StackOptimise

Co-Founder

Birdie

Account Executive

Oxwash

Sales Manager

Senior Account Executive

Mallow & Marsh

Selling a premium FMCG product to cafes and convenience stores.

Opened over 30 accounts in 3 months during the hottest summer on record. Exceeded target by 100%.

Field Sales Intern

The Dealer App

Selling a discounter platform that allowed cafes, deli*s and restaurants to sell surplus food, minimising their waste and maximising revenue.

Closed 16 accounts, predominantly independent cafes. Delivered in-person platform demos to ensure a smooth onboard.

Conducted a multi-channel B29 campaign targeting University students, resulting in over 100 sign-ups.

Co-Founder @StackOptimise | Everything Sales-Tech ⭐️

Co-Founder @StackOptimise

A Premium Growth Partner for B2B Companies.  

We combine the latest AI tools & sales-tech with industry-leading copywriting to put your top-of-funnel on autopilot. 

1. Over 15+ years in B2B Sales. 
2. Awarded 2x expert certification in B2B sales-tech (1/6 Clay experts in the UK). 
3. Amassed a community of over 50k sales pro's across all platforms. 
4. Supported over 25+ B2B companies to generate a consistent stream of high-quality leads. 

If you're a B2B business with a total addressable market over 10k, let's have a chat: 

https://calendly.com/d/cqf2-9q8-qty/meeting-with-stackoptimise

Or if you're really serious, call me: 

+447800727673

Email: Penn@stackoptimise.com ✉️
IG: www.instagram.com/sellmethis_penn/ 📷
Newsletter: https://stackoptimise.substack.com/ 🚨
Website: https://stackoptimise.com

Penn Frank ⚙️

Most LinkedIn DMs go nowhere.

Ours booked 756 meetings this year alone, across all clients. 

Here are the 3 message styles that got prospects to actually say “yes.”

1️⃣ The Curious Insider Message
2️⃣ Future Framing
3️⃣ The Gut Check Voice Note

And that’s just a glimpse - these are pulled from our full library of 17 proven outreach templates we use every day to start real conversations.

Want the full list?

Like this post + comment “DM” below, and I’ll send it over. (Must be following to receive.)

11 Cold Emails That Booked Calls at Disney, Apple & Google (and more global brands)

Breaking into enterprise is a different ball game - and these 11 real-email examples show you exactly how we did it.

Inside you’ll find:
 • The full emails that secured meetings at massive companies
 • The exact prompts to replicate these emails for your own business
 • The gatekeeper-friendly trick that got messages forwarded to decision-makers

Want a copy? 

Like this post + comment “ENTERPRISE” below and I’ll send it over. (Must be following to receive.)

Year 2 building StackOptimise 🚀

Here’s what we shipped this year:

1️⃣ Launched the world’s first GTM Engineer course. 
2️⃣ Released the $1M Messages eBook. 
3️⃣ Launched our newsletter - 15k subs in 8 months.
4️⃣ Grew the team from 2 to 17.
5️⃣ Expanded our client base from 8 to 20+.
6️⃣ Rebuilt our website - monthly traffic up from 4k to 30k/month.
7️⃣ Became 3× certified experts in B2B sales-tech.
8️⃣ Expanded service line (LinkedIn outreach & RevOps). 

Year 1 was survival.
Year 2 was systems and scale.
Year 3 is where everything compounds.

Onwards.

Welcome to the team, Viktor. 

He’s only a few weeks in, but we knew straight away he was built for GTM Engineering.

We assigned him three clients on day one.

One of them launched a week after he started. Their target was 28 leads per month. He smashed that target in 3 days. 

Beyond the numbers, his technical depth is insane.

Custom landing pages and AI-generated videos personalised to each lead… fully bespoke GTME workflows that would take most people months to figure out.

This is exactly the level we’re building towards at StackOptimise. Elite operators who ship fast and seriously raise the bar.

If you’re an elite operator who wants to build at this pace, we’re still hiring - come join us: https://tally.so/r/m6a5rY

Cold email and LinkedIn DMs serve the same goal - but they work in slightly different ways.

We’ve run thousands of both everyday, and here’s what we’ve learned 👇

1️⃣ Copy
Cold emails need to sound professional and stripped down.
LinkedIn DMs work best when they sound like something you’d actually say.

2️⃣ Volume
Cold email = scale. 20–30/inbox/day.
LinkedIn = slower pace. Around 200 new connections/week/profile. 

3️⃣ Rules
Email success comes from relevance and proof - direct, simple, and credible.
LinkedIn success comes from consistency - showing up, commenting, and sharing useful content.

4️⃣ Follow-up
Email: 3-5 value-led touchpoints. No empty followups. 
LinkedIn: max 3 messages, spaced out, keep it social.

5️⃣ Tools & Testing
Email: test multiple versions - value, case study, pain question.
LinkedIn: test different DMs at scale, double down on what gets replies.

6️⃣ Results & Setup
Cold email: higher volume, lower reply rate, easy to scale.
LinkedIn: smaller volume, higher engagement, harder to scale.

Both channels work - but for different reasons.
Email is the engine.
LinkedIn is the accelerator.

The best outbound strategies use both — working together, not competing.

Learn how to leverage both at scale in 2025: https://lnkd.in/eN7qinfB

$250k ARR closed this week.

We’re scaling hard. We need more hands.

GTME applications @StackOptimise ⚙️: https://tally.so/r/m6a5rY

You’ll learn GTM Engineering at the highest level - plus a platform to build your brand and establish yourself as a recognised leader.

Felix and I only spotted the opportunity in outbound (AI-driven sales + GTM engineering) because we’d spent 15 years collectively in B2B sales. If we weren’t deep in that world, we wouldn’t have seen it. 

People talk about “eureka moments” like flashes of inspiration. Ideas that magically fall out of the sky. They don’t. As Zuckerberg says, this is a dangerous lie.

Your ideas are a product of your knowledge.
Your knowledge is a product of your experiences.
The deeper your experiences, the better your ideas. 

So don’t get emotionally attached to the first draft of a business idea - it’s just the starting point. Because early on, your business will likely change direction anyway (we've pivoted our model 3 times in 2 years). 

And the deeper you get into your domain, the more opportunities emerge. We’re now seeing entirely new ways to scale the business - ideas we simply couldn’t have accessed without being in the trenches long enough to earn that level of insight.

Don’t refrain from entrepreneurship because you question your initial idea - that idea is the stepping stone to unlocking great ideas. Get started.

How we generated $450k ARR for our agency in the last 3 months:

Cold email.

A 6-step cold email sequence.

Not 2 steps.
Not 3 steps.
Six.

Because when done properly, a longer sequence compounds your credibility.

This is the most powerful sequence I’ve ever created.

Here’s why it works:

1️⃣ We identify 22+ unique personalisation points per lead.
2️⃣ Every email builds on the last. There’s a cohesive narrative. 
3️⃣ Zero reminders. Every step adds new value.
4️⃣ The tone is so human it disarms people.
5️⃣ Lots of pattern disruptors. Copy that makes the reader pause and think: “Ok… this is different.”

When you stack all of that across six well-crafted touches, you create something rare: a sequence that starts conversations with people who normally ignore cold email.

The industry keeps preaching 2 - 3 steps.
But if each step compounds, you can scale it up. 

And if we can make it work pitching outbound service (the hardest, most saturated service to pitch via outbound), we can make it work for your business. 

If you want us to build this exact engine for you -
book a call and I’ll walk you through it step by step: https://lnkd.in/e3qxXKmr

Ok, I'm super biased. 

But I really believe this is the Age of the Outbound Agency.

Let me explain why 👇

1️⃣ Ramp time
SDRs take months to get going. You need to train people, test scripts, build lists, and wait for results. With an agency, you start seeing leads within weeks, sometimes days. 

2️⃣ Experience level
Most SDRs are entry-level. They learn on the job - which usually means learning with your accounts. Agencies are made up of specialists who’ve already run hundreds of campaigns. You skip the learning curve.

3️⃣ Tech stack
In-house teams often use old tools or limited software budgets. Agencies already have the full stack - data tools, enrichment layers, AI personalisation, automation - all integrated.

4️⃣ Data and optimisation
SDR teams often lack the volume or data to learn fast. Agencies run thousands of sends per day across clients, so they can spot patterns instantly and keep improving results.

5️⃣ Risk
Inexperienced SDRs are susceptible to bad practices that can destabilise performance, like burning your domain or TAM. Agencies protect deliverability with domain pools, warm-up systems, and smarter targeting logic.

6️⃣ Experimentation
A/B testing rarely happens consistently in-house. It’s slow, and SDRs don’t always have the time or know-how. Agencies live and breathe iteration. They test constantly - messaging, timing, CTAs - and double down on what works.

7️⃣ Cost
An SDR setup means salary, tools, management, and turnover. An agency gives you a whole team, stack, and strategy for a fraction of the cost.

Right now, agencies have the edge because outbound has become a technology game. The power lies in the tools, data, and automation - and agencies are the ones moving fastest to harness it ⚙️

Book in a call with StackOptimise and see how we can build a fully optimised outbound engine for your business: https://lnkd.in/eg3YnNdR

The StackOptimise mission statement: 

To find the fastest path to ROI in outbound, for B2B companies of all sizes. 

Our process is built around one goal: to scientifically find message-market fit as fast as possible.

Here's how we do it.

1. Create 10+ unique outreach messages  
2. Allocate 1–2k leads to each message. 
3. Scrap the low performers. 
3. Further testing on top performers (subject line, PS line etc). 
4. Merge the top-performing messages into a sequence. 
5. Granular testing on the full sequence (scheduling, length etc). 
6. Allocate 80% of volume to optimised sequence and keep 20% for innovation. 
7. Refresh messaging every 4 months. 

We treat outbound like a product. 

One that should evolve every month based on data, not instinct.

That’s how we find engineer message-market fit faster than anyone else.

Book in call with us to learn more: https://lnkd.in/e3qxXKmr

The 47 Laws of Outreach Copy 📕

Law 1️⃣ Never use the long em dash "—". 
Law 2️⃣ Keep paragraphs to 1-2 lines. 
Law 3️⃣ Emails can be long or short but always trim the fat. 

To access all remaining laws: 

📺 Video breakdown: https://lnkd.in/eN2BGNNr

📕 PDF File: https://lnkd.in/eKmMa8Cr

The most unhinged offer in outbound:

We build you an elite 4-month outbound engine with:

↳ Fully managed infrastructure
↳ AI-powered personalization
↳ Signal-based targeting
↳ Unlimited campaigns & volume
↳ Custom automations
↳ Dynamic lead magnets
↳ Full CRM integration

The guarantee: 50+ positive replies in Month 4 alone, or full refund.

That's it. Give us time to dial it in, then we deliver - or you pay nothing.

All we need? A big enough TAM.

Don't care about your offer, industry, or if you even have customers yet. 

If the market's there, we'll crack it.

Apply: https://tally.so/r/A777po

4 new eBooks released 📚📚

1️⃣ The Secret to Close Outbound Sales Opportunities 
↳ Turn warm replies into signed deals - consistently.

2️⃣ Inbox Engineering 
↳ The 2025 military-grade method to bypassing spam filters. 

3️⃣ 24 Business Learnings in 24 Months 
↳ Real lessons from rapidly scaling to $1.5M ARR. 

4️⃣ Making Cold Outreach Funny 
↳ How to utilise the most underutilised weapon in outbound.

Vol 30 🚀

Email sub here (15k+ subs in 8 months): https://lnkd.in/enBDWP5w

View newsletter: The StackOptimise Newsletter 

Go-To Newsletter for GTM Operators. Every week we share 1 template, 1 tutorial, 1 tool, 1 tip and 1 FREE Gift. This exists to be the most value-packed

Open article: Vol 30.  by Penn Frank ⚙️ • 2 min read

Abbas Somji👋🏽

Helping Founders Scale Fast & Create Outbound That Works | Start-Up Advisor 🚀

I'm the co-founder of The Playbook Agency and started the business as we saw so many start-ups & scale ups making avoidable mistakes when it came to their Go-To-Market. 

I managed to become the Head Of Sales of a start-up when I was just 3 years into my career, and have continued to operate as a Fractional Head Of Sales ever since for multiple businesses.

Challenges we solve:

🟣 Your sales team is wasting time on manual research, poor data & not having enough opportunities in pipeline
🟣 You have inconsistent top of funnel resulting in revenue & pipeline spikes 
🟣 You want to instill AI & automation within your process but don’t know where to start
🟣 You’re doing outbound out of a singular domain which is resulting in landing in spam
🟣 Current data providers have “dirty data” which means high bounce rates, leading to blacklisting
🟣 You want to test new markets, before getting sales teams to allocate resource to it

We help founders get their GTM right, the first time, without having to hire an expensive sales team.

I moved to Dubai in January. Here's what I actually spend
 
No fluff, just the real numbers (In AED & GBP)
 
I've been here for a while now and people always ask me what it actually costs
 
So here's my full monthly breakdown:
 
🏠 Fixed costs (10,102 AED / £2,173)
→ Rent (Downtown Dubai, as central as it gets): 7,500 AED (£1,613) - split with a flatmate
→ Utilities (DEWA + housing fee): 1,000 AED (£215)
→ Internet: 450 AED (£97)
→ Phone (pay as you go): 60 AED (£13)
→ Gym: 512 AED (£110)
→ Cleaning (weekly, split with flatmate): 300 AED (£65)
→ Laundry: 280 AED (£60)
 
🍔 Variable costs (7,485 AED / £1,610)
→ Food & drink: 2,790 AED (£600) - about £20/day averaged out
→ Weekends out: 3,720 AED (£800) - nice meals + entertainment
→ Transport (Limes & taxis): 465 AED (£100)
→ Haircuts: 510 AED (£110) - every 10 days
 
Monthly total: 17,587 AED (£3,783)
 
A few notes:
❌ This doesn't include setup costs (visa, deposits etc.)
❌ I don't have a car. Limes and taxis work fine for me.
🫃🏽I get at least 1 takeaway a day but nearly always use Careem's 50% off section - hot meal for about 40 AED or £8.
You could cut this significantly cooking at home (I'm starting to cook myself as I go Keto now)
❌I don't drink or go to nightclubs etc
You can find cheaper barbers, but my area isn't very cost effective & I do miss my hood barber shops from the UK
 
Is it cheaper than London? Not for me - but I lived in Barking before this, so if you compare like for like area's then it is cheaper 

_________________________

My name is Abbas Somji, I'm the Founder of The Playbook Agency 

I talk all thing GTM, AI & Entrepreneurship 

Follow along if that's what you're into!

Co Founder | I turn GTM chaos into engineered revenue 🛠️

I always get asked what's Dubai like? 

Well here's a typical Friday for me 👇🏽

Everyone wants to move to Dubai 

But coming to Dubai won't solve all your problems

It might give you a bit more sunshine and security, but the work still has to get done & it won't fundamentally change you 

Your habits will follow you & so if you're anything like me, Dubai is the same as London is the same as Bali - the surroundings just change ✌️

Happy Friday - let's get after it!🫡

Most sales leaders have given up on cold email entirely
 
Meanwhile, we just booked 17 meetings last month using it
 
Here's how (my exact method no gate keeping)
 
Revenue leaders are sick of SDRs being "email monkeys."
 
Putting leads into a sequence isn't sales - it's laziness that worked for a while ﻿🥱
 
Some try solving this by buying inboxes - but they burn them as fast as they buy them.
 
My take: Sales people should be on phones. Emails should be handled by experts.
 
This landed us meetings with execs at Binance, Nvidia, HSBC, Casio & 100's more:
 
Step 1️⃣: Infrastructure Design
 
Calculate exact inbox needs, then buy from multiple providers (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, different registrars)

Our go-to's: InboxKit, Zapmail & Hypertide.

The 2x Rule: Buy 2x the domains needed. While Set A is active, Set B warms for 45 days.
 
Step 2️⃣: The 30-Day Warmup
 
Every inbox gets 30 days before touching prospects. 10-25 warmup emails daily with 30-60% reply targets.
 
Week 1-2: Pure warmup
Week 3-4: 10 cold emails daily
Week 5-6: 15-20 cold emails daily
After 45 days: Full campaign
 
Step 3️⃣: Lead List Intelligence
 
We run lists through Clay to score into three tiers:
• Tier 1 (Top 20%): Perfect ICP matches
• Tier 2 (Middle 60%): Good fits
• Tier 3 (Bottom 20%): Difficult providers
 
Then analyze MX records. Gmail inboxes go to the top. Enterprise security (Barracuda, Proofpoint, Mimecast) goes to the bottom.
 
Your domain builds reputation as it sends. First 100 sends should hit the easiest inboxes, not the hardest.
 
Step 4️⃣: Verification
 
Every lead runs through TrueInbox or Millionverifier. Target: <2% bounce rate.

One bad list burns a 45-day warmed domain. Treat verification like domain insurance.
 
Step 5️⃣: Copy That Converts
 
We reverse-engineer a perfect one-to-one email, then use Clay to create that personalization at scale.

The result? Email that sounds individually written, because the foundation was.
 
The math most sales leaders miss:
 
▸ Bad infrastructure + great copy = burned domains
▸ Great infrastructure + bad copy = fixable with A/B testing
▸ Bad infrastructure + bad copy = why you gave up
 
Cold email works if you know what you're doing.
 
 
______
Struggling to get replies? We'll build you the system in 90 days - so you own it forever. DM me.

I'm the founder of The Playbook Agency - GTM operations partner for SaaS brands from Seed to Pre-IPO

Find, contact & own your TAM with us

It's that time of year 📊

I analysed our 50 best-performing email campaigns from 2025...

They all had one thing in common.

It wasn't the persona ❌
It wasn't the subject lines ❌
It wasn't (at times) even the offer ❌

It was WHO we were reaching out to ✅

The campaigns that performed best all targeted people actively following our clients' competitors on LinkedIn

Think about it:

These aren't cold leads pulled from some database
They're people who've already raised their hand and said "I care about this space." 🙋‍♂️

→ They're monitoring the competition 
→ They're evaluating alternatives 
→ They're staying informed 
→ They're problem AND solution aware

So we tried every single "tool" on the market for this....but response times sucked, people wouldn't deliver on time and the contact data was poor 📉

So we built something to make this repeatable

Our new LinkedIn Follower Finder pulls audiences directly from competitor pages - the exact people showing active interest in your category

Plus, we scan against your ICP requirements
Meaning instead of paying for 100,000 contacts (of which only 5,000 are relevant), we find those 5,000 from the start
✅ Scored 
✅ Qualified
✅ Verified data 
✅ Additional buying signals

This is what we mean by demand engineering - finding people who are already in the market, not trying to create demand from scratch

For our clients running outbound, this has become the highest-converting data source we use

If you're still relying on legacy databases to build your lists, you're missing the people who are actually paying attention 👀

Want to see who's following your competitors? Drop me a message. 
___________________

I'm Abbas Somji, Founder of The Playbook Agency. We turn TAM into pipeline through demand engineering - building GTM automation systems that find high-intent buyers, not just contacts.

Competitor Followers - How to Find Them 

Your outbound isn't working
 
And it's probably not because you're bad at sales
 
It's because you're missing one (or all) of these 5 things:
 
After 6 years selling to everyone from corner shops "boss men" to biotech CEOs, I've realised most outbound failures come down to the same systematic gaps
 
Here's what's actually breaking:
 
1️⃣ Your ICP is too vague

"We target Series A companies" tells you nothing about why they'd buy.
"We target Series A SaaS with <5% ad conversion and a new in role marketeer" tells you exactly what pain to hit
 
2️⃣ You're not testing hypotheses

Every message should test an assumption about your buyer's pain
But most people just blast the same message & do not pivot when it goes wrong, they change way too late after they've burned through contacts and wonder why it doesn't work
 
3️⃣ You're selling on the wrong channel

You're cold calling developers who live on Discord
You're sending LinkedIn messages to people who never check it
Go where your buyers actually hang out! When we were targeting coffee shops for a previous SaaS venture, we put the phones down, and walked into businesses!
 
4️⃣ Your data doesn't match your channel

You need mobile data but you're using an email tool. Or vice versa. Wrong data provider = doomed campaign
 
You need to find pockets of data that matter, again using the coffee shop example, they aren't on LinkedIn, but you can scrape Google maps to find their contact info instead
 
5️⃣ You have no infrastructure

Single email domain. No proper calling setup. No way to scale and test fast.
YOU CANNOT run experiments without proper infrastructure
 
I've built 100+ GTM systems using this 5-step framework. It works for SaaS, services, agencies, doesn't matter
 
Sales is an art yes, but it's also a science
____________________
 
Abbas Somji👋🏽 | Founder, The Playbook Agency
 
We solve 1 major problem via AI & Automation: Too many of your reps doing too little selling to too few good prospects (Pipeline death!)
 
Supporting $2.4+ billion in SaaS revenue since 2023

I showed this chart to a VP of Sales last week
 
His response: "This is painfully accurate"
 
Look at what salespeople actually do ⤵️
 
Out of 8 daily tasks, only 2 are actual selling
 
The rest is:
 
• Cold Email + Launching Sequences
• LinkedIn Messaging
• Building lists
• Double checking to see if it's been worked on
• Tiering prospects & segmenting them
• Booking meetings
• CRM Admin
• Receiving training
• Getting their email unblocked after sending too many emails
 
No wonder hitting quota feels impossible
 
Your reps are spending 75% of their time on tasks that don't require a human anymore.
 
Here's what I told him:
 
"6/10 of these tasks can be automated using Clay & will outperform your rep doing it manually.
 
Clay + AI + the right workflows = 20 hours/week back per rep"
 
His response: "That's impossible"
 
So I showed him our exact workflow
 
🟣 Mapping out our TAM with live intent signals
🟣 Tiering that TAM & segmenting based on vertical / persona
🟣 Personalising to the pain using AI + human writing
🟣 Sending through rock solid infrastructure
🟣 Handing off the best leads to our fractional BDR to call
 
It's not impossible
 
It's just that most sales leaders don't know these systems exist or just don't trust them yet because of the amount of tools being shoved down everyone's throats right now
 
So sales leaders - what are you doing to ensure your reps time on the phones increases come Q1?
 
P.S. If this chart made you wince, we should talk.

I built my first "app" in 90 mins this weekend

It's really simple, it's a time buyback tracker based on Dan Martell's buy back your time book (Dan's EA if you're reading this make sure he see's it 😉) 

It takes your yearly salary, breaks it down into an hourly rate & then tells you what value of tasks you should be outsourcing 

You then track your activities in 15 min intervals for 1-2 days, to truly factory reset your life

You can then understand where you are wasting time, make changes & get back to grafting 

E.g Client Proposals are high revenue generating, low enjoyment - so I should delegate this task using the 4 C's

- Capital
- Collaboration (Team or partners)
- Code (AI, Tools etc)
- Content (SOP's, Recordings, Trainings)

In this example I set a figure of $100,000 as income just as an easy figure to work with, you can see any tasks that I'm doing that are worth around $12 I can confidently outsource 

If anyone wants to use it feel free just ping me and I'll send you the link

AI is getting incredible 

I recently got rid of my book keeper as Claude makes no mistakes in tagging my expenses properly & actually did my corporate tax filings in Dubai using it

What a world we live in ✌️

Hope everyone is getting after it - Monday's creeping upon us!

I just reverse-engineered how ColdIQ scaled to $6M ARR
 
Here's the dirty secret most outbound businesses won't tell you 👇🏽
 
That's not just agencies, it's also outbound tools you know and love
 
Most revenue doesn't come from outbound anymore
 
It comes from content-led systems that turn LinkedIn engagement into booked calls
 
The breakdown:
 
→ Build context engine (understand your market) & uncover bleeding neck problems
→ Connect with Tier 1 ICP prospects using LinkedIn tools
→ Create content using human + AI methods around bleeding neck problems
→ Qualify engaged audience through Clay
→ Create community & goodwill through free value (Penn Frank kills it with the ebooks)
→ Route hot leads to human touch points
 
We use this exact system ourselves - 3 of our top 5 clients came through content we posted
 
The game has changed - buyers are 80% through their decision before they even speak to you
 
Are you going to wait for your competitors to educate your buyers? or do you want them to come to you first?
 
Build the system or get left behind
 
_____________________
 
P.S ColdIQ have been extremely open on their methodologies so do check out their content it's top tier
 
P.P.S I'm taking on 5 businesses in January to take on what I call the Content→Warmbound Revenue system, where I'll build the exact set up that me and all the other businesses who are growing fast today, are utilising
 
Let me know if it's worth a conversation in the DM's ✌️

Surrounded by about $2M of bonzai tree's right now 

I'm currently sat in a Japanese coffee shop in Dubai 

Every corner has a story - hand carved walls

Staff's passions for chocolate making is now a menu item

The coffee mugs are made by hand and perfectly imperfect 

Founders love for Anime is peppered across the projectors, & his personal collection of items is spread in meeting rooms

Every single thing has been thought of and selected carefully, from the coffee to the couches 

Down to the figurines in the toilets 🤯

I spoke to the founder for a few minutes

You can see it in his eyes - this place isn't a business to him, it's an extension of who he is 

It reminded me of the difference between old buildings and modern ones

Old buildings have soul

They were built by people who cared about the craft itself, not just finishing on time and under budget

You walk into a 100-year-old structure and feel the weight of decisions made by someone who knew their work would outlast them

Modern buildings? Boring bits of glass slapped together for maximum profit in the shortest time 

After I read Ikigai, and also got a little obsessed w Japanese watch making (I bought a 55 year old Grand Seiko a few months back)

I've started to fall in love with their approach & principles - here's 3 I learned: 

1️⃣ Ikigai (生き甲斐) means "reason for being" - the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for

2️⃣ Kodawari (こだわり) - uncompromising attention to detail and commitment to your craft. It's obsessing over every element, not because it's rational, but because anything less would feel wrong

3️⃣ Shokunin - the craftsman's spirit 

A shokunin doesn't just work for money - their craft is an extension of themselves

They know their work will outlast them, so they pour their soul into it.. 

That founder? He's a shokunin

The divide exists everywhere:

Are you building something crap, soul-less and forgettable?

Or are you building something tastefully put together, thoughtful with love 

In a world full of AI - I believe this is the moat 

AI will never have passion, it'll never create the imperfect perfect 

How do your customers feel, are they in love with your service or product? 

Or is it just a transaction to them? 

Sunday thoughts ✌🏽

Them: So what do you do? 

Me: Own a GTM engineering agency, we automate inbound and outbound sales using AI & automation 

Them: What 

Me:

This is how you actually get a VP's attention in 3 ways: 

I just had coffee with Zubair Rana VP of Sales at Omtera

He moved to Dubai recently

Updated his LinkedIn profile... got absolutely bombarded on LI & email more than ever before 

The best way to close & open more deals is to stop trying to close & open more deals.. 

Here's what I mean: 

This is what he got hit with: 

❌ "Can I have 15 minutes?"
❌ "Quick call to discuss..." 
❌ "Interested in learning about..."
❌ "I can guarantee 10-20 appointments for Omtera.." 

Everyone wants to TAKE. Nobody wants to GIVE.

Here's what he said:

"If someone had sent me something actually useful for new VP setting up in the UAE before asking for time, I would've booked a call."

Here's what you need to do: 

1️⃣ Make it their world 

Example: "Zubair, everyone in Dubai loves to meet for coffee, but they rarely turn to pipeline - worked with another new to region VP on....."

2️⃣ Make it free 

Example: "I actually put together a 90 day plan for new VP's in Dubai, can I ping it over it contains...."

3️⃣ Do their homework 

Example: "I can build you a list of 25 companies that are re-evaluating monday()com whilst you get set up, worth pining over?"

This is what we're seeing across the board:
→ The companies that educate first, sell later 
→ The reps that share insights before booking meetings 
→ The agencies that build playbooks before pitching

They're closing at 3-4x the rate of traditional outbound

Why?

Because goodwill compounds

When you give value upfront:
🟣 You demonstrate expertise (not claim it)
🟣 You build trust (not demand it)
🟣 You create reciprocity (not resentment)

The fastest way to get a meeting is to deserve one

Stop optimising for opens and clicks

Start optimising for goodwill

I'm sharing these insights and more in Sales of Dubai, our free community for sales leaders in the region looking to level up with other revenue leaders 

Ping me if you want an invite or sign up via the site! 

____________

I'm Abbas, the co founder of The Playbook Agency - I talk about GTM, AI & Entrepreneurship 

Supporting SaaS brands with finding, contacting & owning their TAM

VP of Sales at Omtera

Omtera

Sales of Dubai

19 acquisitions in a 5 year period
 
Not everyone get's front row seats to transactions like that
 
Just spoke with Stephen Howard, we talked all things Channel Sales and M&A, here's 5 things I picked up:
 
1️⃣ Not every target is a whale

Some were one or two person shops. Small businesses with great customers and negotiated leases ready to transfer.
 
2️⃣ The deal is the easy part
 
It's a series of steps similar to purchasing a house, if you can handle a home purchase, you can handle an acquisition

The real work? Customer communication. Making sure they see it as a net positive, not just two people getting richer!
 
3️⃣ You inherit more than revenue

Employees. Leases. Customer relationships. Market access.
All without starting from zero.
 
4️⃣ Channel sales unlocks everything

This one surprised me, how partnerships actually work behind the scenes and the 80/20 rule of channel sales.
 
What was really cool is he saw it all at 27 (I'm 28 now) and he used that experience to negotiate his first business purchases too!
 
Full episode is coming, subscribe so you don't miss it - just search my name on YouTube (Abbas SomjI)
 
What's the first business you'd acquire if you could? 👇
 
__________________________
 
I'm Abbas Somji👋🏽 Somji, I talk all things GTM, AI & Entrepreneurship - follow along if that's what you're into!

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