🦾Eric Nowoslawski

Founder Growth Engine X | Clay Enterprise Partner

I am a direct response outbound lead generation expert. And by that jumble of words, I mean that I leverage cold email to build predictable revenue pipelines for my clients. 

I leverage over 20 databases to merge Firmographic, Technographic, and Persona data to build highly targeted playbooks with my clients. 

I believe we need to arm sales teams with the knowledge of their total Target Addressable Market and teach them how to score that Market for which companies have the most pain and need their solution. 

The best way to do this is to look at public indicators such as open jobs data, employee growth/attrition, social media growth, web traffic, new product launches, employee sentiment, individual employee tech investment, company tech stacks, etc.

With this data, not only are you only messaging with people that you know have a problem that you can solve, you also are armed  with powerful messaging that cuts through the noise. 

I teach sales teams to embrace technology and multiply what is possible per employee.

Founder

There is actually a limit to cold email reply rates.

Knowing this can hopefully free you from testing things that won't matter.

Let me explain.

I have worked with customers in the past that are obsessed with getting the reply rate as high as possible. They think if they send a good enough email, every single person who could possibly see it is going to respond.

We've run tests that show this just isn't the case.

We had the opportunity to work on behalf of Forbes at Web Summit. We had the list of speakers. We had all their emails. We cold emailed them from infrastructure that had warmed up for four months. The pitch was simple: "This is our booth. We want to interview you for Forbes. Book a meeting." And we sent them a link to Forbes.com.

That only got a 30% reply rate. Basically all positive.

When I say "only" 30% — if I were a speaker at an event and Forbes wanted to interview me, I would think the reply rate would be even higher than that.

We also helped a customer email their own customers. We found data that showed they needed a new product, and we could fix the problem for free.

Still only a 10% reply rate.

I say all this because these two examples are pretty undeniably good offers. And they still did not get 40, 50, 60% reply rates.

When you're sending emails, there are so many reasons why somebody doesn't respond. They didn't even see it. It got mixed up with everything else in their inbox. It's just not the right time for them.

When you've run a couple of experiments and the reply rate is staying pretty steady, I would think more about experiments around lists and experiments around offers versus trying to change the copy to see if an AI personalization or a fancier way of saying something is going to move the needle.

List segmentation and changing your offer matter way more.

What experiments have you run that changed your thinking on reply rates?

Building unstoppable pipelines | Get free sales opportunities with our no-cost, no-risk pilot campaign | Founder @ C17 Lab

Most outbound agencies take your money and deliver nothing - zero meetings, zero learnings.

I do the opposite - you see results before you pay a dollar.

I launched Square in France and was the top growth performer at Booking.com for two consecutive years, driving over $50M in GMV. After realizing I could earn more by owning even 1% of the value I created, I started C17 Lab, the first revenue engineering firm focused on outbound-led growth.​

Who I help

You’ve built a solid business through paid media, inbound, and referrals, but growth has plateaued.
You know outbound can work - you’ve seen others scale with it - but every agency you’ve tried delivered excuses instead of pipeline. Maybe you tried DIY outbound and ran into technical complexity, deliverability issues, or data problems. You’re done with the “trust us, it takes 6 months” narrative.

How I help

C17 Lab engineers outbound systems that consistently generate pipeline for:

1. Manufacturers
2. B2B SaaS selling into traditional industries
3. Professional services firms doing $2M+ in annual revenue

My team of GTM engineers and SDRs will run a free pilot campaign that books you 3-4 qualified meetings. No payment required.

If we can generate pipeline when we barely know your business, imagine what happens once we deeply understand your product and market.

Ready to see what high-performance outbound actually looks like?

Book a free pilot campaign at c17.ai.

Enzo Carasso 🧲

Marketers call it an investment.

CFOs call it an expense.

And when money gets tight, the CFO wins.

Marketing gets paused. And then this happens:

Weeks 1-4: "See? Nothing's changed."
Weeks 5-8: "Hmm. Calendar's looking a bit thin."
Weeks 9-12: "Where did the leads go?"
Week 13: "Turn it back on. Everything. Now."
Weeks 14-20: Spending money to fix the money they were trying to save.

Congratulations. You just ran the most expensive experiment in your business.

The result? You proved that turning it off was a bad idea.

You didn't save money.
You just paid twice.

You could have just... not turned it off.

The real issue isn't budget.

Marketing isn't a Netflix subscription you cancel when you're not watching.

You can't pause what took 6 months to build and expect it to restart in a week.

The CFO sees a line item.

The marketer sees a system.

The founder sees both and cuts the wrong one anyway.

Don't be that founder.

Apply for our pilot instead: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

We build it, prove it works with real meetings, then hand you a system that stays on.

Repost if someone in your network is about to cut their marketing budget.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for systems that treat outbound like infrastructure, not a nice-to-have.

Skipping strategy and going straight to execution is a fast way to fail in business. 

That's why so many companies have an inconsistent pipeline. 

So they hire more SDRs, switch tools, and rewrite the copy. 

None of it works because the foundations aren't in place. 

Instead, follow this flow: 

1. Define the target
→ Start with a revenue goal
→ Get specific on who you sell to
→ Pick the metrics that actually tell you if it's working

This is a founder decision, not something to delegate on day one.

2. Understand the buyer
→ Talk to recent customers
→ Go back through deals you lost
→ Find the pattern of why people say yes or no

It's already there. You just haven't looked for it yet.

3. Study the competition
→ How are competitors positioning themselves?
→ What are they charging?
→ Where are they weak?

Most companies skip this and end up sounding the same as everyone else.

4. Build a strong offer
→ Define the result you actually deliver
→ Keep the scope tight
→ Price it based on the value it creates

A bad offer doesn't get fixed by better copy or more sends.

5. Align before you launch
→ Who you're targeting
→ What you're offering
→ How you're talking about it

Founder, marketing, and sales need to agree on all three before execution starts. If they don't, you're wasting time and budget.

6. Build the GTM plan
→ Choose your channels
→ Set weekly activity targets
→ Define what a qualified lead looks like in writing
→ Track pipeline in one report everyone can see

Before any campaign goes live, verify your contact data. Dirty lists destroy deliverability and lead to wasted efforts. 

We use BetterContact, a data enrichment tool that cross-checks 20+ data sources to find and provide you with the most accurate contact information. You only pay for verified data.

7. Run marketing
→ Cold email, cold calling, content
→ Measure what's driving replies and meetings
→ Cut what isn't

8. Run sales
→ Train the team on the offer before they're on calls
→ Qualify hard and early
→ Review close rates every week, not every quarter

9. Retain and expand
→ Get results in front of the customer fast
→ Track their outcomes
→ The best upsell opportunity is a client who's already seen ROI

Most companies jump straight to marketing and sales.

Missing steps 1 through 5 is why steps 7 and 8 never convert.

We build this end to end at C17 Lab.

Apply for a free pilot campaign here: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost for other founders building. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for frameworks that work.

Cold emails not getting results?

Here’s 7 ways to 10x your performance.

1/ Strengthen the Offer
→ Low reply rates are often a result of weak offers.
→ Lead with a measurable outcome tied to a real problem.
→ If your prospect can’t picture the result in 10 seconds, it’s not strong enough.

2/ Narrow Your ICP
→ Tighter targeting = cleaner replies.
→ Use revenue range, role, and intent signals.
→ Broad ICPs dilute your message before it lands.

3/ Improve Data Accuracy
→ Bad data kills deliverability before you start.
→ Verify emails and phone numbers before launching a campaign.
→ Clean data means you actually reach the right inbox.

We use BetterContact, a data enrichment tool that cross-checks 20+ data sources to find and provide you with the most accurate emails and phone numbers.

4/ Write Direct, Specific Emails
→ One problem. One outcome. One next step.
→ If your email could apply to any company, it’s not strong enough.
→ No generic statements. Be specific about the pain you’re solving.

5/ Increase Speed to Respond
→ An MIT study found responding in 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes = 21x better qualification.
→ Slow response = lost deals.

6/ Qualify Before Booking
→ Not every reply deserves a meeting.
→ Qualify role, urgency, budget, and authority before you book.
→ Unqualified meetings tank your close rate.

7/ Build Infrastructure for Scale
→ Warm domains. Multi-touch sequences. Reply workflows.
→ If your system breaks when you increase volume, you can’t rely on it.
→ Performance improves when infrastructure can handle pressure.

Ready to get results from your outbound efforts?

Apply for our free pilot campaign: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost for anyone running outbound.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for outbound systems that work at volume.

7 Ways to 10 X Your Cold Email Results

You have 50 warm leads in your CRM.

How many have you actually called?

You know you need to call them.

You've known for 2 weeks.

The phone sits there.

You know how it works.

But first you need to:

- Rewrite that subject line one more time
- Watch one more video on "tonality"
- Reorganize your CRM by industry (very important)
- Make another coffee
- Check LinkedIn
- Suddenly remember you need to update your email signature

You're not avoiding, you're "optimizing."

Anything except dialing.

Congrats. Your leads are still sitting there.

Meanwhile, someone less qualified than you called them yesterday and booked the meeting.

Cold calling sucks.

Until it doesn't.

→ Call 1: You sound like a hostage reading a ransom note.
→ Call 10: You're still bad, but faster.
→ Call 100: You stop caring and start qualifying. It works.

The fear is worse than the rejection.

Prospects don't care if your voice cracks.

They care if you're wasting 30 seconds of their day or solving a real problem.

The math is simple:

100 emails = 10 replies.
10 calls to those replies = 8 conversations that move forward.

Email finds them.
Calling qualifies them.

One without the other is leaving pipeline on the table.

Your warm leads aren't getting warmer.

Call them today.

Or don't, and watch your competitor close them.

At C17 Lab, we run cold email at volume and turn replies into pipeline.

Want to see how we engineer outbound systems that actually book meetings?

Apply for our free pilot: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost this for those avoiding the phone. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more cold outbound reality checks.

I've sent 13M+ cold emails for manufacturers and professional services companies last year.

Most teams optimize messaging. 

Almost nobody optimizes the foundations:

1/ Offer Design
→ If your offer needs a 30-minute call to make sense, it's a pitch deck.
→ Buyers should know what they're getting in 10 seconds.
→ If you're explaining value on the discovery call, your outbound was already dead.

2/ Market Selection
→ Precision is useless if you're precise about the wrong people.
→ Don't build perfect lists of people who need 6 approvals and 9 months to close.
→ Outbound works when buyers have budget pressure and a reason to move now.

3/Control Systems
→ Most teams let every reply become a meeting.
→ Build gates that separate interest from intent.
→ Remove bad fits before they reach sales.
→ Make access something prospects earn, not something you give away.

Without control systems, everything falls apart:

→ Bad fits flood the calendar
→ Sales gets buried in junk meetings
→ Qualification rates tank

Volume doesn't fix a broken system.

It just breaks it faster.

Build the gates first 
→ Prove the filter works 
→ Then scale.

The hardest part of outbound isn't the copy.

It's building infrastructure that survives contact with reality.

Want to see this framework in action?

We run a no-cost pilot campaign at C17 Lab. Generate outbound leads and show the system working before you commit.

Apply: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

♻️ Repost this if you know someone scaling outbound.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more on building GTM systems that actually work.

You're writing cold emails wrong.

Actually, you shouldn't be writing them at all yet.

Most founders start with copy. 

They workshop subject lines or hire agencies to "fix the messaging."

Then they send volume and get nothing.

The problem isn't the email.
It's the approach. 

Here's what to do instead: 

1/ Craft an irresistible outbound offer

→ Not your pitch. Not your product description.
→ An offer built for cold audiences.
→ Valuable enough that saying yes feels like a must. 

2/ Select an ICP where the economics make sense

→ If your LTV is under $7K, outbound economics break fast.
→ Long cycles and low close rates will kill you.
→ Pick accounts where a single deal justifies the effort.

3/ Design value that lands before the meeting

→ Most outbound promises value during the call. That's too late.
→ Deliver insight, analysis, or something tangible upfront.
→ Make the meeting a continuation, not a starting point.

4/ Package it into a simple outbound message

→ Now you write the email.
→ You're explaining what you're sending and why it matters.
→ Keep it clear. Then send it.

5/ Review for clarity, then send at volume

→ Read it once. Cut anything that doesn't support the offer.
→ Then scale it.
→ Volume shows what holds up.

Outbound isn't a copywriting problem.

It's an offer design problem that gets tested at scale.

Ready to see if your offer holds up?

Apply here for a pilot campaign.: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost for anyone running outbound campaigns.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for outbound systems that actually work at volume.

Sending more emails won't fix your outbound.

Engineering a reliable system will.

The gap between random outbound and systemized outbound:

When outbound runs on random instinct:

❌ Every drop in replies → new tool purchase
❌ Every slow month → "let's try cold calling too"
❌ Every campaign → complete restart, not an iteration

You're not building a system. You're collecting tactics.

When outbound runs on systemized infrastructure:

✅ You know exactly who converts and why
✅ Your offer is designed for cold audiences
✅ Your deliverability survives at scale, not just the first 1,000 sends
✅ Your sequences educate before they ask for time
✅ Your pipeline data shows what's breaking before revenue does

The difference isn't effort.

It's whether you're optimizing campaigns or engineering outcomes.

If you rebuild your outbound every quarter, you don't have a tactic problem.

You have an infrastructure problem.

Systemized outbound is built to scale from day one.

Want to see the difference between random and systemised outbound in action?

Apply for our free pilot: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost for someone rebuilding their outbound right now.

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for outbound that's built with infrastructure, not guesswork.

I've sent millions of cold emails.

The teams that fail all waste energy on the same variables.

How most teams operate:

→ 50% writing and rewriting cold emails
→ 30% tweaking copy and subject lines
→ 20% asking for meetings

You're optimizing for precision in a commodity offer.

Better copy won't fix a broken system.

What Actually Drives Results:

1. Offer design for cold audiences
If it requires explanation, it's not built for outbound.
Your value prop should make sense to someone who's never heard of you.

2. ICP based on economics
Pick targets based on LTV, buying power, and deal size.
$8K average deal with $3K CAC = No room for error.

3. Deliverability infrastructure
Your copy doesn't matter if emails never reach the inbox.
Domain health and sender reputation are the foundation.

4. Systems built for volume
500 emails works. 5,000 breaks everything.
Manual intervention = you built a job, not a system.

5. Outbound as qualification, not persuasion
Meetings confirm fit, they don't create it.
Filter for intent before you book the call.

6. Meetings that convert
Show rate means nothing if deals don't close.
Optimize for quality, not quantity.

Outbound fails when teams treat it like just a copy problem.

C17 Lab builds systems that survive at scale. 

Apply for our free pilot campaign here: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost to help others in your network do outbound properly. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for systems-first outbound.

Most B2B strategies aren't bad.

They're just incomplete.

Doing the basics gets you started. 

Going beyond them is what builds a pipeline you can actually rely on.

Four areas. Benchmark yourself honestly:

1/ Offer & Market Fit

Good → You have a pitch that makes sense to people already familiar with the problem.

Better → You've narrowed it down to one segment and one painful, costly problem.

Best → Cole prospects respond without needing context or a follow-up explanation.

2/ Outbound Execution

Good → You have activity. Emails going out, calls being made.

Better → That activity is converting into meetings with people who actually fit.

Best → You can dial up pipeline whenever you need it without degrading your infrastructure.

3/ Sales Alignment

Good → Your reps know what they're selling and chase every lead.

Better → They spend their time on the right opportunities because bad fits are filtered early.

Best → The handoff from outbound to close is a system, not a hope. Leaks get fixed in real time.

4/ Infrastructure & Economics

Good → You know what you're spending to acquire a customer.

Better → You understand the full cost and what each customer is actually worth over time.

Best → You've built for pressure. More volume doesn't break what you've built.

------

Most companies are sitting at "good" across all four.

Good keeps the lights on. It won't build something worth owning.

Want to scale your business with outbound?

We run a no-cost pilot at C17 Lab. 

You'll see exactly how we approach offer design, execution, and infrastructure before you commit to anything.

Apply here: https://bit.ly/C17Pilot

Repost to help others improve their B2B marketing. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more.

Your targeting is fine. Your messaging is fine.

So why aren't you getting sales?

The problem is probably your offer. 

Alex Hormozi's book, $100M Offers, breaks down how to craft an offer too good to say no to. 

1/ Find a Starving Crowd
Pick problems people are already paying to fix. 
If demand doesn't exist, you're looking in the wrong place. 

2/ Build the Value Equation
Increase the dream outcome. Add proof and guarantees. 
Shorten time to results. Remove friction from the experience.

3/ Stack the Offer
Bonuses aren't features. They're answers to hesitations. 
Each component should solve a pain someone is dealing with. 
Anchor the price to a high-value outcome.

4/ Deliver on the Promise
The offer gets them to buy. Execution keeps them. 
Standardize delivery and track outcomes, not activity.

The strongest offers don't compete on price.

They remove price as a variable entirely.

What most people get wrong:

→ They add features instead of removing objections
→ They promise outcomes instead of engineering likelihood
→ They optimize messaging instead of fixing the core offer
→ They focus on tactics instead of the value equation

If the offer is weak, no amount of marketing can save it.

If the offer is strong, everything else gets easier.

Repost to help others build stronger offers. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for what works in outbound at scale.

Sending the same message to everyone is not a strategy. 

It's a way to look busy while nothing converts.

If you're doing this, you're not marketing. 

You're guessing. 

And guessing is expensive.

Here's how to actually reach your audience and get them to buy:

1. Lock in a real ICP
➔ "Anyone who could buy" is not a target. It's a list.
➔ Get specific: industry, revenue, LTV, team size, sales capacity.
➔ The tighter the profile, the easier everything else becomes.

2. Build an offer designed for that person
➔ Most people copy-paste their inbound pitch into a cold email. It doesn't work.
➔ Cold audiences need an offer that removes risk and delivers value upfront.
➔ If they have no reason to respond, they won't.

3. Get accurate data
➔ Bad data kills campaigns before they start.
➔ Wrong emails, outdated titles, dead companies - all wasted effort.
➔ Clean data means your message actually reaches the right person.

We use to validate contacts before anything gets sent. It finds and verifies emails and mobile numbers across 20+ data sources. You only pay for accurate data.

4. Get in front of them with cold email and SMS
➔ Once the ICP and offer are set, execution is straightforward.
➔ Cold email and SMS, sequenced correctly, to the right person.
➔ That's what fills a pipeline.

5. Qualify hard and book meetings that matter
➔ A reply is not a win. A qualified meeting is.
➔ We focus on ICP-fit meetings, not raw response rates.
➔ If they don't fit, they don't move forward.

Most outbound fails before a single message is sent. 

The work happens in steps 1 and 2. 

Get those right and the rest takes care of itself.

Repost to help your network with their ICPs

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 to build outbound that knows exactly who it's targeting.

Cialdini spent years studying why people say yes. 

The answer wasn't logic or price...
It wasn't even the product...

It was psychological triggers people don't realize they're responding to. 

That's the entire premise of Influence. This book should be required reading.

Influence = Psychological Trigger × Context → Automatic Response

📋 The 6 principles behind every buying decision:

Reciprocity
↳ Value delivered before the ask creates pressure without a word being said.
↳ The gesture doesn't need to be big. It needs to be unexpected.
↳ Debt is uncomfortable. People move to resolve it.

Give something useful before you ask for anything. A relevant insight, a data point, a free resource. 

The ask lands differently when there's already something on the table.

Commitment & Consistency
↳ People protect the version of themselves they've already agreed to.
↳ A small yes today makes the next yes easier to justify.
↳ You're not changing their mind. You're letting them change it for you.

Get small yeses early. Written commitments stick harder than verbal ones. Public commitments stick hardest of all.

Social Proof
↳ Uncertainty makes people look outward.
↳ The more similar the reference point, the stronger the pull.
↳ Numbers help. But a case study from someone who looks like your prospect helps more.

Put proof where doubt lives in the conversation. 
If your prospect is a manufacturer, show them a manufacturer. 

Same industry, same problem, same desired result.

Liking
↳ People say yes to people they like.
↳ You don't need to be their friend, just don't feel like a stranger.
↳ Lower the resistance, and the logic becomes easier to accept.

Find real common ground before you pitch anything. 
Mirror their tone. Use "we" over "I" where you can.

Authority
↳ Perceived expertise reduces pushback.
↳ Authority is signaled before you make a single argument.
↳ Most people defer to whoever sounds most certain.

State your track record early. Lead with structure. 
Even the background on your video call signals whether you're worth listening to.

Scarcity
↳ Fear of loss moves people faster than the promise of gain.
↳ Real limits create urgency. Fake ones destroy trust.
↳ What might disappear feels more valuable than what's always available.

Be honest about capacity. Emphasize what a prospect stands to lose by waiting, not just what they gain by moving forward.

The gap between a deal that closes and one that stalls often has nothing to do with your offer. 

It's whether you understood which trigger to pull and when.

Read Influence. Then go back and audit every sales conversation you're having.

Repost to help others grow. 

Follow Enzo Carasso 🧲 for more frameworks on GTM, sales and offer design.

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Enzo Carasso 🧲

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