<aside> 👋
I work in GTM. I test different approaches to outbound and compare notes with other people doing the same work.
AEs, SDRs, and other GTM operators often spot things I miss. Those conversations help me improve the way I work.
I put those notes, tools, and examples into this playbook.
Take what helps, ignore the rest. And if you try something and it works (or totally flops haha), tell me. I keep this updated.
</aside>
A good opener cannot rescue a bad account choice, a weak reason to reach out, or an email that never reaches the inbox.
I use this playbook to make four decisions in order: Is this account a fit? What changed? Does that change create a problem I can help with? Can I reach the right person through a healthy channel?
The message comes last. Each section gives you a way to make one of those decisions, plus a tool I use when the manual work gets tedious.
You can have perfect timing and the best copy on earth and still get nothing, because you aimed at the wrong people.
So before I write a single message, I make sure the people I'm reaching actually fit.
→ Build the list with Claude or ChatGPT. Give it your business and your ideal customer, and have it write the search query for you.
Use my business description [what you sell] and ideal customer [describe ICP] to
generate a specific Sales Navigator or Apollo search query with job titles,
industries, company size, geography, and buying-signal keywords.
Leave out low-fit segments.
Take that query into Sales Nav or Apollo and adapt it to the filters available. Review a small sample before saving or exporting through the options your tool supports.
→ Check fit before scaling. Write down the problem you solve, the company criteria that matter, and the role responsible. Start with 20 accounts as a manageable pilot, not a magic number. For each account, record one reason it fits and one reason it might not. Exclude clear mismatches, existing customers, active conversations owned by a teammate, and people who have asked not to hear from you.
A filter can find a company with 50 employees and a new VP Sales. It cannot tell you whether the VP owns your problem, whether the team already solved it, or whether your offer is relevant. That is the research step. Keep the account as the unit of work, then choose one person who owns the likely problem.
I found Sendio while looking for a way to spend less time moving between research tabs, lists, and outreach. I tested it, liked it, and kept it in my workflow. I use its lead search and lists to get to a smaller set of accounts I can actually review. You can also search from a described audience, apply filters, or look for people and companies similar to a good customer. I still make the final fit call myself.
Timing matters when the change connects to a problem your offer can solve. A fresh event without that connection is only news.