Michel Lieben 🧠

Founder / CEO @ ColdIQ | Scale Outbound with AI & Tech 👉 coldiq.com

I’m (Michel) the Founder & CEO at ColdIQ, a sales prospecting agency (+ we compare the latest sales tech, too!).

We worked with 100+ B2B organizations (including SaaS & Agencies!) and are using Clay, Prospeo, FullEnrich, Instantly, Lemlist, Ocean.io - alongside other great sales tools - to run outbound campaigns that flood 🌊 our (and our clients’) inboxes with interested prospects.


We can help you:

• If you’re a B2B business leader who doesn’t have the time to handle your prospecting engine or to hire and manage salespeople… You can outsource your lead gen to us, and we’ll transparently show you the exact way we run your campaigns. (We’ll provide SOPs, too… if it works so well that you want to build your in-house team).


• If you’re a sales leader or an outbound agency owner: We’ll help you set up the exact systems & tools we use to run automated ‘trigger-based’ campaigns that convert like crazy. 


• And… if you simply want to improve your B2B sales automation skills or learn to run these campaigns yourself, we’ll teach you by building a campaign from scratch together with you —from ‘idea’ to ‘running campaign’ (we’ve done it more than 50 times already, and the rumour says people ❤️ed it).


We've launched hundreds of campaigns, so you don't have to.


Thus - if you: 
- are a B2B service/solution provider making > $50k/month
- provide solutions with Lifetime Value > $10k
- want to shortcut your outbound success


We can help.

Send a DM, and I'll share more details.

Alternatively, reach out to michel[at]coldiq.com 
or via the website 👉 coldiq.com 


__________



And if you're looking to build your top-of-funnel tool stack... 
Check our curated lists of the best outbound tools here 👇

👉 coldiq.com/tools 👈
👉 coldiq.com/ai-sales-tools 👈

Performance-based B2B lead generation 💥 | coldiq.com
→ We help you scale your prospecting activities by implementing outbound sales systems in your business. We take care of sourcing leads, researching your ICP, crafting the sales messages, automating sending and ensuring the high deliverability of messages. We let you focus on what brings money into the business: closing deals.

I turn 31 today. My business made $557,000 last month. But before that, I failed 7 businesses in a row:

Here’s what I tried building... 
and why I'm convinced each 'fail' got me closer to a 'win'


1. I started a clothing brand with my friend Thibault Selderslagh.

👎 We barely managed to sell 15 t-shirts. We had to order minimum 400. So we ended up with 385 t-shirts... now collecting dust somewhere.

👍 But, I learned how to create websites during this process.

↳ ... a skill I used to create the V1 of my website ColdIQ.


2. I co-founded a raffle lottery in the UK 🇬🇧

👎 I invested 40,000€ of my personal savings. We only managed to sell £1,000 worth of lottery tickets.

👍 But, I learned to run ads while desperately trying to sell these tickets.

↳ ... a skill we now use to book 50+ monthly meetings via ads. And that we offer as a service to clients (with some closing > $1M as a result!)


3. I tried to become an Instagram influencer.

👎 I found a hack that grew my account to 29,000 followers. Then it stopped working, and I've lost followers ever since. I never made a dime from the platform, nor did I get offered any free brand product.

👍 But, I learned about social media & algorithms.

↳ ... a skill that got me to be a LinkedIn influencer instead (😆). But more seriously, this led to 15,000,000+ impressions & 1,000+ inbound meetings for my company.

(And we now offer it as a service too... send a DM!)


4. I ran a sports betting affiliate website.

👎 I grew it to $6,000/mo, until it dropped to 0 overnight because of regulation changes in Belgium 🇧🇪

👍 But, I learned a lot about monetizing affiliate brand deals.

↳ ... a skill that allows us to generate > 5-figure per month in passive affiliate revenue.


5 & 6. I started an MMA Betting blog AND a Crypto blog.

👎 None of them made a single $1.

👍 But, I learned SEO & Copywriting

↳ ... skills that are responsible for driving 100s of thousands of visits to ColdIQ's website.


7. I launched a Facebook Ads agency

👎 I booked 15 meetings, and didn't manage to close a single client.

👍 But, I learned cold email in the process.

↳ ... a skill that turned into a service we currently deliver for 70+ clients, amounting to > $500K in MRR.


Takeaway?
You win, or you learn.

And each failure turns into a lesson that lets you try again... better.

So keep pushing!

P.S: What's the worst business idea you've tried... and what did you learn from it? 👀

Failing 7 businesses before growing one

How I would find my first 10 clients if I had to restart from 0:

It's how I've hit > $6.5M+ ARR in 3 years 👇

1. I'd find a ‘free’ way to get my brand out there.

In the beginning: 

You have lots of time.
You have little money.

So you want to start with a time-consuming channel that doesn’t require much funds.

This could be:
→ Writing blog articles.
→ Creating LinkedIn posts.
→ Recording YouTube videos.
→ Being active in niche communities.

I tried them all.
The one that worked best for me was LinkedIn.

It’s what I recommend to all my friends in B2B to get started.


Software you can use:
- Design: Canva or Figma
- Content Ideation: Taplio or Scripe 


2. I'd direct this ‘visibility’ to a short landing page.

Your brand efforts will gather interest.

Interested visitors will check your site or your social profiles.
You want them to understand asap how you help.

The most effective way I found to do so, is to record a 5-min video sales letter, breaking down your offering.

Some people won’t buy straight away.

For them, I’d suggest creating a lead magnet to grab their email addresses
… and nurture them with valuable content over the long term.

For the ones that didn’t provide their emails, you can use visitor identification software to de-anonymize them (in the US).


Software you can use:
- VSL Hosting: Wistia
- Landing Page: Webflow or Framer
- Visitor Identification: Midbound or Instantly.ai


3. I'd reach out to warm ‘high-fit’ leads.

Many prospects will engage with your content but won’t try to schedule a call

Still, they might be interested.

In this case, I’d suggest reaching out to every prospect who’d make an ideal client but hasn’t messaged you yet.

I recommend writing your first 25-50 messages by hand, before trying to automate.

This could look like:
“Hey {{name}}, seems my post on {{topic}} resonated with you. Are you working on {{potential initiatives}}? Happy to swap notes if that’s helpful.

Whatever you write… the magic of manual notes is that it forces you to re-read & improve your messaging every time.

This allows you to uncover patterns…
Which will be invaluable once you scale your sending.


Software you can use:
- Email Outreach: Instantly.ai
- LinkedIn Outreach: Expandi
- Multichannel Outreach: lemlist
- Email Finding: Wiza, Prospeo.io, LeadMagic or FullEnrich.


4. I'd repeat the above steps for 3 months straight before considering giving up. 

This 100% works.
It sounds simple, but it’s challenging to keep working hard when things are uncertain.

Working hard is difficult on its own.
But working hard, when doubting that there’s a point, is even harder.

To make it work, you must somehow convince your brain that you’re not doing this for nothing. Even when you get 0 results in the first weeks, or months.

Repeat these steps enough times.
And you’ll inevitably improve.

Improve enough…
And soon enough, you’ll reap the rewards of your hard labour.

Good luck ✌️

P.S: Who's starting something new in 2026? 👇

Claude can now build advanced n8n workflows from a single prompt.

Just use this Claude project setup, and it will handle 90% of the work 👇

This completely changed how we build automations at our $6.5M ARR agency…

Here’s precisely how we run this:

1. Write a basic prompt describing your workflow. 

Claude (Sonnet 4.5) will read it, break it down & output an n8n JSON file that can be imported.

2. Claude takes care of the complex implementation.

That is:
- Filed mappings + expressions
- Data flow between nodes
- Trigger configurations
- Conditional branches
- Sticky notes for docs
- Error handling

Beware: there are usually a few small items to debug, and it won’t add your API keys for you. But everything else is handled.

Now, what’s included in the system:

1️⃣ Full Claude Project Setup

The system infrastructure that transforms Claude into an n8n workflow builder. 
(Just need to copy paste & you’re ready to go!)


2️⃣ Over 70 n8n Documentation Pages

The official n8n GitHub documentation from which we extracted syntax, capabilities & node references. 

That’s how Claude knows how to build functioning workflows.


3️⃣ Templates & Frameworks

Templates + Frameworks you can copy-paste for use cases like lead routing and social listening.


4️⃣ Real-life Examples 

Our actual prompts vs. the workflows Claude ended up building.
(So you can see what worked well, and what did not).


5️⃣ SOPs to always stay updated with the latest Docs

Step-by-step guide to pull and compile n8n documentation every time there’s a new feature.
(Which is every week in AI world)


Once again, this is democratising complex workflow buildouts.

Starting from scratch or piecing together documentation used to take a lot of time.

“How to build n8n workflows?” has always been a bigger challenge than “what n8n workflow shall I build?”

This flips the questioning on its head.

Spend most of your time thinking about which automation moves the needle for your business. Not how you'll build it.

...and leverage Claude to get 90% of the way there.

If you want to get the entire system, including the documentation package & guide to set it up yourself, comment “PROMPT”, “n8n” or “CLAUDE” and I’ll DM it to you!


P.S: Kenny Damian is our n8n 🐐 at ColdIQ, and the man behind the agentic workflows we build for our > $10M ARR clients. If you want to get access to these value drops before everyone else… you NEED to follow him!

Silicon Valley is the hub of GTM unicorns.

But have you seen what’s going on in Europe?

Giants are being built in countries with just 11M inhabitants 🇸🇪 🇧🇪

And it’s happening all over the continent.

Here are some of my favourite EU success stories:

1. Odoo 🇧🇪

Founded by Fabien Pinckaers, Odoo quitely grew to 40M€ MRR and is now valued at well above $5B.

They did that by breaking all the rules:

→ A generous Freemium model.
→ Kept it open source & community-powered.
→ Built 100s of apps, instead of just ONE block.

All the while: 

- his board was trying to get him fired.
- spending 7 years near bankruptcy.
- losing 16M€ from overnight

Today, it’s 6500+ employees & 750M€ in revenue in 2025.

I’m especially proud of this one, as a fellow Belgian 🇧🇪!


2. Lovable 🇸🇪

Founded by Anton Osika & Fabian Hedin… it’s the loudest success story of the year.

Lovable hit $200M ARR last week, one year after hitting $1M ARR.

At ColdIQ, we use it to build free tools for lead generation purposes.

Testing out prototypes required technical people. 
Most of our team is able to spin off a ‘free email finder’ or a ‘custom client dashboard’ in a day.


3. lemlist 🇫🇷

The French success story that should be studied by everyone in GTM.

Founded by Guillaume Moubeche, now led by Charles Tenot.

It includes lemlist, Taplio & now Claap under one umbrella.

Some things to takeaway:

- A 300K+ combined followers, employee-wide LinkedIn content strategy.
- Unseen build-in-public transparency by their Founder & the entire team.
- Bold acquisitions (i.e: Taplio, Claap) so their app ecosystem covers every GTM function.

At ColdIQ, they're our #1 choice for all our multichannel prospecting campaigns!


4. n8n 🇩🇪

They’ve been a staple in automation teams for some time…

But with the rise of AI agents… they became a category of one.

More modulable than their competitors, more powerful, less expensive… it’s an essential component of modern AI + GTM tech stacks.

It’s saving our team hours of work everyday!


Other GTM success stories across Europe:

🇨🇿 Apify
🇫🇷 Aircall
🇫🇷 arcads AI
🇫🇷 Argil
🇫🇷 Dust
🇫🇷 FullEnrich
🇫🇷 Hyperline
🇫🇷 Prospeo.io
🇬🇧 Attio
🇬🇧 ElevenLabs
🇬🇧 Synthesia
🇲🇰 HeyReach.io
🇪🇸 Genesy
🇪🇪 Pipedrive
🇦🇹 Storyblok
🇳🇱 Expandi
🇳🇱 Framer

… and the list goes on!

P.S: What EU SaaS is on your radar at the moment?

Most companies bet their entire LinkedIn strategy on the Founder.

We get the whole team involved:

Last month, this allowed us to sign 14 new deals, totalling ~$70,000 in MRR for our agency. Plus, another 16 customers won for our educational program.

It’s a win-win.

For the team:
→ They grow their brand, a precious asset they own… and that will benefit them whatever they decide to pursue.

For us:
→ They send visitors to our site and generate qualified leads every single day.

Everyone shares around their domain of expertise: 

- Ivan talks about ABM, LinkedIn Ads & Funnels.
- Millie shares tips on Founder-Led branding.
- Monika shares her best cold email rewrites.
- Kenny shares his latest n8n workflows.

… and the combined posting volume makes it challenging not to come across ColdIQ on your LinkedIn feed.

2026 will be the year of Employee-led branding.

Don’t miss this shift.

I just crossed 60,000 followers. LinkedIn got us to $6.5M+ ARR.

Here's every tool I used to grow my following:

1. Content Ideation

→ Taplio (go.coldiq.com/taplio)

I use their in-app feed to find outlier LinkedIn posts in my niche.

You can input keywords such as: "ai sales", "outbound" or "GTM" and then filter for posts that:

- include the above 'searched' keywords
- were posted within a month ago
- had 300 likes or more

I then reverse-engineer the structure, hook & CTAs of these high-performing posts to improve my own.

→ Scripe

Also great for content ideation. 

It lets you aggregate posts by author, which is another helpful way to find 'viral publications' or 'outliers' on a given topic.


2. Copywriting

→ Grammarly

As a non-native English speaker, I make lots of spelling mistakes. 

I use Grammarly's extension to correct my writing in real-time.

Doesn't sound too crazy, but this could be the most helpful application in my LinkedIn tech stack.

→ Claude

I use Claude to generate hook variations, repurpose past content & brainstorm new angles.


3. Visuals & Design

→ Figma / Adobe

My LinkedIn strategy relies a lot on visuals.

When made well, they multiply the reach of your publications up to 10X.

Our designers use either Figma or Adobe's suite to design our carousels & infographics.


→ Canva

My first-ever carousels published on here were made on Canva.

It is the most beginner-friendly app to create social media visuals.


4. Video Creation

→ OpusClip

I use Opus's AI features to automatically create short-form videos from my long-form content.

The output isn't as great as that of a professional editor...
But it's cost-effective.

And multiple AI-edited videos got me 50,000+ views on LinkedIn (while only taking me 2 minutes to generate).

→ Screen Studio

Screen Studio is my favourite Mac Screen recording app.

It's great to make video walkthroughs or tutorials because it automatically zooms/focuses on the parts of the screen you're actively working on.

It makes video outputs look much more fancy than they'd be otherwise.

→ Ezgif

I use Ezgif to create .GIF files out of my short audioless video content.

If you're planning to publish a < 15-second audio-less video on LinkedIn...

I'd recommend speeding it up and converting it into a GIF file.

I'm not 100% sure why, but it outperforms in terms of reach & engagement.


5. Content Planning

→ Notion

My central content hub.
It's where I collect ideas, draft them, and prepare my posts.

Notion also serves as my content calendar.


That's the entire stack I used to go from 0 to 60,000+ followers.

It's also the tech stack I plan to get past 100,000.

What tools did I miss?

Let me know 👇

P.S: If you want to grow your account, sell a B2B product, but don't have time to post... send a DM. 
We'll do it for you ✌️

From 0 to 60,000+ LinkedIn followers

We’re about to hit $7m ARR. Here’s the GTM workflow that signed us 70+ high-ticket clients: 

Step-by-step breakdown ↓

1. Our team publishes 250+ LinkedIn posts every month.

- We use Taplio to identify posts that outperformed.
- We study the hooks, formats & visuals of these outlier LinkedIn posts.
- We solve our prospects' pain points in our content pieces.

↳ This works so well, I want to do more. Hopefully reaching 500+ monthly posts across the ColdIQ team.


2. We spend $10,000+ a month promoting our most effective publications via LinkedIn Ads.

- We study what posts generate qualified meetings.
- We analyze which ICP books from the posts.
- We boost said post in front of said ICP.


3. We identify anonymous visitors & reach out likers/commenters who didn't schedule a call.

- On ColdIQ’s site: Instantly.ai & Midbound de-anonymise our visitors.
- On LinkedIn: Clay captures our social activity.


4. We route all our warm leads to Clay.


5. We use LLMs to Tier, Segment & Score prospects.

- Claygent automates research at scale on our inbound leads.
- OpenAI prompts segment out leads.
- We contact warm leads via LinkedIn, Email & the phone.


6. We enrich the contact information of our filtered leads.

- We use Prospeo.io, LeadMagic, Wiza to find emails adresses.
- We use Prospeo.io, FullEnrich to look up phone numbers.


7. We send DMs, emails & call ‘warm' prospects.

- We make our outreach concise & valuable.
- We use lemlist for multi-channel outreach
- We use Instantly.ai for email outreach.

- Expandi is another great option for LinkedIn outreach.


8. This workflow booked us 1,500+ meetings in 2025 & closed > $3M ARR already.

- It helped us grow to > 35 FTEs
- It helped us reach > $6.5M in yearly revenue.
- It helped our clients close $500K+ in revenue at > 3-10X ROI


P.S: Anything you’d improve in the workflow below to get us to $10M ARR?

I tested way too many AI Sales tools.

Here are the categories I’m closely watching in 2026:

1/ Workflow Builders

Why?

↳ They help you build advanced, multi-step, automated prospecting workflows.

Example use-case: Running a signal-based Clay campaign that scores leads, segments them into several tiers, adds an AI-personalized first line… and pushes contacts to your favourite sequencer. For 1,000+ leads. On autopilot.

Examples include:

→ Relevance AI
→ Outbond
→ Clay
→ n8n


2/ MCPs

Why?

↳ They enable AI agents to take actions by connecting to your tools. Without you needing to manually open them.

Example use-case: Connecting Claude MCP to Google Calendar so that it… 

[1] checks how many sales calls you have today
[2] researches each prospect
[3] provides relevant talking points for the qualified ones…
[4] cancels meetings with unqualified leads. 

All that, without opening your calendar app.

You can prompt via tools such as:
→ Cursor
→ Claude
→ VS Code
→ Mistral AI

And connect to your apps using:
→ Docker, Inc
→ Pipedream
→ Composio


3/ All-in-One Sales Platforms

Why?

↳ They consolidate every essential cold outreach feature within one platform.

Example use-case: Warming up domains, building a lead list, monitoring relevant signals, enriching contact data & automating email outreach (Instantly.ai) or multi-channel outreach (lemlist) without any other prospecting tool. In essence, running your entire prospecting campaign in one place.

Examples include:

→ Instantly.ai
→ Expandi
→ Artisan
→ lemlist


4/ Sourcing Agents

Why?

↳ They source data autonomously, given a set of prompts.

Example use-case: Sourcing a list of Sales Leaders, based in SF, in VC-based startups that have > 5X’d revenue 2 years in a row within the last 3 years… by simply telling Exa, in plain English, that this is the list you’re trying to build.

Examples:

→ Relevance AI
→ Outbond
→ Claygent
→ Tavily
→ Apify
→ Exa


5/ Conversation Intelligence

Why?

↳ They record meetings & extract relevant insights from your business conversations.

Example use-case: Reviewing your latest 100 sales calls via Attention’s agent to figure out the most frequent objections your sales team gets from prospects.

Examples:

→ Momentum.io
→ Fireflies.ai
→ Attention


6/ Signal Platforms

Why?

↳ They monitor intent signals to help you uncover prospects in buying mode.

Example use-case: Monitoring previous product buyers (champions) in Common Room, to pitch your solution when they move to a new company (that doesn’t use your product yet!)

Examples:

→ Common Room
→ TheirStack
→ Outbond
→ Clay


7/ AI SDRs

Why?

↳ They automate your prospecting entirely.

Example use-case: Letting Valley write your outreach, qualify your leads, monitor replies & answer on your behalf.

Examples:

→ Artisan
→ Valley

P.S: What AI Sales software category are you betting on in 2026?

AI Sales Categories for 2026

LinkedIn got me past $6M ARR. But Jake Trinder, the mastermind behind Instantly.ai & Clay's channels, argues YouTube is better.

His proof? He grew multiple channels from 0 to > 7-figure revenue from YouTube.

So we did a side-by-side comparison 👇

1. Core Focus

→ LinkedIn: Booking meetings by publishing relevant snackable content.

→ YouTube: Building trust & booking meetings via in-depth educational videos.


2. Key Rules to Win

LinkedIn: 

A. Find outlier/viral/proven publications using tools like Taplio.
B. Consistent high-quality posts relevant to your ICP.
C. Frequent engagement actions with your audience.
D. Optimized profile (banner, title, featured section).

YouTube:

A. Nail combination of thumbnail + title before recording.
B. Focus on quality. YouTube = "Winner takes all"
C. Deep research on titles, thumbnails & trends.


3. Posting Time & Frequency

→ LinkedIn: 3 to 7 posts per week. Same posting time every day.

→ YouTube: 1 video per week. Posting when audience is most online.


4. Top Software

→ LinkedIn:

- Content Ideation + Analytics: Taplio
- Visuals: Figma, Canva, OpusClip
- Writing: Claude, Grammarly

→ YouTube:

- Content Ideation: 1of10, Viewstats, vidIQ
- Production: Adobe Premiere Suite
- Recording: Tella, OBS Studio


5. Expected Reach

→ LinkedIn:

- Audience = B2B focused (i.e: sales, marketing, HR & tech buyers).
- Prospects browse the feed to educate or entertain themselves.
- Over 310,000,000 monthly active users.

→ YouTube:

- Audience = Broad, top-of-funnel (creators, entrepreneurs, founders).
- Audience is actively searching for the content you're creating.
- Over 2,500,000,000 monthly active users.


6. Engagement Expectation

→ LinkedIn: 

- Decent conversion rate. 'Easy' to produce content scale.
- You can reach out to post engagers (DMs).
- Leads are nurtured daily.

→ YouTube:

- High conversion rate from long-form content.
- Audience can binge-watch channels.
- Can't contact viewers directly.


7. Challenges

→ LinkedIn:

- Can take weeks/months before generating any leads.
- Staying consistent is hard.

→ YouTube:

- Lots of upfront work to get 1 good video out.
- Consequent investment in studio setup.
- Talking to a camera can feel weird.


If you had to pick one platform to scale your business, which would you choose?

P.S.: If you need help with YouTube, reach out to Jake. He's the best at growing B2B brands on there. If you need help on LinkedIn, send me a DM :)

The best B2B data is the one your competition doesn't have:

...and you can find it for less than $50/month ↓

Thus, if you want to extract data...

→ Via a marketplace of thousands of pre-built scraping workflows: Apify (go.coldiq.com/apify)

→ Through AI agents researching the web on your behalf: Apify, Clay, Relevance AI, Exa, Outbond.

→ Without exiting LinkedIn: Prospeo.io, lemlist, Expandi.

→ On dedicated pages: Instant Data Scraper, ZenRows.

→ By crawling search engines: Firecrawl, Perplexity.

...there's a tailor-made solution!

What's your go-to software for data scraping?

Data Scraping Software (2025)

How I get > 30% replies via LinkedIn DMs

By doing the opposite of the 100+ weekly pitches I get:

CONTEXT

I sent 5M+ outbound messages for my $6.5M+ ARR Agency.

Nowadays...

Answering DMs costs me more time than running campaigns.

I'm the CEO at a 33-person company.
(I can't imagine how much outreach execs in big orgs get)

That said, I know most execs check their inbox.
And many reply.

Here's how I decide whether I'll respond or not...

And how I changed my own outreach because of this ↓


✅  DMs offering free work

Some DMs offered a free landing page rewrite or samples of already-made work.

I ran prospecting campaigns and pitched free custom lead lists.
(These were getting me more positive replies than I could handle)

My recommendation: Imagine your prospect is an existing client. What's the first thing you'll do for them? Do it already and send it over!


✅ DMs asking to be referred

Let's say you:
1. Send a message based on a current initiative of ColdIQ
2. Searched who is in charge of this initiative.
↳ I'll gladly refer you to said person

PS: You can automate this 'play' via Clay by combining intent signals & retrieving a leader/manager in a specific department.


❌ DMs asking for time on the 1st touchpoint

Meetings are my personal hell.
I'm fighting every day to eliminate as many of them as possible.

If you're "just asking 15 min of my time" to pick my brain, I won't answer.


✅ DMs from ‘known’ people

An unfair truth in cold outreach: $WHO sends a message matters even more than WHAT the message is.

If you're a well-known executive, I'll most likely reply.

I saw this firsthand as I grew my LinkedIn to 60K+ followers...

The exact same message would perform better, without changing anything.

Pro tip: If you sell B2B products, build your brand on LinkedIn.


❌ Generic templated outreach

The only way to make impersonal, generic outreach work is to send at a massive volume (millions of messages).

LinkedIn doesn't allow such volume.

So you'd be better off doing this by email.
Or better yet... not at all.


✅ DMs sharing valuable insights

Jihad explained this better than I could under one of my posts:

"
The best "free work" isn't actually work → it's insights.

I send technical audits of prospects' platforms.
→ 5-minute analysis
→ 3 specific optimization opportunities 
→ No strings attached

Example: "Your checkout flow has a 23% drop-off at payment verification. Here's why + 2 quick fixes."

- Takes me 10 minutes.
- Shows immediate value.
- Demonstrates expertise without asking for anything.

The key: Make it so valuable they'd typically pay for it.

Generic "free consultation" = everyone does this.
Specific actionable insight = rare.
"

Solving prospects' issues before they pay you a dime is the fastest way to gain their trust.


🔘 Videos or Voice Notes

I listen to voice notes or watch videos.

It annoys people.
But if they're well done, they'll grab attention.

What's a DM you receive you could NOT ignore?

Share it 👇

30% LinkedIn DMs

AI agents are replacing human employees.

Funny enough, they operate in very similar ways:

The smartest agents don’t work alone.
They work in teams.

Some behave like assistants.
Others as managers.

And as with any sort of team, there are different ways to structure their collaboration.

To illustrate this:
We can look at how 3 multi-agent setups would handle the same task…

For example: Scheduling a quarter business review with an important client.


1️⃣ Hierarchical setup

A manager agent assigning tasks to its agent team members.

1. The manager receives a task = Schedule a business review.

2. It tells a subordinate agent to check potential times to meet with the clients.

3. Another agent checks product usage from the client. "Has usage recently dropped? Is engagement still strong?"

4. A 3rd agent drafts an email based on client availability & product usage: 

"Hey Achilles, it's been a while - wanted to ensure you're using the product to the fullest. How about a quick chat next week, Wednesday?”

5. The manager reviews everything and sends the email.


2️⃣ 'Human-in-the-Loop' 

A smart assistant tapping your shoulder when needed.

1. The agent drafts the business review email and finds some available times.

2. But… it sees the client gave negative feedback 2 weeks ago.

3. Before sending the email, it asks you: “Do you want to review the email before I send it?"

4. You make small tweaks, and you send it.


3️⃣ 'Sequential' setup

Like a factory or an assembly line where each person does one task and hands it off to the next.

1. 1st Agent asks: "Is a quarterly business review due?" based on the client's last meeting time.

2. 2nd Agent pulls client's usage data.

3. 3rd Agent drafts a short email.

4. 4th Agent sends the email to book the meeting.


So, when should you use which?

As a rule of thumb:

- Hierarchical setups work well for complex, multi-step tasks.

- Human-in-the-loop setups are recommended for high-stakes, sensitive tasks.

- Sequential setups for ordered workflows with clear dependencies.


P.S: What's one process in your team that would run better...
with some smart agents working behind the scenes? 👇

Scale revenue with AI & tech

I decided to skip the traditional corporate path & start building in the AI x Sales space at 27. 
Here's the journey so far:

Age 18-21: Business school in Brussels, realized I needed practical experience
Age 22: Coding bootcamp + lucky Bitcoin exit gave me 50K to fund a world trip
Age 23: 12-country world tour learning new skills every month in a new country.
Age 24-26: Growth hacker roles at German startups, learned systems but felt unfulfilled 
Age 27: Co-founded ColdIQ with Mich
Age 28: Hit our first major milestones learning everything the hard way 
Age 29: Scaled to $6M ARR and became Clay's #1 global partner. Running a business that does $477K/month with 30+ team members across 4 continents.

It's been wild. Today through ColdIQ, we help B2B companies build AI-powered sales systems that work. 

We've run outbound for 300+ organizations and generated millions in pipeline.

The best part? We built this entirely remote with people I genuinely enjoy working with. 

Turns out you can have rapid growth AND life quality - you just need the right systems.

If you want to build your own AI sales agency, I teach everything in our ColdIQ Agency Accelerator, the exact playbook we used to hit $6M ARR in 2 years. 

From Clay workflows to hiring A-players to scaling without burning out.

If you're already doing $1M+ ARR and want help scaling your existing business, let's talk about our done-for-you services.

https://coldiq.com/

If you're not there yet, I share everything for free on LinkedIn and in our 7-day email course (in the featured section).

The AI x Sales opportunity is the biggest wealth creation event of our generation. The market is so massive that there's room for everyone to win.

Ready to start your agency? Join 130+ founders in our accelerator.

https://coldiq.com/accelerator-program

Alex Vacca 🧠🛠️

We analyzed 100K+ LinkedIn DMs to figure out what works.

Here's what we found:

1️⃣ Personalization beats volume every time

Campaigns with copy tailored to the ICP got up to 54.7% more replies.

We stopped blasting generic messages and started personalizing based on specific pain points.

We're using Clay for data enrichment and personalization, LinkedIn Sales Navigator for precise targeting.

Next month target: Scale personalization without losing quality. Why? Take some time to personalize your messages; it'll go a long way.

2️⃣ Short messages crush long ones

Messages under 150 characters had 22% more replies on average. We track which message length converts from each persona.

We aim to get our point across in as few words as possible - nobody's reading novels.

Next month plan: Test extra short hooks under 100 characters.

3️⃣ Contextual outreach destroys generic

Messages referencing recent activity (LinkedIn posts, role changes) saw +18% replies. We find relevant reasons to reach out every time.

Tool stack breakdown:

Clay for finding recent activity, role changes, company updates

LinkedIn Sales Navigator for activity monitoring

Expandi for sequencing

Zapier for workflow automation

Next month: Keep refining context triggers - when something works, you optimize it.

4️⃣ Warm approach sequences that build relationships

Connection requests sent after profile visits, post likes, or follows saw +30.2% acceptance rates. We make ourselves seen before reaching out.

Sequences with 3+ steps performed 42% better than single-message flows.

Different relationship temperatures get different approaches.

5️⃣ Multi-channel orchestration across every platform

Adding email follow-up after no LinkedIn reply lifted reply rates by 13.8%. We don't rely on LinkedIn only.

This is where most agencies lose pipeline - we track everyone who doesn't respond and re-engage via other channels.

6️⃣ Conversational copy beats direct pitches

The messages that actually work:

"Noticed you're hiring [role] - what's working for you?" (+18.2% replies)

"Saw your post on [topic], curious what are you testing right now?" (+19.3% replies)

"Saw you joined [company] - how's the first month going so far?" (+21.5% replies)

"We analyzed [findings] - worth sharing what others in your space are doing?" (+27.1% replies)

The results:

54.7% higher reply rates with personalized outreach

40%+ acceptance rates consistently

18%+ reply rates across campaigns

8%+ positive reply rates

The system works because it's not just LinkedIn messaging - it's relationship building at scale with contextual touchpoints where your prospects actually engage.

Want the full outbound playbook that's generated 54.7% higher reply rates? 👉 Comment "OUTBOUND" for our 7-day email series on the exact sequences we use.

Co-Founder @ ColdIQ ($6M ARR) | Helped 300+ companies scale revenue with AI & Tech | #1 AI Sales Agency

I turned 30 earlier this month.

I had no idea what I was doing for most of my twenties.

Moved countries. Started stuff that failed. Said yes to random things just to see what would happen.

Probably looked lost from the outside.

But here's what I think now:

Focusing too early is a trap.

I see people at 22 trying to "find their thing" and lock in fast. Pick the career. Pick the country.

But how do you know what to focus on if you haven't tried enough things yet?

You don't.

So you end up focused on the wrong thing. And you don't even know it.

That's worse than being "lost" for a few years.

Some people skip the messy phase. They lock in early. Look successful at 25. Then wake up at 30 wondering why they're not happy.

They focused, but not on the right things.

I needed those years of trying random things. Not because they all worked. Most didn't. But because now I actually know what I want.

I know which friendships matter. Not trying to keep up with 50 people anymore.

I know where I want to live. Done being the eternal nomad.

I know what we're building with ColdIQ. Done chasing every shiny opportunity.

We tested a lot in 2025. New offers. New markets. Some worked. Some didn't.

But now the picture is clear. We go into 2026 knowing exactly what to double down on.

You can't focus on the right thing until you've explored enough to know what the right thing is.

To the next decade 🥂

lemlist hit $37M ARR.

Here’s the outbound engine behind it (and why it works so well)↓

Most people think lemlist grew by sending better cold emails.

They didn’t.

They built a system that turns content → intent → enriched data → personalised outreach at scale.

Here’s the exact workflow:

1️⃣ Content that attracts their ICP (not vanity content)

An influencer or internal creator publishes on LinkedIn - but not just any content.

It’s written to attract one specific persona with a problem lemlist solves.

Every comment, like, and share = a signal.
A signal that someone cares about the topic.

They use:

- Jungler to scrape all post interactions
- LinkedIn for content publishing

Because people are already familiar with their brand, reply rates are way higher than pure cold outreach.

2️⃣ Data routing & enrichment

Not every engager is worth contacting.
So they have a system to score, clean, and enrich.

They push all extracted contacts through:

- n8n for data routing
- Clay as the data hub (enrichment, scoring, workflow automation - all in one place)

Scoring includes:

→ Job title relevance
→ Engagement type
→ ICP match
→ Buying power indicators
→ Existing customer check
→ Tech stack + initiatives + recent activity

Here’s the thing nobody talks about:

If the enrichment is bad, the personalization fails.
If the personalization fails, the whole system collapses.

This is where lemlist invested the most time - and where most teams cut corners.

3️⃣ AI personalization & multi-channel outreach

Personalization isn’t “{first_name}, loved your post!”

They use:

lemlist’s AI variables → genuine first-lines for every prospect
Multi-channel sequences → email + LinkedIn for maximum reach

A typical opener:

“Hey {{first_name}}, saw you engaged with our post on {topic}. Looks like you’re focusing on {initiative} — happy to share what’s worked for us.”

Warm context + real personalization + multi-channel = consistent replies.

Teams spend hours “perfecting” cold emails.
lemlist spends hours perfecting context - and lets AI scale the rest.

4️⃣ Meeting booked

Warm, relevant outreach performs.

This is one of the most efficient ways to:

→ Warm up leads
→ Segment the highest quality ones
→ Gently ping them with context at exactly the right time

This is one of lemlist's highest performing outbound plays. It's also a play we love to run at ColdIQ.

They've spent months testing and optimizing this workflow to run on autopilot.

The compound effect takes time, but when it kicks in, it's massive.

If you want to implement something like this - we'll literally run this entire workflow for you, along with other high-converting GTM plays.

Drop me a DM👇

We just crossed $6,000,000 ARR.

Here's the tech stack that made it happen ↓

1️⃣ Content & Inbound

We generate over 100 warm leads per month via LinkedIn.

These come from my account (45,600+ followers) and the rest of the ColdIQ team (230,000+ followers).

I use:

- Scripe for post ideas + analytics
- Notion as my content calendar to keep me organised

We generated ~50M impressions on X last month, which is honestly wild. And for this we use:

- Typefully to visualize & draft threads: makes the whole process way smoother

I am getting some momentum behind my YouTube, so at the moment I use:

- Two Sony FX30 camera for filming
- Tella for screen & audio recording (super clean output)
- vidIQ to gain inspiration from successful videos, basically reverse engineering what works

We drove 102,000 visitors to our website in the last 90 days. 35,000+ come from SEO alone. We use:

- Ahrefs for keyword research (can't live without it)
- Webflow's CMS to host/publish our articles
- Surfer to optimize our copywriting for search engines

We have 7,000+ subscribers to our newsletter, and growing. We use:

- beehiiv to send our welcome sequence & weekly emails

2️⃣ Outbound Engine

- We identify website visitors with Instantly.ai & Vector 👻
- Based on their firmographics + page visit, we:

→ Email them via Instantly.ai

→ or connect + send voice notes via lemlist

- more personal touch

- For data: Prospeo.io, LeadMagic, Clay, FullEnrich
- For AI research & personalization: ChatGPT, Claude
- For deliverability: a mix of Gmail + Outlook inboxes

3️⃣ Ops & Project Management

- Everything runs in Airtable
- We automate with n8n, Make or Relevance AI, depending on what we're trying to do
- Big-picture process flows? We map those in @Puzzle
- Internal comms → Slack

4️⃣ Sales & Closing

- Calls get booked through Default
- We use Attention to record & summarize meetings
- Proposals: Qwilr (clean, professional, gets signed)
- Banking: Mercury
- Contracts: PandaDoc
- Payments: Stripe

We've spent months testing, tweaking, and optimizing this entire stack to work together seamlessly.

Tech moves fast. Really fast.

New tools drop every week, and what worked 6 months ago might not be the best option today.

I break down the complete stack + how we actually use these tools on my YouTube.

Subscribe here → https://lnkd.in/dKsZpY2D

What tools are you running? Drop them below 👇

Behind Lemlist’s $30M ARR growth engine.

... and 20,000 paying users.

Michel Lieben 🧠 sat down with Charles Tenot, CEO of Lemlist, to go behind the scenes of their growth strategy.

Let me build this out properly for you. Here's the full breakdown:

1️⃣ TRAFFIC GENERATION

lemlist gets over 200,000 website visitors every month. But they don't rely solely on one channel.

Here are the channels they use to drive that traffic:

a. SEO: 15–20% of signups come from search
→ They dominate keywords like "cold email templates" and "email outreach tools"
→ 300+ blog posts targeting bottom-funnel search intent

b. YouTube: 14.2K subscribers, and 393 videos
→ Educational content on cold email, outbound sales
→ Tutorial videos showing actual lemlist workflows

c. LinkedIn: Combined reach of 250K+ followers
→ Team members consistently post about outbound strategies
→ Share customer wins and case studies weekly

d. Paid Ads: €20K/month to Meta, Google, and LinkedIn
→ Google: Target high-intent keywords like "mailchimp alternatives"
→ Meta: Retargeting website visitors with social proof content
→ LinkedIn: ABM campaigns targeting sales leaders at 50-500 employee
companies

e. Webinars: Expert-led sessions on outbound and sales
→ Weekly live sessions with 200-500 attendees
→ Guest speakers from successful B2B companies
→ Replay content distributed across all channels

f. Affiliates: Partners and customers earn a % for referrals
→ Agency partner program with 30% recurring commissions
→ Strategic partnerships with complementary SaaS tools
→ Customer referral program with account credits

2️⃣ LEAD CAPTURE

lemlist turns traffic into signups, fast.

They convert 7–8% of 200K+ monthly visitors (that's 14,000-16,000 signups monthly).

Here's what increases those conversion rates:

Free trial strategy:

→ No credit card required
→ Full access to the platform
→ 14-day trial with onboarding sequence
→ In-app tutorials and success metrics tracking

3️⃣ ACTIVATION & ONBOARDING

This is where most SaaS companies lose people, but lemlist nailed it:

→ Day 1: Welcome email + calendar booking for optional onboarding call
→ Day 3: "Send your first campaign" tutorial with templates
→ Day 7: Case study of similar company + advanced features demo
→ Day 10: Personal video from Guillaume + upgrade incentive
→ Day 14: Trial ending soon + success metrics from their usage

4️⃣ CONVERSION TO PAID

Here's where the "reverse trial" magic happens:

→ Soft paywall: Free users hit email limits naturally through usage
→ Value demonstration: Show ROI metrics before asking for payment
→ Multiple upgrade paths: Self-serve pricing page OR book sales call
→ Usage-based triggers: "You've sent 95/100 free emails this month"

The numbers:

→ 200K monthly visitors
→ 95%+ monthly retention rate
→ €150 average monthly deal size
→ 7-8% conversion to trial (14K-16K trials/month)
→ 15-20% trial-to-paid conversion (2.1K-3.2K new customers/month)

What do you think lemlist should add to grow even faster?

Content helped ColdIQ hit $6M ARR.

And this workflow turns every single post into pipeline.

We built a system that converts LinkedIn engagement into qualified meetings.

Here's the breakdown we use at ColdIQ:

STEP 1: CAPTURE ENGAGEMENT IN REAL-TIME

Every like, comment, and profile view gets tracked automatically.

When someone likes OR comments on your post they're basically telling you they actually care about what you're talking about.

We use Trigify.io and Teamfluence™ to monitor all LinkedIn engagement signals.

Most people get that engagement and then just move on to the next post - we actually do something with it.R

STEP 2: INSTANT ENRICHMENT

The moment someone engages, Clay pulls full contact and company data.

Job title, company size, tech stack, funding rounds, hiring signals - all of it happens in seconds.

STEP 3: AI QUALIFICATION

Not everyone who likes your post is actually a good fit prospect.

We use ChatGPT and Claude to score each contact against our ICP criteria.

- Low fit? Filtered out immediately
- High fit? They move to the next step

The AI looks at things like:

- B2B vs B2C
- Geographic fit
- Company size match
- Estimated customer lifetime value

STEP 4: CRM DEDUPLICATION

Before we do anything, we check: is this person already in our system?

Already a customer? Already in active conversations? Skip them completely.

New contact? Push to sequence.

The fastest way to look like an idiot is cold emailing your existing customers.

STEP 5: MULTI-SOURCE EMAIL VERIFICATION

We waterfall through Prospeo.io, FullEnrich, and LeadMagic until we get a verified email.

No single provider has 100% coverage.

But stack three of them together? You're getting close to 95% hit rate.

STEP 6: PERSONALIZED OUTREACH ON AUTOPILOT

Each prospect receives a tailored message via Instantly.ai that references the exact post they engaged with.

Not generic "Hey {firstName}" nonsense.

It's contextual: "Saw you engaged with my post about Clay workflows - we just built something similar for a client in your space that books them 2-3 meetings per week."

STEP 7: MEETING BOOKED

This system generated 144 meetings for us in a single month.

And it runs 24/7 without human intervention because:

- Every piece of content becomes a lead magnet
- Every engagement becomes a qualified opportunity
- The entire conversion happens automatically

If you're posting on LinkedIn without this system you're basically just creating content and hoping meetings happen (which they won't).

That's not how it works in 2025.

The companies winning are the ones that built actual systems to convert attention into pipeline.

Are you tracking your LinkedIn engagement right now?

(We can build this entire workflow for you, plus show you the other plays that got us to $6M ARR)

P.S: Tools don't book meetings. Systems do. And this is the system that's working right now.

OpenAI just sent us this award for passing 10 billion tokens.

Here is what I learnt: being too smart is slowing you down.

The smartest people I know are the slowest to start.

- They read about AI.
- They follow the news.
- They watch the tutorials.

But they don't build anything.

Their logic:

"Why learn this if it's outdated in 6 months?"
"Why build this if a new model does it better?"
"Why start now if everything keeps changing?"

Sounds smart.

But it's actually not.

Here's what actually happens when you use AI every day:

- You learn how it really works.
- You find what it's good at and what it sucks at.
- You build intuition you can't get from reading.

Yeah, some stuff we built 2 years ago is completely outdated and we constantly need to replace old workflows we built.

That's the price to pay but despite that we still learned more than the people who waited and never built anything. 

When a new model drops, we figure out what we can do with it.

Because we already understand the fundamentals.

The people still waiting?

Starting from zero and probably will tell themselves that they will start when GPT 8 will release.

The world moves fast.

You can watch it move.
Or move with it.

10 billion tokens later, I'm glad we moved.

Stop waiting for things to stabilize because they won't.

Just start building.

Everyone else is also just figuring it out.

4 GTM agents that save 2-5 hours per client every day.

They run:

Prospecting, content
AND market research on autopilot.

Most teams think AI is about writing faster. It's not.

It's about eliminating the 80% of GTM work that never should've been manual in the first place.

Here's the system:

AGENT 1: LEAD RESEARCH AUTOMATION

Manual prospecting is dead.

Every company profile gets captured, enriched, and scored automatically.

Pipeline:

- GhostGenius captures profiles
- We filter by credibility signals (200+ followers, real website, actual activity)
- GPT scores each profile against our ICP (in real time)
- LinkedIn IDs dedupe contacts so we never hit the same prospect twice

Clean, qualified prospects → straight into Google Sheets for outbound.

AGENT 2: LOCAL PROSPECTING ENGINE

Apify pulls local businesses from Google Maps.
Raw Google Maps data is a mess. Half the info is missing or outdated.

The fix:

- Google Search API fills missing metadata
- We scrape each website for keywords, offers, tech stack
- GPT classifies and enriches the business profile
- We extract missing emails, numbers, contact pages

Export to Airtable or Sheets → done

This turns low-quality data into sales-ready records.

AGENT 3: BRAND CONTENT GENERATOR

Drop a brand brief into a Google Form. Wake up to:

- LinkedIn posts
- Carousel copy
- Newsletters
- Hooks
- CTAs
- Variations
- TOV matched drafts

All written in your style, using your positioning.

Drafts go straight into Notion or Google Docs, ready for a 10 minute edit.

AGENT 4: REDDIT INTEL COLLECTOR

This one is my unfair advantage.

Most GTM teams ignore Reddit.
But it’s where your prospects say the things they’d never admit on a sales call.

Pipeline:

- Input a brand or website
- GPT identifies ICP signals
- Reddit API scrapes relevant threads
- GPT summarises pain points, the language prospects use, their frustrations, what they actually care about
- A daily insight report sent to your inbox

This is the closest thing to reading your market’s mind.

THE RESULT: AUTOPILOT PIPELINE

These 4 agents work together to create a system that runs 24/7:

1. High-fit leads → already in your CRM
2. Weekly content → drafted before you wake up
3. Market intelligence → delivered before your first coffee
4. Zero hours wasted on research, scraping, or repetitive admin

You’re not “doing more.”
You’re just letting the system do what humans shouldn’t.

And here’s the real shift:

> Companies scaling in 2025 aren’t hiring more SDRs.
> They’re eliminating the work SDRs used to do.

If you’re still manually researching prospects and writing content from scratch, you're working 10x harder than necessary.

We build these exact workflows in n8n - plus the other automation plays that save 15+ hours per week, per team member.

Which one are you building first?

4 GTM n8n Agents 

Here’s what our numbers look like today:

→ $6,000,000 ARR
→ $40k–$80k new MRR added each month
→ Predictable pipeline month after month

All powered by a GTM funnel that took us 18 months to refine.

Here’s the full breakdown, the exact one we still use internally.

1️⃣ Awareness (the volume engine)

Not every impression is equal, but volume absolutely matters.

Here is how we look at it:

Visibility → Leads
Leads → Meetings
Meetings → Proposals
Proposals → Revenue

Here's what we're generating right now:

100,000+ quarterly website visits (SEO + Paid)
2.5M–3M monthly impressions on LinkedIn
5K–20K monthly YouTube views

Tools:

→ Taplio, Scripe, Notion (content)
→ AirOps, Ahrefs, Surfer (SEO)
→ Fibbler, arcadsAI (paid)

2️⃣ Interest

Getting seen is easy. Getting buyers to take action is what separates good from great imo.

So we increase conversion rates by:

→ Running monthly webinars (warm nurturing at scale)
→ Sharing lead magnets that educate
→ Using one-step smart forms to auto-route leads instantly
→ Identifying anonymous visitors and re-engaging them (this one's a game-changer)

Tools:

→ Instantly.ai, Vector 👻, Midbound (visitor ID)
→ Default (automated routing)

3️⃣ Consideration

Attention doesn't convert unless buyers understand what you do.

So we:

→ Built multiple VSLs that explain the offer clearly
→ Share success stories with full breakdowns of how we did it

Tools:

→ Wistia (VSL hosting + video testimonials)

4️⃣ Conversion

At this stage we talk to more qualified leads, more often.
Here's how we maximize conversion:

Email nurture sequences keeping the pipeline warm
Automated outreach to high-potential accounts
More open slots for sales calls
Consultative selling on Google Meet

Tools:

→ Clay, OpenAI (lead scoring + segmentation)
→ Customer.io, lemlist, Instantly.ai (outbound + nurture)
→ Attention, Attio (meeting intelligence, pipeline analytics)
→ Qwilr, PandaDoc (proposals, contracts)

Is it perfect? No.
Does it work? Very well.

This GTM system powers our growth month after month. We're always iterating, always improving.

What would you improve? 👇

The sales flow that generated $966K ARR.

Nearly $1M in new revenue in 30 days.

Most people see the content - the LinkedIn posts, the videos, all of it. 
But content is just the front end.

Behind the scenes, there's a whole system.

The team posts across LinkedIn daily.

But none of that means anything without closers who can convert attention into pipeline.

That's where Dujam Dunato and Jan Rasmussen Mitjana  come in.

They're the ones handling inbound, qualifying leads, running calls, and closing deals at scale.

Here's the exact sales flow they used to generate $966K ARR in one month:

1/ Pre-call qualification

We only book calls with prospects we know we can help.

Qualification happens automatically through:

- Inbound routing systems
- Video testimonials that build trust before the call
- Website assets that pre-educate prospects

LinkedIn connection automation for long-term nurturing

Tools:

↳ Default - auto-qualification + routing
↳ lemlist - LinkedIn connection automation
↳ VSL - makes sure prospects understand our offer before speaking to us

This removes 90% of the time-wasters and lets the team focus on revenue-critical conversations.

2/ Discovery & research

Before any call, we prepare - but we don’t do it manually.

We use:

a. Automatic prospect intelligence via Clay + Zapier
b. Funding stage + headcount research
c. Stakeholder identification + role tenure
d. Tracking strategic hires, initiatives, and timing signals

Tools:

↳ SPICED (Winning by Design) - call structure
↳ Clay + Zapier - pre-call research + aggregation
↳ Fireflies.ai - real-time AI note-taking + CRM automation
↳ Qwilr - digital sales room + proposals

This means reps walk into every call fully briefed without lifting a finger.

3/ Follow-up & nurturing

For leads who aren’t ready to sign immediately, we run:

a. Automated follow-up sequences with real value
b. YouTube video follow-ups (no boring text-based emails)
c. Multi-threading across LinkedIn to engage all decision-makers

Tools:

↳ Customer.io & Attio - automated follow-ups
↳ LinkedIn - multi-threading workflows
↳ YouTube content from me & Michel - authority-led nurturing

This keeps prospects warm without our team writing endless manual replies.

4/ Why this closed $966K in one month

Qualification: Only the right people reach our closers
Education: Prospects arrive informed, reducing friction
Automation: Reps spend their time selling, not admin

Content: LinkedIn + YouTube turn strangers into warm, ready-to-buy leads

If you have any questions, feel free to drop any of the guys above a message!

138 meetings from 144 LinkedIn posts (that's almost 1:1).

Here's our $6M ARR workflow:

Step 1: Content volume that converts

We published 144 LinkedIn posts last month. Not random content, everything's built around ICP pain points.

We're using Taplio and Scripe for inspiration, but we're analyzing what books meetings. We look at hooks, visuals, and formats from posts that converted.

Step 2: Paid amplification with actual ROI tracking

$5,100 in LinkedIn Ad spend generated 155K extra impressions at $33 CPM. But we ONLY boost organic posts that have already booked meetings.

We track which persona converts from each post type, then push those winning posts to that exact audience.

Step 3: Intent capture across every touchpoint

This is where most agencies lose pipeline. We're tracking everyone who shows intent but doesn't book.

Tool stack breakdown:

Website visitors: Instantly.ai, Midbound Vector 👻 and Common Room for anonymous visitor identification.

LinkedIn engagement: Trigify.io and Teamfluence™ for social signal monitoring

Step 4: AI-powered lead scoring in Clay

Every lead gets routed to Clay for intelligent scoring. We use Claygent for lead research, then OpenAI to segment into 3 tiers based on fit and timing.

Different tiers get different outreach strategies. A Tier 1 lead gets way more personalization than a Tier 3.

Step 5: Data enrichment that works

Prospeo.io and LeadMagic for emails, FullEnrich for phone numbers - all happening inside Clay so we don't lose context.

Step 6: Multi-channel re-engagement based on score

This isn't random outreach. Every message is contextual, every touchpoint provides value.

The results that matter:

- Made us 557k in revenue for October
- Team grew to 30+ FTEs
- 750+ meetings booked in 2025 already
- One client: $272,600 closed at 7X ROAS in 90 days

The system works because it's not just outbound - it's orchestrated revenue generation across every touchpoint where your buyers show up.

We're adding this GTM workflow FREE for the next 3 ghostwriting clients (15 of 18 spots already taken). Comment 'CONTENTIQ' to grabs yours ☝️

How I'd build a repeatable outbound system if I had to start from scratch:

(There's a public database of your competitor's churn reasons... and most teams aren't using it)

1/ I'd start by scraping competitor reviews

You can use G2. Or Capterra. Or Trustpilot.

And it's full of pain points, written by people actively looking for a better option.

Focus on 2–3 core competitors with a decent number of reviews.

It's a goldmine. You'll find everything from UI complaints to missing integrations to slow support.

Tools you can use:
- n8n / Make (for scraping)
- Apify / PhantomBuster (pre-built scrapers)

2/ I'd extract pain themes using AI

We don't read these manually.

We use ChatGPT to group complaints into themes:
- Feature gaps
- Support response time
- UX or onboarding issues
- Security concerns
- Pricing

You now have a live database of what your prospect hates about their current tool.

Tools you can use:
- ChatGPT (for clustering complaints)
- Google Sheets (for organizing themes)

3/ I'd align those complaints with my actual positioning

Map those complaints to your actual value props.

Here are 3 examples:

a. If their reviews mention "hidden fees," and your pricing is transparent, lean into that.
b. If they complain about integrations you support, name them.
c. If support is a weakness and you have a live-chat SLA, say it.

Now you're not just pitching. You're presenting a clear solution to a known frustration.

Tools you can use:
- Loom (for quick demo videos)
- Your pricing page / integration docs (as proof points)

4/ I'd launch targeted outbound

Once we know who's unhappy and why, we push that data into:
- Clay (for enrichment + personalization)
- Instantly.ai (for sending)

The messaging angle is already validated, and the frustration warms the list.

You're simply showing up with a better option.

Tools you can use:
- Clay (enrichment + personalization)
- Instantly.ai / Smartlead (for sending)

5/ I'd automate it into a system that runs weekly

We've built versions of this using:
- n8n (for scraping)
- ChatGPT (for clustering complaints)
- Google Sheets (for inputs)
- Clay + Instantly.ai (for execution)

It runs weekly. We review angles, update copy, and refresh the list.

Once it's live, it becomes one of your highest-converting outbound motions.

Why? Because you're hitting real pain points with a proven better solution.

Tools you can use:
- n8n / Make (workflow automation)
- ChatGPT (analysis)
- Google Sheets (central hub)
- Clay + Instantly.ai (execution)

6/ I'd run this consistently

This works across industries, and especially well in crowded SaaS categories.

But it requires setup. And it requires letting the system run long enough to see results.

Give it a shot.

P.S: Questions? Drop them below or DM me. Happy to unpack any step. 👇

We scaled to $6M ARR.

If I had to start again, this is what I’d build first.

Most people overcomplicate GTM.

They chase channels. Growth hacks. Headlines.

But if you strip everything back, early-stage growth comes down to a few simple systems done well.

Nothing fancy.
Nothing loud.
Just the foundations that actually move pipeline.

If I was starting from zero again, here’s exactly what I’d put in place.

1️⃣ Email infrastructure

I wouldn’t touch ads.
I wouldn’t build a giant content engine.
I’d start with email, because it scales the fastest when you're unknown (yet).

The setup is simple:

→ 20 secondary domains
→ 40 mailboxes
→ 20–25 emails per mailbox per day

Warm everything up for two weeks.
Authenticate properly (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).
Rotate domains every 9–12 months.

Do this right and 95%+ of your emails land where they're meant to: the primary inbox.

2️⃣ Lead signals

Most people email too early.

They reach out when they want the meeting, not when the buyer is actually looking.

So I’d track 10+ buying signals first - simple things that show intent:

- Downloads
- Hiring spikes
- Website visits
- Funding rounds
- Tech stack changes
- Competitor research
- LinkedIn profile views

The goal is timing.

You don't need more leads.
You need leads who are ready.

3️⃣ Sequence timing

For SMB:

5–8 touchpoints across 30 days.
Shorter gaps. Faster signals.
A simple mix of email + LinkedIn.

For enterprise:

10–18 touchpoints across 60 days.
More education.
More channels.
Less pressure.

4️⃣ GTM workflows

This is where most teams fall apart.

Deals ghost
Leads sit untouched
Handoffs get messy
Nobody knows who's owning what

I'd set up 6 workflows on day one:

→ Ghosting (auto-close inactive deals)
→ Discovery nurture
→ Proposal follow-up
→ Closed-won onboarding
→ Lead routing
→ AE handoff

It’s not exciting work.
But it removes chaos.
And chaos is what kills early GTM.

5️⃣ The metrics that matter

People still obsess over open rates.
They don’t matter.

Track reply rate.
Track positive replies.
Track meetings booked.
That’s it.

Industry reply rate is 1–5%.
Good is 10%+.
Great is 25%+.

PRR tells you everything you need to know:
How many people said yes.

Nothing else matters.

6️⃣ Reporting

If you want pipeline to compound, you can’t just “hope it works.”

I’d check the same dashboard every day:

Deliverability >95%
Reply rate 15%+
Positive replies 1–5%
Meetings booked
Show rate
SQL conversion
Close rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
Domain reputation

If I had to start again, I wouldn't try to do all the things. I'd build these foundations, stay patient, and let the system do its job.

Everything else comes later.

What would you add to this list? 👇

P.S. Kenny Damian crushed it putting this GTM cheatsheet together - feel free to send a DM if you need help with this.

AI agents are replacing entire GTM workflows.

So I tested 50+ of them to see which ones perform.

Most perform great in demos.

Then I plug them into our workflows and... not so much.
So I ran them through everything we use at ColdIQ.

Research, enrichment, outbound, scoring, support - the whole lot.

Some were fine. Most were absolute garbage.

So we consolidated everything the team found, compared notes, and built a list of the ones that consistently delivered.

Here's what worked... ↓

1️⃣ Sales Agents

- Artisan
- Valley
- Topo (YC W24)
- AiSDR

2️⃣ Research Agents

- Claygent
- Airtop
- Attio

3️⃣ Customer Service Agents

- Intercom
- Parahelp
- Forethought
- Sierra

4️⃣ Visual Agent Builders

- n8n
- Relevance AI
- Lindy
- Wordware (YC S24)
- Dify
- Taskade

5️⃣ Marketing AI Assistants

- Tome
- Aomni
- Copy.ai
- Jasper

6️⃣ AI Executive Assistants

- Fyxer AI
- Tasker AI
- Shortwave

7️⃣ Enterprise Development Platforms

- StackAI
- Microsoft Autogen
- LlamaIndex
- CrewAI
- LangChain
- Cohere

8️⃣ Ready-Made Agent Libraries

- Beam AI
- Sintra
- Lyzr AI

What agent tools am I missing from this list?

Drop them in the comments, always looking to test new ones.

P.S. Give Kenny Damian a follow. He's the goat when it comes to AI agents.

Ai Agents Categories

ColdIQ made 557k in revenue last month.

80% came from content.

Not ads.
Not cold calling.
Content.

Last month we launched ContentIQ - the system behind all of it.

Most people talk about “posting more.”

I want to show you what actually drives revenue.

Here’s the full breakdown of how we do it at ContentIQ 👇

1️⃣ Content foundation (the part everyone skips)

Before the engine runs, we build the infrastructure.

Phase 1: Onboarding

The non-negotiables:

- 1-hour strategy call → sharpen positioning
- Content audit → reality vs perception
- Voice capture → so your content sounds like you
- ICP definition → clarity = revenue
- Content calendar → narrative arcs, not random posts
- Community channel setup → where engagement compounds

Tools:
Gmail, WhatsApp, Slack
Attention.ai, Circleback, Loom
Clay, ChatGPT
Asana, Notion, Monday

This foundation is 70% of the results.

Phase 2: The content engine

Two tracks running in parallel:

Track 1: Creation

- Bi-weekly founder interviews
- Extract ideas, frameworks, stories
- Weekly content plans
- Graphic design
- Approval flow

Track 2: Production

- Finalised + delivered in 2–3 days
- Speed = momentum. Momentum = revenue.

Tools:
Canva, Figma, Adobe
Taplio, Scripe
(plus everything from Phase 1)

2️⃣ Lead tracking & scoring

Most companies post and hope for the best.

We post and measure.

We track:

- Profile views
- Impressions
- Comments
- Saves
- DMs (highest intent)
- Engagement depth

We run ICP 1 and ICP 2 separately.

Because:

A profile view ≠ a profile view.
A comment ≠ a comment.
A DM ≠ a DM.

We score each action so we know who is engaging and how qualified they are.

Tool: Teamfluence™

3️⃣ Automated outreach (the secret sauce)

All that engagement data flows into the automation stack.

Here’s what happens behind the scenes:

1. High-intent signals identified
2. Lead enriched with additional data
3. ICP-fit scored
4. Personalised outreach triggered
5. Across email + LinkedIn

The system does the work.

Tools:
Clay
Attio
Common Room

4️⃣ The Funnel Architecture

Most teams do ONE thing and wonder why they plateau.

Here’s the full blueprint:

→ LinkedIn content = Awareness + credibility
→ Engagement tracking = Intent identification
→ Automated outbound = Intent → conversations → revenue

When all three connect, you stop “posting content”…
and start building a pipeline engine.

---

5️⃣ The offer

For the first 10 signups to ContentIQ, we’re giving you:

The entire automated outreach machine
+
The full content engine.

Not just posts.
Not templates.
The whole workflow that built our business.

Here is the link: https://lnkd.in/ddStnRu3
(And yes… this is where it gets really good 👀)

This one tool rewired our entire workflow ↓

And saved 20 hours a week.

Two months ago, we rolled Fireflies.ai into our operations.
Not for transcription (they've already won that category),
but for meeting intelligence and workflow automation.

Here’s exactly how we’re using it:

1️⃣ Walk into every call already briefed

Before a meeting even starts, Live Assist pulls up:

→ Your past conversations
→ Key decisions from the last call
→ Open tasks + commitments
→ Context you forgot you even needed

You're not going through old notes or trying to remember what you said last week.

You just show up ready (game changer for prep).

2️⃣ Real-time suggestions during the call

This is the part that genuinely changes how you operate.

Live Assist listens live and surfaces:

→ Talking points
→ Objection handling
→ Context from previous calls
→ Background details you missed
→ Prompts tied to what the client is saying

And if you need something specific mid-call,
you can actually ask the agent to give you an answer.

3️⃣ Zero manual notes

Your team stays focused on the client.
Fireflies handles the note-taking:

→ Clean notes
→ Organised
→ Time-stamped
→ Accurate
→ Updating as the call unfolds

No one is typing.
No one is distracted.
Nothing gets missed.

4️⃣ Instant client summaries

Call ends → Summary appears.

→ Key points
→ Next steps
→ Decisions made
→ Assigned action items

We push this straight into Slack so everyone stays aligned.

And we also send all the data to a Claude project so we can keep track of what's happening with every client.

We're building a lot of internal tech at ColdIQ. And Fireflies has a Claude MCP integration.

So now we can query meeting notes across the entire business directly from Claude.

- "What did we promise this client last month?"
- "What objections came up in our last 10 sales calls?"
- "What feedback did prospects give about pricing?"

Just ask and you get the answer in Claude directly.

This is why we’re scaling Fireflies.ai across every team.

If you want the link to test Live Assist yourself,
drop a “Fireflies” below and I’ll send it over. 👇

How we use Fireflies 

We didn’t expect much from this ABM campaign.

But in 90 days it generated $2M in pipeline and $300K in revenue.

Most teams think ABM is about creating more:

→ More impressions
→ More retargeting
→ More pressure

But that wasn’t the problem.

They were struggling because the right people didn't trust them yet.
So instead of doing “more,” we tried doing the opposite.

1. We started with the customers who already chose them.

We pulled their best deals and looked for patterns.
Not just the big names - the ones who actually got the most value.
Those patterns became our targeting strategy.

2. We built a small, intentional target list

Not a huge TAM spreadsheet
Not thousands of cold accounts

Just 2,000 that looked like their best buyers

3. We mapped the people behind each account

Three to four real decision-makers:

- Their pains, priorities & timing
- What they already believed
- Where they were getting stuck

4. Personalize at every touchpoint

- Ads built around their challenges
- Landing pages that addressed their objections
- Emails synced to where they were in the process

Everything worked together.

5. We aligned every channel

- Outbound warmed them
- Content educated them
- Ads familiarised them
- The CRM tracked the signals

Each touch made the next one easier.

6. We optimized constantly

Some messages converted.
Some didn’t.

We got rid of what wasn't converting and doubled down on what was.

That's when we saw a huge change.

The result:

→ $2M+ in qualified pipeline
→ $300K closed revenue
→ All in 90 days

Ivan documented the entire playbook - the framework, the timing, the execution details.

Comment "PIPELINE" if you want it.

52x ROI ABM Campaign 

Clay is one of the most powerful tools in B2B right now.

But most people don't know where to start.

Most people open a Clay table, stare at it for 10 minutes, and close it because they don't know what to build.

We've built 500+ Clay tables for clients. Here are the 5 workflows you should start with:

Workflow 1: Waterfall Email Finder

The problem: If you use one email finder you are getting something like a 40% finding rate. That means 60% of your list is useless.

The fix: Stack multiple providers in sequence. Start with the first one (ie Prospeo.io). If the first provider doesn't find the email, try another one like LeadMagic. You can run more than 10 different providers to maximise your chance to find the right email. 

Result: 85-90% email findign rate vs 40% with a single provider.

Workflow 2: Signal-Based List Builder

The problem: You're blasting the same message to everyone. 

The fix: Pull companies from Ocean.io or Apollo. Then start to enrich to find relevant signals. 

For example: Use Claygent to scrape funding news. Track hiring spikes with LinkedIn enrichment. Check tech stack changes with BuiltWith. Score them: 3 signals = immediate outreach, 2 = nurture, 1 = long-term.

Workflow 3: Inbound-led Outbound 

The problem: People are visiting your website but you are not capturing the intent.

The fix: RB2B identifies website visitors. Push to Clay for enrichment. Find decision-makers at those companies companies. Then push the data to Instantly.ai for outreach.

Workflow 4: LinkedIn Engagement -> Outreach

The problem: People engage with your posts and you never follow up.

The fix: Trigify.io tracks who engages with your posts. Push people engaging with your content to Clay. Enrich to find more relevant data. Do some ICP scoring and reach out to leads fitting your ICP. 

Workflow 5: Champion Reactivation

The problem: Your past champions changed jobs and you're not tracking them.

The fix: Export past customers from your CRM. Use UserGems 💎 or Clay tracks job changes. Enrich to rind the right data then reach out offering to help again.

Stop staring at empty Clay tables.

Build these 5 workflows first and you'll already have a good outbound engine going.

Which one are you starting with?

taplio

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