CEO @ Conversion House 🏠 | On-demand design for small SaaS marketing teams so they can launch faster, position better and convert more.

Learn more about outbound intelligence:
→ Connect / follow
→ Visit our website: https://www.demandhouse.agency/
→ Subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7307333213792665600
→ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@demand-house

Joe Wheatley

After 2.5 years, I've closed the agency down.

In August 2023 I was completely new to business. Came from the defence industry. Didn't know what SaaS was, didn't even know the difference between marketing and sales.

Knew how to make websites and write, so started freelancing - blog posts and websites for marketing agencies.

Then started landing my own clients. Re-invested everything back into the business - courses, paid ads, tools.

A few courses said "pick a niche", so after some research and zero prior experience, niched down to SaaS.

Started posting about SaaS design on LinkedIn (around November 2024). One month later, landed my first major SaaS gig. Built a website for Summize.

A few more websites, then pivoted to content for SaaS companies. Started a podcast around this time. 

FYI, podcasts are one of the biggest growth hacks - you learn from people you wouldn't otherwise get in a room, they get free marketing.

Summer 2025, flew to San Francisco and filmed videos for a few names you'd recognize.

Came back, jumped on some disco calls. The demand was for outbound not content. Followed the demand. Learned outbound, picked up some new clients. Someone even offered equity for Demand House.

As of today: 30+ B2B companies, multi 10k+ projects, 27 five-star reviews. Not every project was a success - but when we failed, we reflected and learned from our mistakes.

At the beginning of Feb 2026, started thinking longer term. Two things kept coming to mind:

1. GTM agencies are fighting over lower market and small budgets - a race to the bottom with automation and AI.

2. The market rewards those with a top 1% skill, not a jack of all trades.

That pointed to one thing: build a career in tech sales, selling to mid-market and enterprise. Big budgets, opportunity, high-touch, human-led. Skill still matters.

Started applying for roles. Found Vertice - 13x growth in 2 years (one of the fastest growing tech companies in Europe).

Went to their office for the final interview and the floorplate was pure hustle energy. Perfect

Starting on monday as a BDR. Team look great. Very excited. All-in.

Reflections:

99% of this 2.5 year journey was raw action in the face of intense confusion & ambiguity

But push through and on the other side is clarity. Then you must repeat.

That's growth.

Everyone has been through this process, but most stop. The process defeats them. You see it all over their faces. This is what you must avoid.

Instead, you must learn to love the journey. The good, the bad. Every single part of it. Amor Fati

Like Yin and Yang, there is no light without dark.

Everything is connected.

So if you take away one thing away from this post it’s this:

- The journey is the point.
- There is no finish line.
- NEVER stop chasing growth.

GTM @ Vertice | Intelligent Procurement Platform | #1 fastest growing scale-up in UK (Sifted) | #2 in Sunday Times 100 Tech

Master these 5 areas of deliverability so you avoid the spam folder and book more qualified meetings

1️⃣ Infrastructure & Settings
→ Purchase domains with reputable providers like Porkbun
→ Use .com domains
→ Age domains for 30 days before sending
→ Buy backup domains for rotation
→ Use 2 inboxes per domain
→ For inboxes, use trusted re-sellers like Zapmail.ai
→ Diversity your sending infra (mix of Google, Outlook and 3rd party)
→ Ensure proper authentication and DNS (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, URL re-directs)
→ Warm-up inboxes (start at 5 per day, increase by 1 per day up to 15-20)
→ Set warm-up reply rate to 70%
→ When warm-up is complete, send maximum of 25 emails per day per inbox
→ Ensure warm-up stays on at 10-15, 70% reply rate
→ When starting cold email campaigns, begin with 5 emails per day in week 1
→ Then gradually increase to 25 emails per day by the end of week 2
→ Match ESPs for better deliverability (outlook to outlook, Google to Google)
→ Keep bounce rates < 2% and spam complaints < 0.1%
→ Check domains aren't blacklisted using MXtoolbox

2️⃣ Lead Lists
→ Ensure company is within your TAM or ICP
→ Ensure contact is a buyer persona
→ Use enrichment waterfalls like BetterContact to maximize both quality and quantity of contact data
→ Ensure proper enrichment, scoring, tiering, filtering and lead routing using Freckle.io or Clay

3️⃣ Offer
→ Must be compelling
→ And relevant

4️⃣ Sequence
→ Good sequence length e.g. for Tier 3 email-only outreach, max 3 emails
→ Optimize time between steps (depends on ICP and tier)

5️⃣ Copy
→ Write in plain-text (no links, no HTML)
→ Add unsubscribe option
→ Remove any spam trigger words (use spam checkers like Mail Meteor)
→ Use Spintax, messaging frameworks and AI-generated copy
→ Ask questions and personalize
→ A/B test
→ Follow copywriting best practices

Anything to add? Drop below

Lead generation for B2B with cold email | Clay [Club] lead in Bucharest | GTM advisor

Great sales expertise in software sales, mostly in marketing and financial tech. Been working with different industries including retail, construction, furniture, agriculture, and horeca.

Building exceptional knowledge and relationships in those industries.

Well-versed in managing the full sales cycle. Most frequent persona: C-level, VP, Directors, and managers.

Great listening skills, empathic and a natural problem solver. Customer obsessed.
10+ years of experience in building relationships with cross-functional colleagues on internal or external teams

Alex Baldovin

Europe is becoming the Clay capital of the world.

And it's not slowing down anytime soon.

Here's a map of Clay Club hosts across Europe building the GTM community:

OG Hosts: (UPDATED)

- Alex Baldovin - Bucharest, Romania
- Bill Stathopoulos - London, UK
- Jake Gill ⚙️ and Jessica Rose - Manchester, UK
- Jérémy Grandillon- Paris, France
- Taimoor Tariq and Nicolas Schell - Berlin, Germany
- Jack Cane - Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Giorgio Zanella - Milan, Italy
- Simon Lechner - Munich, Germany
- Simeon Predov - Sofia, Bulgaria
- Joan Carles Sanjurjo - Madrid, Spain
- Oriol Serra 🔁 - Barcelona, Spain
- Cedric Charpenet - Vilnius, Lithuania
- Brian Woloszczak - Warsaw, Poland
- Mark Colgan, Olivier Tytgat 🧪 and Rafael Guerreiro 🚀- Lisbon, Portugal
- Lucas Maliczak 🧪 - Zurich, Switzerland 
- Harri Konola and Ilze Nartiše - Helsinki, Finland
- Kareem Mostafa - Dublin, Ireland
- Frederik Huetzen, David Kwint and Christo Burger - Dusseldorf, Germany
- Federico Steinhoff - Vienna, Germany
- Andriy Vovchak, Artyom Jurkevich and Hlib S. - Riga, Latvia
- Habib Ullah - Brussels, Belgium
- Aleksandar Besarovic - Belgrade, Serbia
- Pavlo Dzyba - Kyiv, Ukraine
- Nikolaos Ntemos - Athens, Greece.

What started as a few meetups is now a movement.

These hosts are bringing together GTM professionals, sales leaders, and automation nerds in their cities.

They're teaching Clay workflows. Sharing playbooks. Building real relationships.

Not for clout. Not for leads.

Just to help their local communities level up.

That's what makes this special.

Who's the best Clay Club host I missed?

I served 60+ companies without a team before I made the 1st hire.

All because I wanted to map the workflows + my logic and turn Claude into my mastermind partner.

And boy, I feed it everything.

My capabilities + Offers → My competitors → My customer data → Market insights → Automation workflows → Client offers → Ideation workflows → Then I ask it to challenge my thinking

So, what did i do?

I created templates for ICP validation, offer positioning, and systems integration planning. 

Each prompt includes:
→ my customer patterns → industry context → success metrics.

Now, when I'm deciding whether to add a new service or optimize a workflow, I run it through Claude first. It spots gaps I miss and asks questions I should be asking.

So next time you're making a GTM call, remember AI works best as a thinking partner, not a task executor.

And this is just the beginning.

When you start:

1. Building skills
2. Using the mcp servers
3. Creating agents in claude code

Claude gets powerful really fast.

Have you used it better? How should I improve?

A founder booked a call with me last week.

First thing he said: "I don't know how you got on my feed, but I've been reading your posts for 3 months."

He'd already decided before we spoke.

I'm a GTM Engineer. I build the testing infrastructure companies use before they scale outbound. 

But my own pipeline runs on content 90% of the time.

That call made me map out exactly how he got there.

He didn't just "see a post and reach out." He moved through five distinct stages → and my content pulled him forward

Stage 1: Discovery

→ He had no idea I existed. A post showed up in his feed. The hook was specific enough that he stopped. That's the only job here: earn the follow from a complete stranger.

Stage 2: Engagement

→ He started saving posts. Coming back. Never commented, never liked. Just watching. Trust was building in the background while I had no idea he existed.

Stage 3: Intent

→ He visited my profile. Read old posts. Checked my featured section. By this point, my content had already answered his biggest objections. Without a single conversation.

Stage 4: Conversion

→ He booked the call warm. Already sold on the approach. We spent 20 minutes on fit, not persuasion.

Stage 5: Loyalty

→ Still ongoing. But he's already referred one person into my pipeline.

Most people treat LinkedIn like a cold channel.

Push the product. Drive to a CTA. Wonder why nobody converts.

The buyers who actually close don't get sold to. 

They get guided → post by post → until booking a call feels like the obvious next move.

The full breakdown is in the infographic below.

If God removed every blessing in your life

Would you still love Him?

Or do you love what He gives?

It's easy to worship when:

Prayers are answered 
When doors open
Life feels smooth

But faith is tested when the blessings pause.

When silence stretches. 
When nothing changes.

Job lost everything. 
Family, wealth, security.

Yet he said: "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away". Real devotion isn't built on outcomes, It's built on conviction.

Many love the gifts, but few love the Giver. 

If your faith survives only when life is good, it isn't faith. It's convenience.

God blessed me with rock bottom about 5 years ago. 

And today, He blessed me with incredible success.

So here's a reminder I want you to know today:

Those who leave everything in God's hands
will eventually see God's hands in everything.

This is the exact content-to-pipeline strategy I'm using in 2026.

It generated 200+ qualified leads in Q4 2025, so I'm doubling down:

Ready? (repost to help others)

The 6-Step Strategy (copy me):

1. Use Kleo for content ideation and copywriting that resonates
2. Deploy Extrovert to engage with your ICP's posts daily
3. Set up Trigify.io to listen for buying signals in real-time
4. Feed everything into Clay for data aggregation and ICP scoring
5. Send warm emails to engaged prospects (3x higher reply rates)
6. Build lookalike audiences from warm responders for cold outreach

The entire playbook is right there.

Here's what most people miss:

They treat content and outbound as separate channels.

But when you connect them? You're in business.

→ Your content builds awareness.
→ Engagement creates familiarity.
→ Listening catches intent.
→ Clay scores and prioritizes.

Then you reach out.

I've been running this for 6 months across multiple clients.

The data doesn't lie: warm emails from content engagement convert 3x better than cold outreach alone.

Stop choosing between content and outbound.

Combine them.

"Do not be afraid; only believe."
Marc 5:26

This is your sign. God is with you. 

You just have to believe.

3 years ago, I started my business because I no longer felt safe.

The job market was broken then, and even worse today.

AI is replacing entry-level roles faster than we can train for them.

And even if you land a job? The average tenure is now 3 years.

You're expendable. Replaceable. A line item on a spreadsheet.

I spent 8+ years climbing the corporate ladder in software sales.

Hit quota. Closed deals. Played the game.

But I watched colleagues get let go after stellar years.

I saw positions eliminated overnight. Departments restructured without warning.

The message was clear: your security is an illusion.

So I had a choice.

Keep trading time for money in a system designed to replace me.

Or build something I controlled.

Before I registered my GTM agency, I prayed.

I asked God if this was my path.

The peace I felt wasn't loud. It wasn't dramatic.

But it was clear.

That confirmation gave me the courage to leave stability behind.

Here's what I did:

1. Audited my skills: 10+ years in sales, lead gen, and GTM systems gave me a foundation.

2. Identified the gap: Companies were buying tools but couldn't connect them. That became my offer.

3. Built systems first: I documented processes before I had clients. Clay + HubSpot + analytics became my core stack.

4. Started serving: I took on my first 3 clients on Upwork before I quit. Proof of concept mattered.

5. Scaled through automation: I automated what I could, outsourced what I couldn't, and focused on high-value work.

Faith doesn't eliminate the work.

It eliminates the doubt.

Today, I serve 60+ customers while maintaining location independence.

Not because I had it all figured out.

But because I refused to let a broken system dictate my ceiling.

The job market won't save you.

But your skills, systems, and faith in yourself can.

PS: I'm building a program to help people in similar situations launch a profitable business in 90 days.

Comment "Profitable" and let's have a chat.

Last month I had no idea what I was doing on LinkedIn. But last week, my posts got more saves than likes. And more leads too

Here's what changed:

I started applying common sense to my own analytics. Turns out every metric is a diagnostic.

Each number is telling you exactly what broke:

Let's break them down ↓

Low impressions → weak hook. 
Low likes → no emotion triggered. 
Low comments → not thought-provoking. 
Low sends → not relatable enough.
Low saves → not valuable enough.

Miss all five? Your warmest connections scrolled past and the algorithm buried it completely.

Let's say you're posting about outbound strategy: zoom out. 

Ask yourself: 

1. Does this post solve a problem my ICP will face repeatedly? Make sure it contains something reusable (a checklist, a framework, a diagnostic, a template).

2. What should I actually be optimizing for?
The bar is low. Most posts are either AI-generated or purely opinion with nothing actionable underneath.

There are 3 types of posts that consistently drive saves:

→ A lived client moment + the exact framework used to fix it
→ A step-by-step breakdown that someone can execute themselves
→ A common belief challenged with a specific counter-example or real data

It's just me sharing what I actually do. Not what sounds good in theory.

Repeat this for a few weeks, and your analytics start telling a completely different story.

In my experience, saves matter more than any other metric. They're the signal that you gave someone something worth keeping.

If your goal is to turn content into pipeline, here's the mix that works:

→ Post content that teaches your ICP something they'll actually use
→ Write hooks specific enough that strangers stop scrolling 
→ End every post with something worth debating or acting on 

Treat it like an infinite feedback loop.

PS. Likes feel good, but they don't compound. Saves do.

taplio

The Battle

Joe Wheatley

Alex Baldovin

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJoe Wheatley's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAlex Baldovin's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Joe Wheatley

Alex Baldovin

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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

Performance ScoreAlex Baldovin's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJoe Wheatley's LinkedIn Performance