TalkToTheo

Builder

Fractional CMO & Growth Consultant

uman

Head of Marketing

Marked

After a few years working as online marketeer in different industries and being active as online marketing freelancer (side business) I decided to take the leap and focus myself on my own business. 

♦ Online marketing strategy development 
♦ Optimizing and monitoring campaigns in Google AdWords
♦ Conversion optimization
♦ Performing SEO optimisations to boost online visibility. 
♦ Performing keyword researches for specific industries
♦ Visualise data in presentations & keynotes. 
♦ Analyse data from Google Analytics and formulate suggestions for optimizations. 
♦ Google Tag Manager & Google Analytics for conversion tracking & data analysis.
♦ Set up highly effective social media campaigns on LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter. 

✉ Feel free to send me a message. I love networking!

Founder & Head of Growth (exited may 2024)

Birdhouse

Birdhouse Partner - Go to Market & Growth Strategy

Freelance growth marketer

Authority BVBA

Freelance Paid Advertising Specialist

GBL Studio

GBL Studio is a full service marketing agency where online marketing takes on an increasingly important role. For many B2C & B2B customers from various industries (construction, retail, food, etc.) I do the following:

♦ Google Adwords - Search, Display & Remarketing campaigns
♦ SEO Optimisation
♦ Linkbuilding 
♦ Content Marketing
♦ Social Media Management 
♦ Social Media Advertising + Remarketing
♦ CMS Management - Drupal & Wordpress
♦ Copywriting - Website content, Ad copy, SEO Copy
♦ Conversion Optimization for websites & webshops
♦ Comprehensive analyzes and reports 
♦ Marketing Automation
♦ Wireframing
♦ Email Marketing 

Tools & Systems used: Mailchimp - Flexmail - Ahrefs - AWR - Screaming Frog - Sharpspring - MockFlow - Google Analytics - Hotjar - Adwords Editor - SeoQuake - Google Tag Manager - Google Data Studio - Drupal - Wordpress 

Clients I'm working for: Tui - Oxygen Fitness - LVD Group - CBS Beton - Sociaalste School - Benedict Huysentruyt - Westlease - Deiso - Promarket/Publibon - Alpha Works - ABC Labels - Rijschool Merelbeke - Hyboma - Semperfi-Devos - Van Den Bossche Interieur - Vandatax - Gelis - MR Group

Online Marketeer

XMarketing

Online marketing freelancer (Sidejob)

♦ Optimise and monitor campaigns in Google AdWords, and track KPIs in Google Analytics. 
♦ Perform SEO optimisations (MOZ tool) to boost online visibility. 
♦ Perform keyword research in Google Keyword Planner. 
♦ Visualise data in presentations & keynotes. 
♦ Interprete data from Google Analytics and formulate suggestions for optimisations. 
♦ Implement Google Tag Manager & Google Analytics for conversion tracking & data analysis.
♦ Set up highly effective social media campaigns on LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter.

Freelance Online Marketeer (Sidejob)

Glorious Cars

♦ Car photography
♦ Social media management
♦ Content management
♦ Google analytics analysis for optimisation
♦ Google Adwords campaigns
♦ Event organisation
♦ Partnership deals
♦ Emailmarketing
♦ Influencer marketing
♦ Website optimisation (SEO)
♦ Social Advertising

Digital Marketeer

Guiding B2B SaaS Companies to unlocking Revenue-Driven Success. Founder & Head of Growth @ Marked.

Over the past decade, I've dedicated my career to helping B2B SaaS companies focus on revenue-driven marketing operations that result in tangible growth. 

As the former founder of Marked, a respected agency in Belgium, I have worked with over 50 clients worldwide, providing sustainable growth solutions.

My mission is to empower B2B SaaS businesses by setting up revenue programs that generate consistent and sustainable growth. My approach is centered around practical strategies that drive real results. Nothing fluffy, real action.

What I Offer:
→ Coaching for CMOs & B2B Marketers: Tailored coaching to enhance skills and strategic thinking.
→ Fractional CMO Services: Providing leadership and expertise on a part-time basis to drive your growth.
→ Strategic Trajectories: Developing comprehensive plans that align with your business goals.
→ Building Revenue Systems: Crafting and implementing systems to ensure steady revenue growth.

Notable Clients:
I've had the privilege of working with leading B2B SaaS companies such as Mouseflow, Robovision, 6clicks, Sequesto, Froomle, and Accurat.

Key Achievements:
→ Assisted over 50 clients worldwide
→ Established Marked as a respected agency within Belgium
→ Advised startups through Belgian accelerators

If you're interested in learning more about how I can help your business grow, visit my personal site or subscribe to my newsletter for the latest insights and strategies.

Learn More:

Personal Site: xanmannekens.me
Newsletter: b2bmarketerscompass.com

Let's connect and explore how we can drive growth for your business together.

Xan Mannekens

Before you write your 2026 marketing plan, read this.

Another 50-page strategy deck won't help you
if your team can't execute it.

The #1 reason marketing plans fail isn't a lack of ideas.
It's a lack of connection to daily work.

If you want 2026 to be different,
you need to build the bridge between your plan and your team's priorities.

Here's the 5-step framework to make that happen:
1. Objectives: From vague goals to 3-5 key results.
2. Timeline: From annual pressure to weekly sprints.
3. Actions: From a long to-do list to 2-3 daily priorities.
4. Ownership: From group confusion to individual accountability.
5. Accountability: From monthly check-ins to a consistent daily rhythm.

Please don't start 2026 with another plan that is going to collect dust.

Start it with a system for execution.

What's your biggest goal for your marketing team in 2026?

I help early stage startups gain traction through smart marketing and GTM engineering | Fractional CMO

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: Want a free strategy call with us? Book it here - https://coldiq.com/

Founder & CEO at ColdIQ | Tomorrow’s GTM Systems, Built for you 👉 coldiq.com

Failing 7 businesses before growing one

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?

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!

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.

What our $6,5000,000/year Funnel looks like:

(It booked 1,400+ meetings & added > $4M ARR in 2025)

1️⃣ Lead Generation

We drove 329,000+ unique visits to ColdIQ’s website this year.

They came from:

1. Automated Outbound
2. LinkedIn publications
3. LinkedIn Ads
4. Google Ads
5. SEO

Software used:

OUTBOUND

→ Data Sourcing: Clay, Openmart, LinkedIn
→ Enrichment: Clay, Prospeo.io, Wiza, FullEnrich
→ Sales Engagement: Instantly.ai, lemlist, Expandi
→ Intent Signals: Clay, Common Room, Teamfluence™

INBOUND:

→ SEO: AirOps, Ahrefs
→ Ads: Fibbler, LinkedIn
→ Content: Taplio, Scripe, Notion


2️⃣ Lead Capture

To make the most of this traffic, we leveraged a few conversion mechanisms, i.e:

1. Lead Magnets, as Content guides or Mini-Tools, to capture email addresses.
2. Visitor Identification tech, to re-engage anonymous visitors.
3. ‘Smart’ one-field forms, to automate lead routing to sales.
4. VSLs, to articulate our offerings as clearly as possible.

Software used:

→ Inbound Routing: Default
→ Mini-Tools: Lovable, Vercel
→ VSL Hosting: Wistia on Webflow
→ Visitor Identification: Instantly.ai, Midbound


3️⃣ Lead Management

When leads don’t convert directly, we:

1. Run ‘inbound-led’ outreach campaigns to ICP fit leads that we scored & segmented prior.
2. Connect on LinkedIn & let our content nurture them.
3. Nurture them via Email Marketing sequences.
4. Nurture them via our Newsletter.

Software used:

→ Newsletter: beehiiv
→ Email Marketing: Customer.io
→ Lead Scoring: Clay, OpenAI, Claude
→ Workflow Automation: n8n, Relevance AI


4️⃣ Lead Conversion

Finally, we’re on to the last step, i.e, closing these leads.

This mostly happens via video conferencing on Google Meet. 
Followed by proposals being sent via email. 
And contracts are being signed digitally.

Software used:

→ Proposals: Qwilr
→ Sales Enablement: Attio
→ Meeting Notes: Attention
→ Conferencing: Google Meet
→ Digital contracts: PandaDoc

Which of these platforms are you using? 👇

P.S: The strongest part of our Funnel is our Lead Generation. 

Syncing LinkedIn Ads, LinkedIn Content & Outbound is generating so many leads… that we don’t need to be 100% perfect lower down the funnel. 

If you'd like us to run this for you, check the “visit my website” link below my profile tagline!

We completely changed the way we run GTM at ColdIQ.

And now, we’re making it official 👇

ColdIQ started as an outbound agency.

It’s still the biggest chunk of the work we do.
It’s how I found our first clients.
And it’s still an essential part of our GTM engine.

But as we ran our own go-to-market at ColdIQ…

We started experimenting with new channels:

- Google Ads
- Meta Ads
- SEO
- YouTube
- Quora Posts
- Reddit Posts
- Niche Communities
- Newsletter Sponsorships

… but most importantly:

→ LinkedIn Content
→ LinkedIn Ads

By adding LinkedIn content to the mix, we built one of the most powerful distribution engines in the GTM niche.

30M impressions.
2500+ B2B meetings.
250,000+ followers gained.
$4,000,000+ in deals influenced.

And we got much better results with our cold emails, without changing anything, just because this content engine built so much social proof.

And then, we pushed it one step further. 

We realised we had published so many proven posts… that if we pushed these in front of more of our target personas… we’d potentially book even more meetings.

So we did…

And, once again, the numbers looked great.
(LinkedIn Ads aren't 'that' simple, but you get the gist!)

This is when I started doubting the ‘logic’ behind our offering.

We’re killing it at 3 B2B channels…
So why are we delivering just 1?

If a GTM Leader in B2B Tech came to me asking: “Hey Mich, I have $20K to spend per month on my GTM… what shall I do?”

I wouldn’t tell them: “Just send as many cold emails as humanly possible”

I’d tell them to run a GTM engine that syncs Outbound, with LinkedIn Content & LinkedIn Ads.

So we quietly started offering this to clients.
But didn’t advertise it on our site.

Up until the results were undeniable.

It’s worked so well for us.
It’s worked amazingly well for orgs like AirOps. 
(who closed >$1M via our ABM engine & went from $2M to $15M just this year)

And I’m betting it’ll work for you if you’re a GTM Tech, AI SaaS or B2B Tech company.

If you’re wondering how the machine operates, have a look at the video ↓

Or schedule a call with our team here: coldiq.com


Talk soon ✌️

LinkedIn content got ColdIQ past $550,000 in MRR.

And this workflow turns each of our posts into pipeline:

Here's the step-by-step breakdown:

STEP 1: CAPTURE REAL-TIME ENGAGEMENT

Each profile view, like and comment gets automatically tracked.

Someone engaging with you or your content doesn't mean they'll buy from you... But it could be a sign.

STEP 2: DATA ENRICHMENT

For each of these engagers, Clay enriches data on the person & their company.

- Job title
- Tech stack
- Hiring signals
- Company size
- Funding rounds

All of this information is enriched within minutes.

STEP 3: AI QUALIFICATION

Most of the people who engage with your content aren't a good fit for your offerings.

We use OpenAI & Claude's flagship models to score each contact.

- Great fit? We moved them to the next step.
- Not a fit? We stop the enrichment process here.

AI qualified based on criteria such as:

- B2B vs. B2C
- Geography fit
- Industry match
- Company size match
- Estimated customer LTV
- Seniority, Function & Job Title

STEP 4: CRM DEDUPLICATION

Before doing anything more, we verify: is this lead already in our records?

→ Is it an existing customer?
→ Are we already in talks with them or their team?

If so, skip them.

→ Are they a net new contact?

If so, push them to sequence.

At scale, it's difficult to avoid it entirely...
But you want to avoid reaching out to existing customers.

STEP 5: WATERFALL ENRICHMENT

We find contact data via a waterfall that includes Wiza, Prospeo.io, FullEnrich & LeadMagic.

This allows us to maximise our coverage, and get from ~50% verified email to > 85%.

STEP 6: CONTEXTUAL OUTREACH

Depending on the prospect's tier, we'll engage via email or multi-channel outreach.

Each prospect gets a tailored message via Instantly.ai or lemlist that references the topic of the post they engaged with.

Something along the lines of:

"Hey {{first_name}}, saw you engage with posts on {{topic}}, so I figured you'd be interested in this breakdown laying out how Snowflake sourced 60% of its pipeline from SDRs using {{unique mechanism}}"

STEP 7: POSITIVE REPLIES & BOOKED MEETINGS

This system consistently books 100+ qualified meetings for ColdIQ.

And it runs 24/7 on autopilot.

→ Every content piece can become a lead magnet.
→ Every engagement can turn into a qualified opportunity.
→ New conversations happen every day.

If you're posting on LinkedIn and not at least monitoring WHO engages with your posts... you're missing out.

Are you currently tracking your LinkedIn engagement?

P.S: We can build this workflow for you, alongside other GTM plays, including some similar to those we built for AirOps... that helped them get from $2M to $15M ARR just this year. 

Book a time with our team if you're interested :)

Founder: “There are so many sales tools, how do I even pick?”
Me: "I run outbound for 75+ companies. Start here 👇"

(Pick just 1-2 tools per category)

1️⃣ Databases

Accurate data sourcing is the foundation for successful outbound.

You need at least one very reliable data platform.

Some of my favourites include:

1. Clay (starts at $149/mo)
↳ They aggregate 100+ data providers in one place, including as intent platforms and AI agents.

2. Openmart (from $149/mo)
↳ My favourite database for SMBs & local businesses.

3. LinkedIn Sales Navigator (from $99/mo)
↳ The O.G B2B database.

4. Exa’s websets (from $49/mo)
↳ List building agent that retrieves niche data based on plain English prompts.


2️⃣ Enrichment

Your sourced lists will often miss contact data (i.e: email addresses & phone numbers)

To enrich these, I recommend a combination of:

- Wiza (starts at $49/mo)
- FullEnrich (starts at $29/mo for 500 credits)
- Prospeo.io (starts at $39/mo for 1,000 credits)
- LeadMagic (starts at $99.99/mo for 10,000 credits)


3️⃣ Agents

AI agents best prospecting use-case is automating lead research.

Depending on use case, I'll use:

1. Relevance AI (starts at $19/mo)
↳ Ideal to build custom agentic workflows.

2. Claygent (starts $149/mo)
↳ Within Clay, best agent to perform at scale research on your lead lists.

3. n8n (starts 24€/mo)
↳ One of the most flexible, powerful & cost-effective workflow builder.


4️⃣ Signals

You can’t know for sure that companies are in-market for your services.
But you can make an educated guess by monitoring buying signals. 

Some reliable platform to source these signals include:

- Clay (starts at $149/mo)
- Common Room (starts at $1,000/mo)
- Trigify.io for social signals (starts at $149/mo)

lemlist also recently release a ton of signals within their all-in-one platform.


5️⃣ Outreach

Next up, you’ll want to contact your leads, while maximising the likelihood of your messages getting delivered.

Some great options include:

- Instantly.ai for email outreach (starts at $37/mo)

- Expandi for LinkedIn outreach (starts at $99/mo)

- lemlist for multichannel outreach (starts at 69€/mo)


6️⃣ Closing

Tech doesn’t replace a great seller, but they can help by:

1. Facilitating deals data logging, storing & cleaning: Attio (starts at 36€/mo)

2. Recording meetings,taking notes & gathering sales insights: Attention.

3. Capturing lead interactions, and routing insights to Salesforce: Momentum.io (from $69 per user per month)

4. Automating inboud routing: Default (starts at $500/mo)

5. Building clean proposals: Qwilr (starts at $39/mo)


P.S: Have you tried a great sales software recently?

Which one it is? 👇

Sales Technology Stack

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

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

This GTM workflow booked us 1,500+ meetings in 2025.

Here's what we're doing to beat this in 2026 ↓

1. Our team published > 1400 LinkedIn posts so far this year.

- We aim for depth, but also for quantity.
- We write around our prospect pain points.
- We use Taplio + Scripe to gain inspiration.
- We look at hooks, visuals & formats from posts that worked.

↳ In 2026, we aim to cross > 3000 LinkedIn publications.

2. We spent $50,000 promoting high-performing posts via Thought-Leader LinkedIn Ads.

- This generated an extra ~2M impressions at an average $37 CPM.
- We boosted organic posts that had generated meetings.
- We reviewed what persona booked from these publications.
- We boosted these publications in front of this persona.

↳ In 2026, we plan to 2X our LinkedIn Ads budget.

3. We segmented qualified site visitors, post engagers, & followers who hadn’t scheduled calls with us yet.

- On our site: we used Instantly.ai, Midbound & Common Room to de-anonymize our anonymous visitors.

- On LinkedIn: we used & Teamfluence to monitor social interactions.

↳ In 2026, we’ll keep doing that, it works.

4. We routed all our leads leads to Clay

5. We scored & segmented our leads, at scale, with AI.

- We researched our inbound leads with Clay’s AI Agent (Claygent).
- We segmented leads into 3 tiers using OpenAI inside of Clay.
- We added leads to separate GTM campaigns depending on their Tier.

↳ In 2026, we’ll keep using AI to segment & tier leads, but with tighter (& better) ICP criteria.

6. We enriched emails & phone numbers for qualified prospects.

- We used Wiza, Prospeo.io & LeadMagic to find emails.
- We used FullEnrich to find phone numbers.
- We performed these enrichments in Clay.

↳ No major change in 2026, except for experimenting with more data platforms.

7. We re-engaged leads via several channels based on their scoring.

- We sent contextual outreach in which we did our best to provide value.
- We used lemlist for omnichannel outreach.
- We used Instantly.ai for email outreach.

8. This workflow booked 1,500+ meetings in 2025

- It's the same workflow that helped our clients close $6-figure in deals within 90 days of working with us.
- It helped us reach close to ~$7,000,000 ARR.
- It allowed us to grow to 34+ FTEs.

↳ In 2025 we tried lots of things. In 2026, we want to become the absolute best at syncing LinkedIn Ads, LinkedIn Content & Outbound together.

If you want this system entirely built for you, send a DM :)

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? 👇

taplio

The Battle

Xan Mannekens

Michel Lieben 🧠

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreXan Mannekens's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMichel Lieben 🧠's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Xan Mannekens

Michel Lieben 🧠

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);}Xan Mannekens's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMichel Lieben 🧠's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreXan Mannekens's LinkedIn Performance