Ok boom here's an hour of me talking about GTM Engineering 🫵

If you’re in SaaS you may not recognize this guy, but every serious entrepreneur needs to study him. Why? Because he bootstrapped his SaaS startup to $100M ARR in just 36 months. Here are 8 lessons I’ve learned from Russell Brunson and Clickfunnels that you should implement in everything you do, starting today: 1. Start posting content every day Russell started a daily podcast in his car on the way to work where he published experiments he was doing, what was working, and what wasn’t. He stuck with it for years and woke up to thousands of fans saying they binged every episode. Slowly becoming an “expert” over time created the possibility of $100m ARR. 2. Deeply understand the psychology of your prospects If you understand the deepest fears and biggest dreams of your prospects, you can create messaging that pierces the hearts of your target audience. 3. Make sure your offer ISN’T incremental People are not looking for a better version of what’s not working for them. You need to offer a new vehicle. 4. Master one-to-many selling This was the true unlock, and something no one else has done. Russell was spending $3K driving traffic to a weekly webinar that made on avg $50k in yearly subscriptions. Not kidding. The secret: he bundled/value stacked info products WITH his SaaS (and positioned the subscription to the SaaS as “free”). 5. Create a category Russell created a website builder when there were 100s of them, but positioned it as a “sales funnel builder” and had zero competition (for a bit) in that new category. 6. Have ugly branding The first time I saw the Clickfunnels website, I couldn't believe it. It looked like a kindergartener made it. Like everybody else in SaaS, I blew them off, only to find that it was the fastest growing bootstrapped SaaS ever. 7. Start a movement Russell studied the biggest movements in history - good and bad - and dialed them down to 3 key components: A charismatic leader, a new opportunity and a future-based cause. Russell created a tribe called Funnel Hackers and his 2 Comma Club to celebrate the most successful members. He’s a religious-level figure to many. 8. Stay bootstrapped! Infusionsoft tried to acquire Clickfunnels for $35m early on and VCs were beating the door down. Russell wanted to stay bootstrapped. TAKEAWAY: Russell Brunson would crush anything he set out to do Even so, it’s SHOCKING he could bootstrap $100m ARR selling a $97/mo product to vSMB. What’s even more insane is that it’s been almost 7 years and no one has tried to replicate his playbook in SaaS. I believe that Russell’s go-to-market strategy: 1. Driving people to a live event 2. Using an influencer to do one-to-many selling 3. Value-stacking tech with info, tools and templates …is the future of GTM. I’m sure sellers of $1M unbudgeted tech will push back and say “no way”. And maybe for complex and expensive enterprise tech, it's true. But for everybody else, I have just one question: Why not? | 65 comments on LinkedIn

My real benchmark for how smart a model is: does it finish the work. Here's the loop I run it on every day. Every day I round up everything that has to get done and all of it goes into ClickUp. Then I open each task and dictate the plan straight into it with Wispr Flow. It is the exact same planning prompt I would write if I were about to sit down and do that task myself. Then I say one thing. Read all the open tasks in ClickUp, they all have plans inside them, write one gigantic plan with finish conditions on every part of it, hand them out to sub agents, and go do the work. Ask me any clarifying questions you need. That is my whole day. It is my favorite thing to do with AI and I wish it was easier to show you. With Opus 4.8 and the models before it, we would get 90% of the way there and the last 10% was a grueling battle every single time. Fable 5 was the first model that got everything across the line. It listened to the run conditions and the finish conditions the best and it needed the least oversight from me of anything I have run. Then I looked at my usage. One day of this and Fable had burned 85% of my account and I had to move over to Codex. I ran the same work on Opus 5 this week. All of it finished, on 8% of my usage. That is my own run on my own tasks, so take it as one data point and not a benchmark. The reason the plan lives in ClickUp and not in a chat window is that the task is already where I write down what done looks like. The model gets the goal and the finish condition in the same place every time, and I never re-explain it. | 10 comments on LinkedIn

Woah, GTM World Tour™ is only a few days away. 10 cities. 1 month. And honestly, pretty good timing. GTM is moving stupidly fast right now. New tools. New AI agents. New workflows. But a lot of teams are still adding more to the stack without getting better results. That’s what I like about this format. Instead of another room full of slides, GTM automation gets built live on stage. Show me what works. Show me where it breaks. Show me what’s actually worth taking back into the business. Roman Hipp, all the luck for the tour. I know you and the BetterContact team are going to crush it. Berlin to San Francisco. See you at GTM World. | 44 comments on LinkedIn

“Finally… this feels intentional.” That’s what a VP of Sales said after we rebuilt their outbound sequence. Before that, it looked like this: ● Random first emails ● “Just bumping this” follow-ups ● No logic behind the touches Here’s what actually works: 1) Trigger-Based Email ↳ This is the first email you send when you can anchor your outreach to a real trigger, hiring, funding, a tech change, a product launch, expansion, etc. ↳ The structure is simple: Trigger → Pain → Proof → Soft CTA. ↳ It works because it gives the buyer a reason to care now, not later. 2) Competitor Email ↳ This is when you know they’re using a competitor. ↳ You acknowledge what the tool is good at, then highlight the gap that usually forces teams to look elsewhere, and invite a conversation around that. ↳ It reframes without sounding like an attack. 3) Bold Observation Email ↳ This one is short and direct. ↳ You make a sharp observation about what they’re doing, point out the common pattern, and end with a curiosity-based close. ↳ No pitch. Just a call to conversation that gets them to self-diagnose. Then the bumps: 4) External Resource Bump ↳ Instead of “checking in,” you share a relevant third-party resource tied to their context. ↳ This borrows authority and makes your follow-up feel useful, not needy. 5) Data & Stats Bump ↳ Lead with a number that makes the problem measurable. ↳ Stats make pain tangible, and tangible pain gets replies. 6) Thoughtful Context Bump ↳ This is where you re-anchor urgency without pressure. ↳ You remind them why it’s relevant based on their situation, without sounding like you’re chasing. 7) Clarification Email ↳If they didn’t reply because they were confused, this fixes it. ↳You restate what you do in one line, clarify why it matters to them, and ask a clean alignment question. That’s the system. No begging. No random nudges. No volume increase required. If your cold email strategy sounds like begging, DM me “REPLY” and we’ll fix the sequence properly (let’s see if we’re a fit, and let’s work on your next campaign together) PS: Grab the cold email AI generator GPT here: https://lnkd.in/eX-NCVbB | 54 comments on LinkedIn

The 7-Email Sequence that books +51% more meetings (3 Initial Emails + 4 Strategic Bumps) “Finally… this feels intentional.” That’s what a VP of Sales said after we rebuilt their outbound sequence. Before that, it looked like this: ● Random first emails ● “Just bumping this” follow-ups ● No logic behind the touches Here’s what actually works: 1) Trigger-Based Email ↳ This is the first email you send when you can anchor your outreach to a real trigger, hiring, funding, a tech change, a product launch, expansion, etc. ↳ The structure is simple: Trigger → Pain → Proof → Soft CTA. ↳ It works because it gives the buyer a reason to care now, not later. 2) Competitor Email ↳ This is when you know they’re using a competitor. ↳ You acknowledge what the tool is good at, then highlight the gap that usually forces teams to look elsewhere, and invite a conversation around that. ↳ It reframes without sounding like an attack. 3) Bold Observation Email ↳ This one is short and direct. ↳ You make a sharp observation about what they’re doing, point out the common pattern, and end with a curiosity-based close. ↳ No pitch. Just a call to conversation that gets them to self-diagnose. Then the bumps: 4) External Resource Bump ↳ Instead of “checking in,” you share a relevant third-party resource tied to their context. ↳ This borrows authority and makes your follow-up feel useful, not needy. 5) Data & Stats Bump ↳ Lead with a number that makes the problem measurable. ↳ Stats make pain tangible, and tangible pain gets replies. 6) Thoughtful Context Bump ↳ This is where you re-anchor urgency without pressure. ↳ You remind them why it’s relevant based on their situation, without sounding like you’re chasing. 7) Clarification Email ↳If they didn’t reply because they were confused, this fixes it. ↳You restate what you do in one line, clarify why it matters to them, and ask a clean alignment question. That’s the system. No begging. No random nudges. No volume increase required. If your cold email strategy sounds like begging, DM me “REPLY” and we’ll fix the sequence properly (let’s see if we’re a fit, and let’s work on your next campaign together) PS: Grab the cold email AI generator GPT here: https://lnkd.in/eX-NCVbB | 53 comments on LinkedIn

87% of people do not pick up calls from unknown numbers. Switch to verified mobile and the same SDR gets 13.3% connect rate. Here’s how ↓ Old school cold calling: $30K per month, gatekeepers, under 5% pickup rate. New school: under $10K per month, verified mobile numbers, 13.3% pickup rate. Same SDR. Same script. Same ICP. Better results. Here is the full stack by category: ↳ CRM: Salesforce → Attio ↳ TAM Sourcing: ZoomInfo → Clay, Apollo, PhantomBuster ↳ Data Orchestration: Excel → Clay, Supabase ↳ Email Data: Apollo → AI ARK, Blitz, LeadMagic ↳ Phone Coverage: Cognism → BetterContact (waterfall through 20+ providers) ↳ Call Prep: manual → Claude (researches account, writes brief before every call) ↳ Email Campaigns: Salesloft → Lemlist, Instantly, EmailBison ↳ DM Campaigns: Dripify → HeyReach ↳ Dialer: RingCentral → Orum, Nooks ↳ Call Recording: Gong → Ergo ↳ Automations: Zapier → Claude Code The biggest shift is phone data. Do not buy from one provider and accept 60% coverage. Run every contact through 20+ providers with BetterContact. You only pay when it finds a verified mobile. 90% valid phone numbers. More reachable contacts + more conversations = more meetings booked Cold calling is not dead. Calling the wrong number is. Save this for your next stack review. What does your current phone data setup look like? ♻ Repost if somebody in your team would benefit from this + calling the right numbers 📞 | 67 comments on LinkedIn

Even if your offer is exactly what they need, you can still lose the prospect because your timing was terrible.

We put our entire cold outbound process into 21 books. And you can get them for FREE now! At StackOptimise, we send 2M+ cold emails per month. So we sat down and put everything we've learned into 21 books across: → Outreach copywriting → GTM engineering → Email deliverability → Business growth → Sales tools Basically everything we wish we had when we started. If outbound is a channel you care about, this is the shortcut. P.S. lmk if you want access to those ebooks | 31 comments on LinkedIn

Prompting is 2025. Building your own Claude's skills and AI agents is in 2026. Here are 91 free resources to upskill yourself: If you're starting from zero: 1 / Start from zero ↳ Claude 101 + Claude Code from Anthropic (free) ↳ The Claude Roadmap from Ruben Hassid (curated free path) ↳ Every Claude Code Concept Explained by Sabrina Ramonov 🍄.(non-technical + plain English) 2 / Build with Claude Code ↳ Claude Code Ultimate Guide from Florian Bruniaux. (beginner to power user in one place) ↳ Intro to Model Context Protocol by Anthropic 3/ Build Claude skills ↳ Introduction to Agent Skills by Anthropic. The free course to start with. ↳ Marketing Skills, by Corey Haines. CRO, copy, cold email, SEO. ↳ GTM Plugin from Manoj Bajaj: 60+ free skills for sales, content, CRM ↳ Superpowers by ✨ ✨ Jesse Vincent: battle-tested Claude Code workflows. ↳ Claude Skills Library by Alireza Rezvani: marketing, product, and engineering. ↳ AI Marketing Skills by Brian Wagner: cold outreach, LinkedIn, case studies. ↳ AI Marketing Suite by Zubair Trabzada: copy, emails, ads, competitive intel. ↳ Awesome Claude Skills by Travis Van Nimwegen: curated library plus how-to reference. ↳ Why skills instead of MCP from Simon Willison 4 / Run it on your GTM ↳ Claude for GTM & pricing from Kyle Poyar. ↳ Claude Code for PMs fromCarl Vellotti ↳ Claude Cowork for PMMs from Richard King ↳ Adventures in Claude by Brad Feld: running company ops on Claude. ↳ More skills by us + other experts are included in the skills below. Comment "CLAUDE" and I'll send it your way (make sure we're connected so I can DM you) Repost this if someone in your network is still just prompting but wants to level up. P.S. Feel free to use our or any expert’s skills in your Claude account. We believe knowledge is free in 2026. When you work with us, you get the human judgement + bandwidth that AI won’t give to you. Book a call if you’re ready to make your pipeline generation more effective | 126 comments on LinkedIn

Were running a better, and more comprehensive sales funnel than billion dollar companies. I know because they post about theirs publicly. Here's ours: Some of the largest companies on earth post about their entire sales funnel and how they use modern tooling to power the entire thing in order to create efficiencies. Amazing. I read them all, and while I think it's a major step up from older processes, they're not on the same playing field as what we're building. And our setup is cheap. Not easy to build, but unbelievably easy to use. We've closed ~$15M in revenue with a one man sales team. Its not a secret, I've posted about this before. But I've never told you how the entire thing came about. We are bootstrapped. Every dollar counts, and salespeople aren't cheap. I also come from a sales background and happen to be very good at it. So replacing me was always very expensive and would obviously produce a lower output (I know this is a limiting belief. I agree). But with that said, we had no choice but to innovate and become unbelievably efficient with the resources we had. I got to work. I built out a full system to go from pre-call to close that would allow me to perform as if I were a team of 10. It goes like this: 1. Call gets booked. If qualified, a deal gets created in HubSpot with all relevant context from step 2 below. This works via Claude code, a few APIs and the HubSpot CLI. 2. I get a fully customized pre-call brief that tells me everything I need to know about the company. Who they are, size, funding, services they're a fit for, context about where they came from, etc. We use Claude Code. You don't need to use other tools here. 3. Post-call follow up email drafted in my style and tone with relevant collateral (service pages, testimonials, case studies, etc), and clear next steps with timelines. I built a context layer that gets updated automatically and referenced using Claude Code. 4. Deal updates in HubSpot based on the context of the call transcript using fireflies, the HubSpot CLI and analysis from Claude code. 5. If the prospect asks for a contract, the SOW is automatically created in Pandadoc via their API, properties populate in the contract from HubSpot properties that have been enriched via Claude code and automatically adds the right contact for signature and assigns their items to fill in. 6. If a deal goes stale, a highly relevant, automatic email is drafted in my tone using context from call and email history with Fable and Opus 5. I review it in Slack and press send directly from Slack. 7. If the deal is determined lost from an email or call transcript, the deal is automatically marked closed lost in HubSpot, and a closed lost flow automatically begins. After a certain time period, these contacts are automatically reengaged via a highly contextualized email directly from me, which pushes to Slack for my review. This can also be sent directly from Slack with a push of a button. Pressure makes diamonds. | 40 comments on LinkedIn

Clay Ads is live! We've been using it for 7 months and dropped our LinkedIn CPL from $250 to $25. Meta went from being unusable to a $10 CPL. I'm so pumped about this product 🔥 Here’s why it matters right now. CMOs are moving more marketing budget into paid ads as other channels get noisier, but are struggling to keep spend efficient. Pouring more budget into existing ad campaigns hits diminishing returns, because you're paying to reach the same fixed pool of people over and over. Spending efficiently means growing the pool of fresh, qualified contacts faster than you grow the budget. Meaning, increasing ROAS comes down to two things: 1. Who you're targeting. Clay Ads builds audiences from your CRM, data warehouse, and 200+ data providers, filtered down to exactly who should see the ad. They update automatically as your pipeline moves, so customers and open opportunities drop out on their own. 2. Whether they actually see it. Most B2B companies only have work emails, and platforms like Meta and Google can barely match on those. Clay uses its data marketplace to find up to 3 hashed personal emails per contact, so your ads reach buyers where they actually spend time: Instagram, Google, LinkedIn, and beyond. Get match rates as high as 95% on LinkedIn, 85% on Google, and 70% on Meta. Your ad campaigns are only as effective as the people who see them. Now you can target the right accounts (the ones you actually care about!) and the right titles across every channel, without wasting money on the rest. Clay Ads is available today on Growth and Enterprise plans with unlimited ad audiences. On August 13th, we're doing a livestream to walk through how we run our own paid media on Clay Ads. Join us here: clay.link/WpaHxGO | 35 comments on LinkedIn

Here's how we fixed inboxes running a 40% sender bounce rate. Not a bounce because the address was bad. The addresses were validated. Google was refusing to let us send the email at all. The first time I saw this, I couldn't wrap my mind around what was happening because the lead list was validated. We revalidated it again and it was still happening. After a bunch of trial and error, we found the Google had fingerprinted the text we were sending and wasn't letting the message even get sent. We spintaxed the subject line and the unsubscribe language with over 20 variations. We already had a little spintax in the body. The sender bounces went away immediately. I want to be honest that a year ago I was the guy telling people spintax didn't matter. We were using so much AI in the message that I figured the variation was already there. I was wrong about that. What changed my mind is that the fix worked in isolation. Same domains. Same inboxes. Same offer. Same list. Only the subject line and unsubscribe language changed, and a 40% sender bounce went to zero. What we do now internally, and what I would tell anyone running real volume: 20 variations in the subject line. 20 in the unsubscribe language. Variations in the signature block. Three or four versions of the overall body, and three or four options every five words or so. We have Claude skills that write all of it, because writing 20 subject line variants by hand is miserable. If you are reading this thinking "his big tip was spintax," I know. But the amount of spintax you think you need should 5-10x for the health of your domains. | 18 comments on LinkedIn

We've worked with companies ranging from 1-person startups to the Fortune 500. Here are some of the most valuable GTM engineering use cases for each: Early-stage startups ($0-$10M): Most of the businesses we've worked with at this size care almost exclusively about generating top-of-funnel. Real "move fast and break things" vibes, with less of an immediate concern over data hygiene. Because of this, the two projects we historically have built most for them are outbound projects (automated or semi-automated outbound) and list building. Late-stage startups ($10M-$50M): At this stage, companies begin to care about building real systems instead of the "run and gun" approach that got them out of the trenches. Many of them ask us for help with ICP definition based on past closed-won, more refined approaches to outbound (not just running one campaign to everyone), and account scoring so they know what prospects their sales team should prioritize. We also start to see inbound lead enrichment here for companies that get a lot of leads through marketing. Growth stage companies ($50M-$200M): This is when more advanced use cases start popping up. Systematized signals (as opposed to ad hoc) are a BIG one now that sales teams have quarterly goals that may not be fully attained from prior initiatives. They also tend to start with some basic CRM hygiene at this stage, mostly just to help with active deals so they don't slip from data gaps. We also start to see territory carving and automatic lead assignment to reps. Midmarket ($200M-$1B): This is when CRM hygiene and enrichment becomes a big use case. We also start to see big changes with outbound workflows -- companies at this size sometimes have hundreds of reps, which changes the amount of human effort you're able to put into outreach. GTM Copilot workflows often replace the automated outbound campaigns we run for clients when they get to this stage. Renewal intelligence (cross-sells, whitespace, etc) is also big here as companies look to retain and expand existing logos. Enterprise companies ($1B+): Frankly, most of the enterprise companies that we've worked with need ALL of the aforementioned use cases, and in a compliant manner (shoutout Clay for SOC-2). We see CRM hygiene, the marketing -> sales handshake, and broad outbound systems being the three biggest headaches for companies at this size. Given the scale already achieved in their CRMs, outbound tools, and data warehouses, this requires a real surgeon of a GTME team to unpack and rebuild (which we pride ourselves in having), as well as a meticulously scoped plan. On the positive side, the value return for GTME work in these orgs is the largest by FAR of all of these groups. Even small tweaks in outbound or data processes can yield millions in savings and pipeline. Curious to hear people's experiences here! Of course, we've seen exceptions to the above, but wanted to give those new to the space a general idea. | 19 comments on LinkedIn

Bootprint 🥾 (prev Clay Bootcamp) is launching 6 life-changing scholarships... … to help the winners get jobs and promotions as GTM Engineers … and kick open doors they couldn’t open alone. – With our renaming we’ve doubled-down on helping people get jobs as GTM Engineers, and future-proof their careers. And we’re so grateful to our sponsors & our partners: Clay, Deepline, Attio, OutboundSync, EmailBison, Understory, FastForward, RevenueHoop, and Girls Who Clay. … who not only support these scholarships… … but many of whom are covering tool costs for ALL future Bootprint students. 🏆 For scholarships we will be selecting: • 2 Women scholars (follow Girls Who Clay, RevenueHoop 🙋‍♀️) • 2 Americas scholars 🇺🇸🇨🇦🌎 (North/South/Central!) • 2 Wildcard scholars from ANYWHERE! (e.g. APAC, EMEA, etc.) 🏆 WHAT'S INCLUDED in the program: 1️⃣ Lifetime access to the “Harvard” of GTME networks People often say this network, by itself, is worth the price of admission. 2️⃣ [REVAMPED] 4 impactful edu programs: 🎓 C4C - Clay for Careers 🎓 C3 - Claude Code Cohorts 🎓 CRM - CRM+RevOps Masterclass 🎓 CEM - Cold Email Machine ft. Claude Code 3️⃣ 12 weeks of 1-1 coaching on real projects. Can be used before or during a new or current job. Dozens of incredible coaches and mentors, matched at just the right time, support our students here. 4️⃣ [NEW] Job finding (optional) + career guidance Many joiners want to keep doubling down on creating value for their current job, but for those seeking… Many grads have earned jobs at places like Understory, The Kiln, Octave, Clay, ElevenLabs, and many more. Bharat Devana helps you skip the line with job matching. And our LinkedIn King/Queen-maker Lab helps you attract lots of opportunities. 5️⃣ [NEW] $3,500+ in core GTM Engineering tools So you don’t worry about extra expenses as you learn. — 💪 Battle hardened with 350+ students over 3 years: • Grads hired by Clay, ElevenLabs, Understory, The Kiln, Octave, and many more • Clay’s trained 40+ employees with us • Vibrant community full givers with success stories ❓Apply if: • You’re ready to “lace up” your boots and put in the work (10+ hours/week) • You’re a giver and want pay it forward as you win • You want to become a GTME & change your life ⏰ Deadline to apply: Tuesday, August 18. ⏰ Program start date: Tuesday, September 8. — ⏩🚨 How to apply: • Like this post • Comment “Boots” below (must be connected; add me!) • Repost this post • Fill out the scholarship form we send! (must be connected) Best of luck! 🥾 | 153 comments on LinkedIn

How to double your outbound output without doubling your headcount. Most sales teams run 2 SDRs across email, LinkedIn, and cold calls. Their output: → 2,200 emails/month (100/day) → 200 LinkedIn connects (20/day) → 1,100 dials (50/day) Monthly totals: → 4,400 emails → 400 LinkedIn connects → 2,200 cold calls Now replace one SDR with a GTM Engineer and delegate by skillset. → GTME owns email and LinkedIn. → SDR goes all in on cold calls. GTME sends 20k+ emails and manages LinkedIn automation through both profiles. SDR gets all that time back to dial through a parallel dialer (200 dials/day). Monthly output for GTME + SDR: → 20,000 emails → 400 LinkedIn connects → 4,400 cold calls Here's when you know it's time: → Your SDRs are building their own lists between dials → Your deliverability is inconsistent and nobody's monitoring it → You've got no warmup process, no inbox rotation, no domain strategy If two of those are true, your next hire should be a person who can build systems for you sales reps. What's your team's current split across channels?

PSA- Clay's “Find Companies” search has gotten WAY better. For those who have been using the tool for a little while, you know that Clay’s previous filters were essentially just LinkedIn’s filters, so finding the exact list of companies/people you wanted was pretty tough. Now, they’ve unified all of the providers into a singular list of filters, which makes this list-building function significantly easier. They also have natural language search, ai-code-pasteable formats for any filters you create, and you can even run boolean/OR statements in your filters to run more robust searches. You can even create custom industries if you don’t like what you see in the default options (for example, “Crypto”) and Clay will create the list for you This may seem small, but for people in the product, it’s a massive improvement. Would love to hear if people have been using this, and if so, what your thoughts are! | 17 comments on LinkedIn

I believe Buzz is a bigger moment in AI than when OpenClaw first came out. Every frontier lab is going to copy this. But I don’t think they win unless they embrace open models. What is Buzz? In simple terms, it’s an open-source version of Slack, OpenClaw and Herd. It's built by Jack Dorsey who also created Twitter. Buzz lets you interact with agents on top of any harness: Claude Code, Codex, Hermes, whatever you use, while collaborating with your team in a familiar Slack-style workspace. Here’s what I really like: → Shared compute: owners can share local compute with members, so a community can essentially pool its hardware and run larger local models together → You can use Hermes, Codex and Claude Code in one Slack-style workspace → Delegating work to agents feels great. Tag an agent or two, and it replies in a thread with status updates as it works through the task It’s the first multiplayer agent harness. | 17 comments on LinkedIn

The anatomy of a 12% reply rate email: From trigger → problem → solution 1. Trigger Your trigger is everything. Make it relevant and tied to an issue you solve: - Job changes - Company hiring - New product launches The key is to find the trigger that leads to the issue you solve. 2. Implication Then tie that trigger event to an issue that you solve for. Make sure to use hedge words Thought that… Imagine that… Curious if… Plant the seed of the issue before calling it out. You want it top of mind for your prospects. 3. Pain Next call out the surface-level pain. Not every pain they could have, just the biggest. Literally whatever issue YOUR customers face. Don't use generic pains like time & money. It has to be relevant to your ICP & product. Be specififc. 4. Second-order consequence A surface-level pain is not enough. You have to go deeper and show what happens if nothing changes. How does that issue affect a KPI your buyer cares about. That’s what will get you responses. 5. Social proof Then show how you helped someone like them. Not all social proof is equal here’s how to rank it: Big name company + same industry + big outcome Same industry + Big outcome Big outcome If you nail all 3, it builds more trust than 1000 words. 6. Solution Now we can move into our actual solution. We want to make it simple and build curiosity. The solution is just the vehicle to get them to the outcome from before. So a great solution has to have good social proof before it. It should be 1 sentence max. 7. Soft CTA The last part is your CTA. Our 1 goal is to get a response and start a conversation. Make it as easy as possible to respond to. When you get the first response, you’re in. We’ve taught the TIPSSSS framework to over 400 reps 1-on-1. The best have seen 12% reply rates on automated sequences. What would you change in this email? 👇 P.S Save this post and send it to an AE who needs to see it! | 29 comments on LinkedIn

Smartlead analyzed 850M+ cold emails sent in 2026. Here's how the top 1% actually run cold email: 1. Audience > list ↳ The best senders get a reply every 38 contacts. The average needs 135. → Build audiences you can describe in one sentence and why you're emailing them in the first place. If you do this, you already have the copy. 2. Short emails > long ones ↳ Under 50 words gets the most replies. Most people write around 98. → Cut the first email in half. Say one clear thing. Have a documented, clear, value prop in plain, simple English, optimized for 5th-grade language. 3. First hour > day seven ↳ If you get responses, you'll get them within the first 3 hours. → Follow up in the first day or two (not a week later) to maximize conversion. 4. Morning > afternoon ↳ Sending during the morning hours gives you better results than sending in the afternoon. ↳ There is no magic day during the week, but weekdays perform better than weekends. → Send early. Same effort, more replies. 5. A sequence > one email Most replies come from the first email, but sending only one is not enough: ↳ Email 1: a personal opener and something useful ↳ Email 2: a different angle, a couple of days later ↳ Email 3: a short last try → Keep them short and refer back to the first email + your unique insights. 6. Clean data > volume ↳ The average bounce rate is 1.54%, and many people's bounce rates are 3%+. → Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC → Keep bounce under 2% → Diversify instead of relying on one single provider (Scaledmail, Inboxkit, etc) → 2 mailbox/domain → minimum 3 weeks of warmup → no links, images, GIFs in the emails, plain, simple text → Add mailboxes instead of pushing one harder, and invest in GOOD data. 7. Offer first > ask first ❌ "Can we hop on a call tomorrow at 2pm?" ✅ "Can I send over to [specific problem]?" → Let them say yes first. One thing the report doesn't articulate clearly, but I'd like to:: #1 Data > copy. It's easy to obsess over the copy: ↳ Can AI write a clever opener? ↳ Can AI mention their funding round and last LinkedIn post? ↳ Can AI stuff in as many personalized tokens as possible? And lose sight of the only question that matters: WHY ARE WE EMAILING THIS PERSON IN THE FIRST PLACE? When you actually know who you're writing to, that answer is obvious, and the copy takes care of itself. You just can't get there without the data. Think of them as an audience that can be described well, not as a list. #2 Own data > rented data. Buying funding or hiring lists works for a while, but everyone buys the same ones, so there is literally zero impact or unique approach in this. The data you collect yourself will be your durable strategy, because no one else has it. #3 Data 1st > Activation 2nd Get the data right, then automate it, then activate through GTM. Most teams do it backwards, and that’s why your funnel isn’t working. Comment "REPORT" and I'll send it over (we need to be connected so I can DM you.) | 121 comments on LinkedIn