🔥 Tom Slocum

The SD Lab

I help B2B sales teams fix outbound and build top-of-funnel engines that actually deliver

Over the last 18 years I’ve been on every side of the outbound game from full cycle sales to SDR, from ops to leadership I’ve built motions from zero, led teams in the trenches and turned broken outbound into predictable pipelines

Since 2022 I’ve partnered with sales leaders across SaaS, logistics, facilities and more to reset their outbound motion and get their teams back on quota

The Outbound Accelerator (8–12 weeks)
This isn’t theory. I embed with SDR teams to coach, train and rebuild their processes. Weekly live workshops. Hands-on sessions. Custom playbooks. By the end your reps aren’t just booking more meetings they’re booking better ones. Leaders leave with a team and a system they can trust to perform

Why leaders bring me in
18 years in outbound across multiple industries
Tactical expertise from someone still on the phones
Proven results: SDR orgs seeing 20–30% lifts in meetings booked within one quarter

From cubicle cold calls to helping companies like Kustomer and ServiceChannel scale outbound systems that last

Founder | CEO

lemlist

Brand Ambassador 

Nooks

Advisor | Brand Ambassador

Sendspark

Since June 2023 I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Bethany the co-founder of Sendspark and Ben Wright in supporting, promoting and integrating Sendspark into my daily sales activities. As a brand ambassador I actively use Sendspark for all my video needs—from prospecting and proposals to trainings—and share my experiences through my LinkedIn brand.

Sendspark has become my go-to tool because it genuinely enhances how I connect with clients and prospects. It’s a tool I believe in and I’m excited to represent it. I also get to work closely with the Sendspark team to create engaging and fun content that showcases the power of their platform.

Check em out 🤘

Brand Ambassador

Gartner

Gartner Peer Community is Gartner's next generation online destination designed to increase value through timely answers and meaningful peer connections

I am a Founding Peer Community Ambassador to contribute insights on B2B sales, sales leadership and enterprise go to market among other topics

Peer Ambassador: B2B Sales, Sales Leadership & Enterprise GTM

LinkedIn Learning Community

Hand selected by LinkedIn as one of their 2025 Sales Beacons a community of the most impactful, consistent and credible voices in B2B sales

As part of their invite only Club Navigator program I contribute thought leadership around outbound, SDR development, cold calling and sales coaching helping reps and teams navigate the modern sales landscape

• Featured in the LinkedIn Sales Navigator blog and showcase content
• Regularly share real, tactical strategies that move the profession forward
• Collaborate with top sellers and creators to elevate industry best practices

This isn’t about influence its about impact and creating space for real ones doing real work to lead from the front

Sales Beacon – LinkedIn for Sales

Sendoso

• Collaborated with the team to help develop strategies for personalized engagement and relationship building

• Provided insights and brainstormed ideas to drive creative solutions and initiatives

• Work closely with the CEO and industry advisory group to shape the future of engagement

Strategic Advisor

Humantic AI

- Authentic Selling Evangelist 
- Advising the team on product and positioning
- Attending strategy meetings to share best practices and review current processes in place
- Evangelize and help define a new product category
- Consulting the team on sales and marketing funnel generation

Sales Assembly

As the industry’s only Scale-as-a-Service platform, Sales Assembly is the trusted partner for leading B2B Tech companies on their journey to Scale Better, Scale Faster, and Scale Smarter.

Featured Thought Leader

RevGenius

Member

During my tenure as Program Director, Community Manager and RevLeague Founder at RevGenius I partnered with Jared Robin and the RG team to orchestrate an extraordinary community growth journey from July 2020 to May 2022. Together we transformed a community of 2,000 members into a thriving force of 40,000+ members.

In October 2020 I took a bold stride by creating RevLeague. A micro-community within RevGenius. In an era marked by the isolation of remote work, RevLeague emerged as a dynamic haven for Sales Leaders, SDRs, and AEs seeking collaboration, support, and empowerment. We crafted a vibrant space where walls couldn't confine us. Enabling individuals to connect, share, and thrive.

Guiding RevLeague to over 2,000 members, I fostered a dynamic environment with weekly office hours, stimulating competitions, and collaborations with esteemed sponsors like Ambition, SalesScreen, and ConnectandSell. This journey was a testament to our collective drive to uplift and amplify the growth of sales reps in the evolving landscape.

With my contributions as a Program Director, Community Manager, and RevLeague Founder I embraced the opportunity to fuel connections, inspire growth, and foster an unwavering spirit of camaraderie within the RevGenius community.

Program Director | RevLeague Co-Founder | Community Manager

Your Future Homie- In- Law | Founder @ The SD Lab | Sales Consultant | 7x Strategic Advisor | 4x Sales Leader | SDR Coach | #empathyactivist

Hey I’m Tom I help B2B leaders, SDR teams and founders fix broken outbound when pipeline is dry and reps are stuck spinning

After 18 years in sales from 400+ daily cold calls in a cubicle to building $3M+ in pipeline from scratch I’ve built a repeatable system that gets outbound back on track

Here’s how I help

Weekly workshops (theory + tactical execution)

Rebuilt call flows, messaging and targeting

Sequencing + workflow installation

Call reviews with live coaching + scorecards

Fast performance gains tied to KPIs

Client Wins

Kustomer → 50%+ lift in meetings → 100% SDR attainment in 3 months
ServiceChannel → 30% SQL lift with sharper messaging + coaching
Rockledge, Distran → 10–20 meetings/month booked after outbound reset

I’ve also worked with brands like ServiceChannel, Kustomer, Apollo, ZoomInfo, Smartlead, Surfe and more to coach teams and represent their tools

Outbound isn’t dead it just needs fixing

👉 Want sharper messaging, predictable pipeline and reps who book meetings?

Book an Outbound Strategy Tour (Featured below)

Or join my newsletter (7K+ readers) for free outbound playbooks (below)

Founder

The SD Lab is a top-of-funnel sales consulting agency. The SD Lab offers customized services to help businesses optimize their sales process and achieve measurable results. The SD Lab offers a 14-week Revenue Acceleration program, Custom Sales Playbooks, and Team Coaching packages that cover all things Top of Funnel. If you're looking to optimize your sales process and achieve sales success, The SD Lab is here to help. Let's work together to transform your sales approach

72 hours. 175 LinkedIn DMs. $9,100 closed

While y'all are posting and commenting hoping for visibility… the real action's happening behind the scenes

Few weeks ago to close out October I went hard on DMs

No pitch slapping
No slow drip campaigns
Just straight human connection

and it worked

One of my Outbound Underground members just hit 17 booked meetings this month

Her secret? LinkedIn DMs

She's not posting daily
She's not commenting on every CEO's hot take
She's sliding into DMs like a real person with real intent

Here's what most reps get wrong about DMs 👇

They treat it like email
Copy-paste templates
"Hope this finds you well" energy
Zero personality

The reps crushing it right now understand DMs are different

→ Voice notes hit different (people actually listen)
→ Reference something specific they posted or shared
→ Lead with curiosity not capability
→ Make it about them not your quota

I sent 175 DMs in 72 hours and here's what moved the needle

• 60% voice notes - people love hearing a real voice
• Zero templates - every message custom
• No "can I pick your brain" BS
• Clear value in first 2 lines

The result? $9,100 in new business

While everyone's fighting for attention in the feed
The smart reps are building relationships in the DMs

Your prospects aren't reading your 47th cold email
But they'll listen to a 30 sec voice note

Stop sleeping on DMs
Start treating them like the goldmine they are

What's your DM strategy? Or are you still hoping your content goes viral?

Talks about #community, #leadership, #coldcalling, #prospectingtips, and #salesdevelopment

Helping B2B Teams Fix Outbound → Build Pipelines That Convert | Sales Coach | SDR Builder | Top LinkedIn Voice | Your Future Homie In Law

My daughter has her first showcase today

Red lips
Hair slicked back
Tiny little flyer looking like she owns the mat already 😂

Watching Bella step into competitive cheer this year has been wild in a way I didn't expect

She's made these incredible friends who hype each other up like they've known each other forever

Walks a little taller now

and has given me this whole new set of "Dad don't embarrass me" rules I'm still figuring out 😅

She's the peanut on the team but man… she's fearless

Flies up in the air like it's nothing. Meanwhile I'm in the stands trying not to be THAT dad who cheers too loud (failing miserably btw)

First real comp is in January but today's a big moment for her and honestly for us too

Proud dad Saturday

That's it
That's the post

What're y'all up to today?

3 weeks ago I hired an SDR from LATAM with zero experience

Never touched a CRM
Never made a cold call
Never heard of Apollo

Yesterday she hit a 13% connect rate

Most teams wouldn't even interview her

Here's what happened when I threw her straight into the fire 🔥

- The Setup - 

No script
No shadowing
No 47 slide onboarding deck

Just
• Raw CRM data
• SureConnect mobiles
• Parallel dialer
• Me coaching when I could squeeze it in

Sink or swim baby

- The Numbers (Week 3) -

→ 2,611 total dials
→ 345 live connects (13% connect rate)
→ 154 convos over 60 seconds
→ 65 convos over 2 minutes
→ 3 meetings booked

Teams are out here praying for 5% connect rates

She's hitting 13% with ZERO experience

- Here's What Actually Matters - 

Most leaders think onboarding is about scripts and shadowing

Nah

1. Data beats everything

When she called raw CRM → trash connects
When she called validated P1s → meetings appeared

Your SDR isn't struggling
Your data is fighting them

2. Let them find their legs first

Week 1-2: I barely coached her
Just let her dial
Get punched in the mouth
Find her rhythm

NOW we're doing the fun stuff
• Objection handling
• Call control
• Tone work

You can't coach confidence
They gotta earn it

3. Watch conversations not meetings

Everyone's obsessed with "meetings booked"

Wrong metric for new reps

I'm tracking
• Talk time progression
• Objection patterns
• How fast she recovers from rejection

Meetings are the LAST thing that clicks

- The Real Lesson - 

Stop babysitting effort
Start coaching behavior

This rep shows up

She dials
She cares
She tries again

I don't chase her for activity
I get to actually coach skill

Those are VERY different jobs

3 weeks in and she's already outperforming SDRs with 2 years experience

Not because she's special but because she's hungry

and we gave her

✅ Clean data
✅ Real reps
✅ Space to figure it out
❌ Zero BS

Your next rockstar isn't hiding in some "experienced SDR" pool

They're waiting for someone brave enough to bet on hunger over history

Shoutout to Brianda for proving everyone wrong 💪

Who else is ready to stop hiring resumes and start hiring heart?

Spent the morning in the studio with Scott Leese and Mike Lindstrom recording an episode of What’s Your Story?

These two have had some incredible guests lately 

Morgan Ingram, Nick Capozzi, Mike Simmons, Mark Kerr 

so getting the invite meant a lot

and 🏄🏼‍♂️ Scott Leese hit me with a line mid conversation that stuck

“You think you know someone… then you hear their story and suddenly everything clicks”

We covered a lot in an hour

• growing up with instability
• being raised by my grandparents
• finding my identity in sales
• leaving the W2 world
• becoming a dad
• building SD Lab and breaking generational patterns

Nothing heavy
Nothing dark

Just the real story behind who I am and why I show up the way I do

Mike Lindstrom, J.D. even called out my superpower - helping people feel seen and heard

That’s always been the thing people connect with

Not tactics
Not tips
Just being human

The episode drops in Q1
I’ll share clips as we get closer

For now big thanks to Scott and Mike for having me in the studio today

Two genuine guys doing real work in this space

If you want to check out the show here’s the link

🎙️ https://lnkd.in/eZZ5DUtF

The 3 part opener that gets you past the first 5 seconds of a cold call

Most reps lose the call before they even earn the right to have one

It’s not the list
It’s not the script

It’s the opener

Those first 5 seconds decide if the prospect leans in…or checks out

Here’s the 3 part opener I teach SDRs who actually book meetings

1️⃣ Be normal. Be confident

“Hey [Name] this is [Your Name] how’ve you been?”

That’s it

No “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

No “How are you doing today?” in that fake sales tone

Just confident, calm energy that sounds like a real human

You’re setting the vibe not begging for attention


2️⃣ Get to the point. Fast! 

“I’ll keep it quick the reason for my call is…”

This line does all the heavy lifting
You respect their time, take control of the flow and buy yourself 10 more seconds

3️⃣ Ask, don’t pitch

Lead with curiosity, not features.

Your first job is to find pain not prove value

“Curious how are you handling [specific challenge] today?”

“What’s been toughest about [area your product solves] lately?”

They start talking → you start learning → now you can connect the dots

Then drop the money line

“That’s exactly why I called [Name]”

Boom! You’ve earned your shot to share why it matters


The best cold callers don’t sound like salespeople

They sound like confident problem solvers who just happen to call cold

Try this today 

Make 25 calls using this exact flow
No fake energy. No robot tone
Just human first conviction and curiosity

Then come back and tell me how it went 👇

When you hire your first international SDR…

you don’t just test their skills 

you test your own leadership

Three weeks ago I partnered with Wing Assistant to test their LATAM SDR talent

That’s how I met Brianda, based in Mexico

Hungry
Sharp
Zero excuses

Here’s what the first three weeks looked like 👇

Week 1 

- Full immersion. ICP, personas, call reviews, tech stack, playbooks
- Used Nooks AI roleplays for mock calls. She booked 7 meetings from 23 attempts

Goal wasn’t perfection. It was confidence

Week 2

📞 877 dials → 81 connects → 26 convos → 0 meetings
✅ Connect rate: 9.24%
✅ Conversation rate: 32%

We focused on call control, opener confidence and learning from each “no"

Week 3 (this week)

📞 649 dials → 31 connects → 19 convos → 0 meetings
✅ Connect rate dipped (4.7%) but convo quality jumped to 61%

Why? Because we layered in SureConnect mobile verification to clean up data

We’re now testing 20%+ mobile-verified data and early signs are strong

Longer convos
More context
Better rhythm

What I’m learning through this experiment

The right coaching matters more than the right accent

The best reps don’t need perfect data, just enough belief to keep dialing

LATAM talent (Mexico, El Salvador, Brazil, Philippines I’ve worked with them all) brings insane resilience

and credit to the Wing Assistant team too they matched me with the right person, check in often and actually listen

Brianda’s not hitting meetings yet… but she’s building momentum the right way...one quality convo at a time 💪 

What’s been your experience coaching international SDRs? I’m curious what’s worked (or bombed) for your team?

Just wrapped a 60 min cold call lab with the Oliv AI SDR crew and it reminded me exactly why I love this shit! 

2 reps. Their leader Cherry
No fluff. No 40 slide deck
Just humans getting after it

Most teams ask for “best practices” and want me to lecture for an hour

These two? They came ready to work

We did it live

I played the prospect
They pitched
We broke it down
Then we ran it back

Again
And again
And the reps transformed right in front of me

Dennise - Round 1
Tense. Rushing. Asking 3 questions before even getting to the point.
All script, no connection

Dennise - Round 2
Calm, Human, Curious
She actually listened. She actually dug in
I (the prospect) almost booked the meeting myself

Cesar
Same story
Went from long, wandering “value props”

→ to actually having a conversation like a real person

Their issue wasn’t their script
Their issue was that they were following a script

So we ripped that out and rebuilt their approach using my Triple A framework

👉 Acknowledge their truth
👉 Ask a real question
👉 Advance the convo

No overcoming
No wrestling the prospect
Just being human and moving the call forward 30 seconds at a time

By the end Cherry Yadvendu said she “felt a weight off her shoulders”
You could hear the confidence shift in their voices

Now the goal

20-30% lift in meetings over the next 8 weeks
and based on today?

Yeah… they’ll get there

This is the work I want to be doing 3-5 times a week

in the trenches, live reps, real transformation

Most sales training is theater
This stuff?
This actually moves the needle

Who else is tired of theory and ready for practice?

P.S. If your SDR team needs someone to jump in the trenches with them and actually fix sh*t (not just talk about it) shoot me a DM. I run these workshops like Ted Lasso runs practice ...high energy, all heart, zero BS. Let's get your reps booking meetings like they actually enjoy cold calling 💪

$50/month gets you $10k worth of sales tools

Plus 121 SDRs who actually give a damn about your success

I launched The Outbound Underground 2 months ago with a stupid simple thesis 👇

Give hungry reps enterprise tools + real community = unstoppable force

Here's what 121 members are doing with it

Dustin Javaherian called me "a magician man" after 30 minutes of cold call coaching

Learned more in our office hours than in his last 4 months in the seat

Vic Azuaje is crushing parallel dialing with ConnectAndSell (usually $600/month)

Max DeLeon 🌊 hasn't missed an office hour. He is a GTM engineer who went from 100 LinkedIn connections to actually building his brand. We rebuilt his entire email strategy using my Email GPT

Malak Bardor and I tore down her offshore/nearshore campaigns and rebuilt them from scratch with the crew. She's been destroying inboxes ever since

Erica Stacy Tarwater was already the email queen but decided to evolve. Last week Marc Mac dropped gold on handling her biggest objection "just send me an email." Now she's embracing the phone 

The stack they're getting for $50

• ConnectAndSell ($600/mo value)
• Apollo ($99/mo value)  
• Sybill ($150/mo value)
• Sendspark ($49/mo value)
• Weekly office hours (priceless)

But here's what actually matters...

30+ office hours in 8 weeks

• Tuesdays: Cold calling with me
• Wednesdays: Email teardowns
• Thursdays: Social selling

Plus guests like 👨‍🍳 Elric Legloire, Melissa Gaglione ⭐️ and Eddy Bahnam dropping knowledge

No courses
No pre-recorded BS
Just live, raw, real time problem solving

One member told me yesterday

"The tools are great but the community is what changed my game. These people actually want me to win"

That's the difference

Most communities are content libraries
This is a practice field

You don't watch videos about cold calling
You get on the damn phone while 20 other reps cheer you on

Here's my promise

Join for the tools
Stay for the people who'll change your career

We went from 0 to 121 members in 8 weeks

Goal is 1,000 by end of year

Because when you build something real...word spreads

Free to join and get started
$50/month unlocks the full arsenal
$500/year if you're ready to commit (2 months free)

→ https://lnkd.in/estaQ7Gf

Your next meeting will pay for your first month
Your next deal will pay for your whole year

P.S. Dustin's in the Slack right now probably dropping another fire opener he tested. That's the energy we're building. You in or out?

14 days until December and half the SDR world is still “warming mailboxes"

… warming
In mid-November
Wild 🤣

I just watched a team fix that problem in 40 minutes

Here’s the real story

Monday morning pipeline review

Leader goes
“We need 20 more meetings before Thanksgiving”

Reps go
“Our new domains won’t be warm until December”

Everyone looks at each other like
“…so we’re cooked right?”

Nope

We pulled up Smartlead
Hit the pre-warmed mailboxes tab
Ordered 6 new inboxes at 10:00 am
At 12 pm they were already sending

No 14 day warmup
No babysitting domain health
No “welp guess we’ll try again in January"

Just inboxes that were warmed, verified, profiled and ready to go

Let me show you the math because this is where it clicks

The old way
Buy a domain today
Warm until Dec 3
Prospects go OOO on Dec 5

→ You’re basically sending vibes into the void

The new way
Buy today
Send today
Book meetings before the holiday slowdown hits

→ Actually build Q1 pipeline instead of “hoping”

One of my Underground members grabbed 10 of these yesterday and literally said

“Tom… why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? I’ve wasted 2 weeks warming boxes while my competitors were already in the inbox"

Fair point 🤣

I’ll be honest “pre-warmed mailboxes” sounded like BS to me too

But here’s what Smartlead actually delivers

→ Real inboxes with names + profile pics
→ Fully warmed
→ Verified + technically clean
→ Ready for 20–30 safe sends/day
→ Delivered in ~30–40 minutes

This isn’t cutting corners
This is buying back time during the one part of the year where time is the enemy

If you’re trying to hit Q4 targets and you’re still warming inboxes manually…

You’re literally spotting your competition a two week head start

Smartlead just made same-day outreach a thing

 → https://lnkd.in/eCGKWF4t

and homie… next week is Thanksgiving
The week after is December

If you’re not sending by Wednesday you’re basically waiting until January

Up to you I’m just saying 🤷‍♂️

#sponsored #brandambassador #coldemail

Most SDR managers don’t have a pipeline problem 

….they have a priority problem

Most managers say their team needs more pipeline

But when you dig in it’s not volume they’re missing….it’s focus

Too many

❌ Start 12 initiatives and finish none

❌ Spend hours in dashboards instead of call reviews

❌ Obsess over activity instead of outcomes

Meanwhile their reps are drowning in “busy work” but nobody’s building conviction, consistency or real conversations

The top 1% of SDR leaders I’ve worked with all do the same thing 👇

They protect priorities like revenue depends on it…because it does

- 60% of their week goes to coaching not reporting

- Every rep has 1 clear ICP not 4 competing campaigns

• The calendar runs around prospect time not meeting blocks

Pipeline grows when priorities shrink

If you can’t clearly name your team’s top 3 outbound priorities this week you don’t have a pipeline problem…

you’ve got a you problem 😬

Try this for 7 days - cut your team’s priorities in half and double down on the ones that actually create pipeline 

Then come back and tell me what changed 👇

Saturday grind mode activated 😤 

Wife and daughter are out with grandma till tonight. My 14 year old? Still knocked out cold and probably won't surface till 3pm (growing boy needs his sleep 😴)

Which means I got the whole day to lock in

Monday I'm kicking off a new coaching workshop with a fresh client crew

We're diving into live call roleplay and talk track breakdowns as part of our 8-week program

The prep work hits different when the house is quiet

Already knocked out

• Workshop deck for Monday's session
• Newsletter draft that's actually worth reading
• 3 fresh content pieces for next week
• Building my hit list for new opportunities

Not gonna lie I'm pumped about this workshop! There's something about breaking down real calls in real time that just clicks for teams

No theory
No fluff

Just "here's what you said, here's why it didn't land, let's fix it"

The best part about Saturdays like this? 

Zero interruptions
Full focus
Actually getting ahead instead of catching up

While most people are sleeping in or running errands I'm over here building momentum for the week

Curious what y'all are up to today

Anyone else using their Saturday to get ahead? Or am I the only weirdo who gets hyped about an empty house and a full day to work?

What's your Saturday looking like? Drop it below 👇

"Tom we need to build an SDR team what mistakes should we avoid?"

Got this text yesterday from a founder who just raised Series A

My response? Don't make the same 5 mistakes I've watched kill 90% of SDR teams before they even start

Mistake #1 | Hiring “experienced” SDRs who need deprogramming 

Everyone wants the 2 yr vet from that hot startup but let’s be honest..they come with bad habits, outdated playbooks and "that's not how we did it at..."

Meanwhile the hungry kid with zero experience? Give them clean data and 4 weeks? They'll outbook your veterans

I just proved this with Brianda
Zero experience 
→ 4 meetings in month 1

Mistake #2 | The 6 week onboarding nightmare

Week 1: Company history
Week 2: Product features 
Week 3: Shadowing
Week 4: More shadowing
Week 5: Practice calls
Week 6: Maybe make a real call?

By week 6 they're scared to pick up the phone

My playbook? Day 3 they're on the phone getting rejected. Week 1 they book their first meeting or realize this isn't for them

Better to know fast than waste 6 weeks

Mistake #3 | Script memorization over conversation skills 

"But Tom we need consistency!"

Cool Brad! But your SDRs sound like robots and prospects hang up in 8 seconds

Teach them to listen
Be curious
Have actual conversations

Scripts are training wheels
Take them off by week 2

Mistake #4 | Activity metrics over behavior coaching 

"You need 100 dials today!"

Great now they're speed dialing and burning through your TAM 🤷‍♂️

Focus on conversation quality
Connect rates
Time on phone
Actual conversations over 2 minutes

I'd rather have 50 quality dials than 200 hangups don’t you? 

Mistake #5 | Dirty data and hoping for magic

Your SDRs aren't lazy….your data is trash

5% connect rates? That's not an SDR problem
That's a data problem

Clean mobile numbers → 25%+ connect rates
Bad data → burned out SDRs in 3 months

Fix the data first or watch your team churn

Building an SDR team isn't about finding unicorns yall 

It's about

• Hunger over experience
• Fast failures over slow onboarding  
• Conversations over scripts
• Quality over quantity
• Clean data over everything

Get these 5 things right and you're already ahead of 90% of teams out there

What mistake have you seen kill SDR teams? 👇

Most teams don’t have a deliverability problem…they have a design problem

They built an outbound engine that can’t scale safely

I see it every week when I work with SDR orgs

• 1 domain
• 2 inboxes
• 5 reps trying to hit quota
• 40 emails a day per rep

Do the math 🤷‍♂️

You’re bottlenecking before you even send your first message

We all say “outbound is a long game” but it’s hard to play the long game when your only domain is burned out by Week 3

Back in Q1 I helped a rep rebuild from the ground up

He had one domain
Deliverability tanked
Zero replies
He thought it was messaging

It wasn’t
It was math

We spun up 4 new mailboxes, split his sends, warmed them properly and by Week 3 he was back booking meetings

That’s when it clicked

Cold email isn’t just about the copy

It’s about capacity

Now you can build that capacity way faster with Smartlead’s SmartSenders

Instead of juggling Namecheap, Google, Cloudflare and a bunch of support tickets you can

✅ Buy and verify new domains right inside SmartLead

✅ Auto-set SPF, DKIM, DMARC (no tech drama)

✅ Warm them automatically

✅ Manage everything from one dashboard

If you’re scaling outbound in 2025 and still running one domain…

you’re one bad spam report away from chaos

Deliverability used to be “someone else’s problem”

Now it’s the whole game

Try this

Next time you find a cold email sequence that hits don’t just celebrate… replicate

Spin up new senders and double down before the window closes

If your team’s been feeling the limits lately check out how SmartSenders works. It’s clean

👉 https://lnkd.in/euYCjS3q

Most reps try to close deals with vibes and follow-ups

That’s why deals slip… stall… or ghost you into the new year

When you want to take a deal from 

first call → signature

you need structure

Not scripts
Not pressure tactics
Just a system you can run every time

For me that’s the 5C Framework 

the same one I’ve used for years across tiny pilots, big ticket projects and everything in between 

Here’s the real version 👇

1️⃣ Clarity
If you don’t know the real problem they’re trying to solve nothing else matters

2️⃣ Champions
Every big deal gets closed by someone inside the walls who believes in you

3️⃣ Content
Leave behinds that help your champion sell internally when you’re not in the room. Think checklists, recap docs, cheat sheets

4️⃣ Calendar
If the next step isn’t scheduled live it’s not a real next step

5️⃣ Check-ins
Not “just following up”
Actual nudges tied to the plan you both agreed on

I broke it all down in this 2 minute clip

If you’re trying to push deals across the finish line in Q4 this will tighten up your process fast

What part of deal management do you think most reps overlook?

December always exposes you

Some people disappear this month
Some panic
Some post a motivational quote and call it a day

Not me

I’m juggling a LOT right now and I’m not gonna pretend otherwise

• coaching Brianda through her first real December in SDR land
• running weekly office hours inside Outbound Underground
• booking guest speakers
• testing new tools and breaking half of them
• comparing data accuracy across 4 providers
• writing 4 newsletters
• running workshops with the Oliv crew
• chasing down $16K before Dec 31
• sending cold emails + DMs every day
• prepping my Q1 offers
• raising two kids
• and trying not to burn the Christmas ham

It’s chaos… the good kind 🤣

So this month I’m turning my whole world into a lab

Not polished content
Not guru advice

Just me in the trenches showing the actual work

What breaks
What works
What surprises me
What I would never do again
What makes reps better
What kills deals
What tools actually help (and which ones just look good in a pitch deck)

I’m an operator first
A coach second
A creator somewhere down the list

So for the next 29 days you’re gonna see 

real numbers
real workflows
real SDR coaching
real experiments
real behind the scenes
real momentum
real losses
real wins

Everything I’m doing to end the year strong and walk into January dangerous

If any of that helps you in your world? Then this month already did what it was supposed to do

Alright… day 3
Let’s get to work

What are YOU trying to tighten up before January hits?

78% of sales teams are using AI
12% actually know if it's working

I just took ZoomInfo's AI Readiness Assessment

Got humbled real quick

See I thought I had my AI game figured out. I mean I write about this stuff, test every tool even got my 14 yr old son Adam crushing research and writing cold emails with ChatGPT

Then question 4 hit

"How does your company manage unofficial AI tool usage?"

Wait... what unofficial usage?

That's when I realized

• My VA in Mexico might be using random AI tools
• I have no idea what Chrome extensions are installed
• There's probably some "productivity hack" I don't even know about

My score? 75% AI Ready

Better than expected for a one man chaos operation
But that 22% gap? That's where deals die

Here's what this test exposed

✅ Data foundation (I'm solid here. Clean CRM or die)
❌ Shadow AI usage (Zero visibility into random tools)
✅ Business impact measurement (tracking everything)
❌ Cross-team alignment (what team? it's just me 😂)

The brutal truth?

Most teams are drunk on AI possibilities
Nobody's checking if they can actually drive

You've got

• Reps using ChatGPT with customer data
• Marketing buying every AI writer
• Ops "testing" automation that breaks your sequences
• Leadership asking "why isn't AI fixing our pipeline?"

If you can't answer these 3 questions, you're not ready

1. Who owns AI tool decisions?
2. What's your accuracy benchmark?
3. Where's the ROI tracking?

Take the assessment → https://lnkd.in/eXG2C72X
(It's 3 minutes and surprisingly not fluffy)

Drop your score below. Genuinely curious who's above 80% 

Because if you're under 70%, you're not using AI
AI is using you

P.S. Question 7 about enrichment accuracy made me realize I've been trusting data I never verified. That stops today

I lost a $400K deal in 2019 because I skipped step 3 of my own framework

The 5C Framework I'd been running for years

Context → Challenge → Consequence → Champion → Close

Worked every time… until it didn't

Here's what went down 👇

Big enterprise deal
Multiple stakeholders
Budget approved
Champion loved us

I crushed the Context (step 1)
Nailed the Consequence (step 3)
Found the perfect Champion (step 4)

But I completely skipped Challenge

Never validated the real pain
Never dug into what was actually broken
Just assumed I knew their problem because I'd seen it 100 times before

Classic mistake right? 😅

6 weeks in the deal stalls

Champion goes quiet
Emails get shorter
"We need to think about this"

Then the bomb drops

"Tom we decided to build internally. Your solution solves a problem we don't actually have"

$400K → $0
In one email

Here's the wild part

If I'd spent 15 minutes on step 2 asking

"Walk me through what's actually broken today"
"How long has this been a problem?"
"What happens if nothing changes?"

I would've discovered they had a people problem not a tech problem

Their real issue? 
Team alignment
Not the workflow I was pitching

But I was too busy being the expert
Too confident in my pattern matching
Too lazy to validate

That loss taught me something I drill into every rep now

Your framework is only as strong as your discipline to follow it

Every....Single.....Time

Skip a step because you think you know better?
The market will humble you real quick

These days when I'm tempted to skip the discovery…
When I think I've seen this movie before…
When I want to jump straight to the solution…

I remember that $400K email

and I slow down
ask the obvious questions
validate the pain is real

Because assumptions in sales are just expensive ways to learn lessons

December 1st today

31 days left to close strong

If you're rushing deals right now trying to hit that number...

If you're tempted to skip steps because "we need this closed by year-end"...

Remember my $400K lesson

The shortcut always costs more than the full journey

Who else has eaten a big L from skipping their own process? 🤷‍♂️

I’ve been on LinkedIn for 5 years and never touched automation

Not once

No mass DMs
No “spray 1000 invites”
No 14 step sequences disguised as relationship building 🤣

Just me
Showing up every day
Posting
Commenting
Adding people one by one
Being a real humble

and honestly…I’ve always been terrified of blowing up my account 😬

I’ve watched friends get locked out for 48-72 hours 

I’ve seen people lose their audiences overnight

LinkedIn gives us the keys but they can take them back quick too

So yeah… automation has always freaked me out a bit 

But it’s December
My world is a lab right now
I’m testing EVERYTHING to gear up for a big Q1

and one question keeps popping up

“Is there a right way to use LinkedIn automation without burning your TAM or torching your account?”

So I’m gonna find out 🤷‍♂️

This month I’m running Expandi.io inside Outbound Underground as a controlled experiment

Not to spam
Not to game the algo
Not to replace real conversations

But to see if there’s a responsible, intentional way to use tools like this

→ Tight targeting
→ Small batches
→ Real messaging
→ Clear purpose
→ No lazy shortcuts

I just activated my trial last night
I haven’t built a single workflow yet
I’m starting from scratch 

automation skeptic → curious operator

Here’s the plan

• Set it up slowly
• Stay inside safe limits
• Track everything
• Share the good, the bad, the scary
• Turn myself into the guinea pig so you don’t burn your account

If it helps?
I’ll show you exactly how

If it sucks?
I’ll shut it off and tell you why

Either way… you’ll get the real story

If you’ve been automation curious but also automation terrified like me 😂 Stay tuned! 

We’re about to learn something together 💪

#sponsored #brandpartner (Expandi is supporting our Outbound Underground community for the next few months)

Most SDRs think coaching means constant check-ins

I learned the opposite watching my best rep go from 3 meetings a month to consistently hitting 20+

She was drowning when she started. Classic overthinking every call, second guessing her talk track, asking me to review every email before sending

So I did what most managers do. Daily 1:1s. Call reviews. More call reviews. Basically became her shadow

Her numbers? Actually got worse

That's when I tried something different

Instead of more meetings I gave her 3 simple rules 

- The 10-2-1 Framework -

→ 10 calls before asking for feedback (build your own rhythm first)

→ 2 specific questions max when you do ask (not "how was that?")

→ 1 thing to fix before the next batch (not a laundry list)

First week was rough
She wanted validation after every call
I held firm

Week 2 she stopped asking permission

Week 3 she brought me data “my permission opener converts 2x better than the direct approach"

By week 4 she was coaching herself

The breakthrough wasn't teaching her what to say

It was forcing her to trust her own instincts

Now when my SDRs come to me with "is this email good?" I flip it

"Send 10, track the replies then tell me what worked"

They hate it at first
Then they realize they don't need me anymore

Real coaching isn't about having all the answers

It's about making your reps dangerous enough to find their own

The best SDR managers aren't the ones in every call review

They're the ones whose reps stop needing call reviews

Your SDRs don't need more oversight
They need permission to figure it out

When's the last time you told a rep to come back after 10 calls instead of 1?

The SDR team nailed 47 openers last week. Booked zero meetings

Classic cold calling gap right?

They opened strong → froze → defaulted into a pitch → the call flatlined

Most SDRs don't have a script problem
They have a transition problem

They nail the first 7 seconds
Then panic
Then word vomit product features hoping something sticks

When you lose the middle of the call...you lose the meeting

Running my second workshop with them today and here's the exact flow we're working through 👇

⸻

🔹 Step 1: Earn the next 30 seconds (not the whole call)

Don't explain your whole product
Just get them curious enough to stay

"Mind if I ask you something real quick?" works way better than any pitch

⸻

🔹 Step 2: Ask ONE grounding question

A question that signals you care about their world

"Who owns AI on your side today?"
"What's actually working for your team right now?"

Simple, open, human

⸻

🔹 Step 3: Dig ONE level deeper

"Interesting what's driving that?"
"How long has it been that way?"

This gives you the actual reason they'd take a meeting

⸻

🔹 Step 4: Tailor your value prop to THEIR words

Not your script
Not your features
Their words

"When you said ___ that's exactly where teams bring us in"

Now they want the meeting because it connects to their world

⸻

🔹 Step 5: Ask for the meeting cleanly

"Sounds like it's worth a deeper dive want to look at this for 20 mins?"

No hype
No pressure
Just confidence

⸻

Cold calling isn't about charisma

It's about control

Not of the prospect but of the conversation flow

When reps understand how to steer from

Opener → Discovery → Tie-back → Meeting ask

Their confidence spikes
Their talk time goes up
and meetings become the natural endpoint

Fix the middle of your calls and watch meetings become the obvious next step...not the awkward ask

Who else sees their reps freezing after the opener? 🤷‍♂️

taplio

🔥 Tom Slocum's Linkedin Analytics

🔥 Tom Slocum

Performance Score🔥 Tom Slocum's LinkedIn Performance

What is 🔥 Tom talking about?

Who is engaging with 🔥 Tom

🔥 Tom Slocum's Best Posts (last 30 days)

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taplio

.css-6ytdur{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39, 43, 72, 1) 0%, rgba(33, 47, 183, 1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}🔥 Tom Slocum's Linkedin Analytics

🔥 Tom Slocum

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);}🔥 Tom Slocum's LinkedIn Performance

What is 🔥 Tom talking about?

Who is engaging with 🔥 Tom

🔥 Tom Slocum's Best Posts .css-1emoo84{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:400;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);}(last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

🔥 Tom Slocum's Linkedin Analytics

Performance Score🔥 Tom Slocum's LinkedIn Performance

🔥 Tom Slocum's Best Posts (last 30 days)