORE thing most teams underestimate: Speed-to-lead.

The longer they need to wait for your response, the lower your chances of turning that lead into a real conversation — and a booked meeting.

Strike while the iron is hot 🔥

Every GTM system we’ve successfully scaled started with manual validation first.

Not because it’s cute.

Because it works.

How do you validate targeting before turning automation on?

AUTOMATION WON'T FIX A BROKEN GTM SYSTEM 

If your database charges you PER CONTACT 👀 Your ABM motion turns into credit math 🧞 like this:

Want the CEO? pay. 💸

Need RevOps + Marketing too? pay again 💸💸

Want the buying committee? Now you’re doing FINANCE 🪄, not outbound.

You want to use these tools to maximize the coverage on your target accounts & the whole buying committee

So why pay for each individual When you get ALL of THEM?

With saasyDB: 1 credit = you get the whole buying committee 👀👀👀

The whole org, so you can actually multi-thread all relevant exec, functional leaders, operators …whoever influences the deal.

Stuart from saasyDB realized we shouldn’t be multi-threading to require a CFO’s approval to have access to the prospects at the target accounts we want to talk to ✌️

if you’re targeting SaaS = use SassyDB alone or on top of your existing tech stack

p.s. Does your enrichment provider force you to optimize for CONTACTS… or ACCOUNTS? or you can get both? 👀

I just * literally * watched AI build my workout plan in real-time!!

Prompt 1: "I want isolated exercises to form all parts of my glutes." AI responds with: → Exercise selection (cable kickbacks, bridges, abductions) → Sets, reps, rest periods → Why each movement targets specific glute regions

Prompt 2: "Generate this in the app."
(so that I don’t need to add each exercise to my workout plan. sorry im lazy! 😄)

Done.
Workout is live and ready to use.
This is the best AI implementation I've seen in a fitness app.

I’m just SO fascinated by how easy to use AI in every part of our lives
& honestly I can’t wait to see

-AI cold callers to do the phone calls
-AI to prospects target accounts

I’m already using AI to amplify my prospecting processes, content creation, and ideation

& I can’t wait to see what else it can do
The future is SOO exciting!

Some tools with AI (agents) you can test:

FlashLabs’s super agent for list building, prospecting, and follow-ups
Roman Hipp’s crawler AI agent to give you valid data
Carmen from Scripe to write content on LinkedIn
& to make the most out of these tools

Roxana Irimia Lemlist course on how to build a personal brand
Lara Acosta’s course on how to think about content creation on social
Nathan Lippi 🥾 Lippi or 🌪️ Marcos Stu’s Clay bootcamps and courses on GTM engineering/sales prospecting

Clay’s own university
P.S. NOEX Training if you're curious ✌️

A company came to us with a problem: they couldn't fill their sponsorship slots.

They run newsletters for crypto, gaming, and startup audiences.
But their sponsor pipeline was empty.

The issue? Their ideal sponsors (crypto companies, indie game studios, funded startups) didn't exist in Apollo, ZoomInfo, or any database they could buy.

So they asked us: Can you help us find and market us to them?

Here's what we did:

1️⃣ Email Infrastructure:

We bought domains, configured inboxes, and inbox placement tests to adjust sending based on inbox/spam ratio to maintain their health to prospect programmatically at scale.
If emails don't land, nothing else matters.

2️⃣ Custom data for list building

For crypto companies, we identified crypto monitoring directory sites. Built a custom Python script to scrape all of them. Enriched the companies. Found the right contacts.

For game developers, we scraped the Google Play Store's trending games. Used Claygent to reverse-engineer which studios built them. Then pulled decision-makers from those studios.

For startups, we sourced from different directories and databases and ran look-alike modeling to expand the list.

3️⃣ Messaging

Looked at scalable & cost-effective public data points that would either add value, or prove we did our research instead of just saying "hey, nice game."

4️⃣ Execution, Testing, Maintenance

Launched 6 campaigns.

Ran our frameworks to figure out what worked for each vertical in 90 90-day timeframe. Monitored, adjusted, scaled winners, killed losers.

The results over 90 days:

→ 104 interested responses
→ 2.4-5% reply rates depending on vertical/offer
→ 30% of positive response rate
→ $270K+ in qualified pipeline ($3k ACV on average)

The best part? They now have a repeatable system to fill their sponsorship inventory without waiting for inbound.

With proprietary data that their competitors can't access. 👑

If your ICP doesn't exist in standard databases, you're not stuck.
You just have to get creative about where to find them. 💡

We can write Python scripts to scrape niche sites. Or use tools to reverse-engineer company data. Or build enrichment workflows that run on autopilot.✌️

Proof in the pudding below 🍮

Let’s just send more emails.

The CRM that hasn’t been cleaned since 2022:

Ok, jokes aside.

How to GUARANTEE an unpredictable pipeline:

- Send more emails every time numbers dip
- Ignore deliverability because “we’ll fix it later.”
- Hire more SDRs to drive the car before fixing the engine
- Blame messaging before mapping out your service market
- treat your CRM like a storage unit

& how to help build a PREDICTABLE pipeline:

- Validate ICP before scaling volume
- Test messages manually before automating
- Fix routing before adding fuel
- Treat your CRM as a revenue architecture,
- Reference job descriptions, funding, and K-10 reports in your cold emails
- Treat tools as an access to systemize, not just tools

We can’t fix the pipeline if we don’t fix the fundamentals:

- Better reply rates with more conversations held
- Reduced response time
- Scaled outreach without hiring more reps
- turned “meh” campaigns into repeatable systems
- finally trusted their CRM data

& yes, every “let’s just send more emails” moment usually came right before someone opened the CRM and went… y tho.

So next time when sales slow, and the instinct is:

“Let’s just send more emails.”

Remember to take a look at the car engine first,

not just the car itself 🚗

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