(Here’s what Ian showed me on our clarity call that changed everything) Okay, real talk… If you’re still sending cold pitches, duct-taping tools together, or praying your next “hack” will land a client… This is the post I wish I had seen months ago. I recently had a clarity call with @Ian Kirk, and I’m still unpacking everything we uncovered. Because what I thought was lead generation was just me chasing shadows. 😬 🎯 What Ian Showed Me (That Nobody Else Has): 1. Fishing, Not Hunting I was pitching, pushing, and praying. Ian said, “You're out here with a spear. Real closers are out here with bait.” That hit hard. Did you know that the goal of cold outreach isn’t to close, it’s to create just enough curiosity that they lean in? (Me either!) As it turns out, Curiosity > Pitch. Every. Time. 2. If You're Targeting Execs, Instagram Is a Waste Spending hours crafting posts for people who’ll never see them doesn't make any sense! High-income decision-makers? They live in their inbox and on LinkedIn. That’s where the real conversations begin. 3. Stop Overbuilding. Start Connecting. I thought I needed fancy systems to scale. Truth? They were slowing me down. Manual DMs. Simple scripts. 100 real messages > 1 funnel that never gets finished. If your tech stack feels like a second job, you’re doing it wrong. 4. Replies Are the Metric That Matters Opens? Vanity. Clicks? Cool, I guess. But replies? Replies are momentum. Replies are money. Since the call, I’ve cut the fluff and started measuring what matters. 💡 Picture This... You send one message. Your dream client replies—not to buy, but to thank you. Because you just made them aware of a problem they didn’t even know they had. That’s not a fantasy. That’s what this community is doing—because of the clarity calls, the frameworks, and the simplicity Ian teaches. Here’s My New Game Plan (Stolen Straight From Ian): ✔️ Craft messages that trigger curiosity, not resistance ✔️ Commit to 100 personalised DMs or emails daily

Hi everybody! It seems like many of us are really interested in LinkedIn as a lead source. It’s a great platform, but it’s not always cheap or high-volume. The basic Sales Navigator plan starts at $99/mo, and after that, you’ll need a platform to handle your outreach, which usually adds another $50–100/mo. Even if you set everything up and it seems to be working, it’s probably just sending the same messages with a couple of variables like first and last name — which isn’t a personalized approach. In the end, you’re left with a fairly expensive system that produces generic outreach without real personalization. I spent some time working through it last week, and came up with a straightforward solution, which handles LI outreach at scale and will cost you around $40 to $70 for about 3k leads depending on what platform you will choose. Here's how it works step by step: 1. Connect a simple form in n8n which will help us to generate a Apollo url with filters we want without going to Apollo 2. Use Apify to scrape leads from Apollo, then scrape their LinkedIn profile and posts 3. Absorb the lead list and continue only with those, who have LI urls using google sheet 4. Generate custom icebreaker via GPT model 5. Check for duplicates in enrich a google sheet with a bunch of data including icebreakers. Feel free to check the icebreakers in my google sheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dKzEg6ryRRcavEODKgKZPmQwYXFFSQYGIldIxjPfMd4/edit?gid=0#gid=0 6. In the end you can set up an http request for Phantom Buster or whatever platform you use, which will trigger auto dms. And don't forget to use my template for n8n! Basically you pay around $1.2 for 1k scraped leads on Apify, some cents on open ai stuff, auto sending platform ($60/mo on average). Total costs are around ~$62 Give it a go and tell me how it works for you. If you need more detail, ping me 🙌

Hey everyone , I’ve been using Apollo and Crunchbase a lot lately for scraping leads, especially for outbound cold email. They’ve been solid, but I’m always looking to improve my workflow. Curious to know—what’s been working best for you recently? Are you finding better results with LinkedIn, industry directories, or something else? Would love to hear what tools or strategies are crushing it for you in 2025

Recently, I was thinking about how to make my meeting booking process not just easier for me, but more valuable and impressive for my prospects. Sending personalized follow-ups after each booking can be time-consuming—you always have to sacrifice focus and distract yourself to conduct company research and craft a thoughtful, authentic response. It's a small detail, but think about how much it can reduce churn. The fact that the prospect receives your response fast and sees you've genuinely researched their company demonstrates your interest and serious intent. That's why I came up with an automation solution. A quick loom on how it works: https://www.loom.com/share/8efcebf4502547aa9382a004aec15bda?sid=f4417604-f573-4169-8373-cc68680a37c6 - When someone books a meeting through Cal.com, an automated workflow is triggered. - It automatically scrapes the prospect’s website, gathers insights, and crafts a personalized follow-up message using AI. - It waits a realistic interval—about 5 minutes—to simulate company research. - Finally, it sends this message automatically via Gmail and updates the CRM (in my case, ClickUp) with the prospect's details. From my perspective, making a strong impression on your first touchpoint is crucial. It's not a chatbot that handles messaging prospects, you just leverage your time and focus with ai. Thought this might help others or offer a fresh perspective on follow-ups.

I know a lot of you use Instantly, maybe clay? What other tools do you use?