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#75 · The Definitive 2025 Cold Email Stack (+$2.7M Earned)

youtube ↗Sales

How do I communicate AI's value to businesses beyond just time and money savings?

Yeah, it's probably your ability to verbalize that—your skill at explaining AI's value is what's lacking. These systems save time and money, but you can't just tell that to somebody; you need to first understand their specific problem, paraphrase it in your own words to show you get it, then expand on how that problem costs them time and money. After that, you present your system as a solution, estimating ROI based on past clients, maybe mentioning a big‑name client you built it for, and ask if it matches what they were looking for. Then you give a brief demo, showing what you can tweak. In doing so, you show how AI saves them time or money, rather than just stating it. Everybody knows AI helps, but you demonstrate it for their specific case. Automation means reducing labor cost; you show how to achieve that for their problem. You also mentioned your most profitable system is your cold outreach system. To break it down: there's a manual way and an automatic way. Manual: go to Apollo.com, create a search URL (e.g., for creative agencies), copy it, go to appi.com, type Apollo, pick the popular scraper ($120 per thousand leads), paste the URL, pay per thousand leads—you get output with names, emails, etc., export as CSV, feed into AI (using Make.com or Nad), generate personalized icebreakers via a message model, format as JSON, then upload to Instantly.ai or Smartlead. You handle copywriting yourself. The automatic way: set up a Google Drive watch folder with webhooks; when a lead sheet is uploaded, it triggers the same process automatically—scraping leads via Appify, adding them to Instantly in an automatic campaign, managing everything behind the scenes. This lets you incorporate multiple lead sources (conferences, Apollo, Zoom Info, LinkedIn, VA‑assembled leads). You also added lead nurturing: an autoresponder that replies instantly to instant‑email responses (e.g., between 6 pm and 7 am), giving the perception of attentiveness and buying time, which boosts response rates.

value communicationsales processcold outreachlead nurturing

Related answers

youtube ↗Lead Generation

I work with a digital marketing agency that wants to add an AI chatbot to a client's website, but the site gets little organic traffic. Is it worth implementing the chatbot, or should we first focus on getting traffic to the site?

What a great question. This is more a consulting and strategy perspective than a building one. Naturally, if you're trying to make more money and thinking, 'Ooh, what's a way to make more money? I know AI is all the rage—maybe we'll add an AI chatbot to our website,' but if the chatbot doesn't talk to anybody, it won't make you more money. You've stumbled on a universal problem for many service businesses: they just don't have any leads. The real point of value, the bottleneck you could fix, is usually lead generation. I don't know how many people visit their site daily, monthly, or yearly, so it's hard to suggest exactly what to do next, but you're on the right track. The usual thinking is: get leads first, then worry about optimizing how you deal with them, nurture them, and improve conversion rates later. In your opinion, what's the best automation to sell? Could you make a video on it? The best automation to sell is something that increases or encourages lead generation, which we discussed. One of the main systems I sell is a cold outreach system where I build distribution for someone from scratch for about $200–$300 a month ongoing. They start with zero leads in their pipeline—usually an agency—and after the system is set up, they get roughly 30 leads per month that want to book calls. This is a game-changer and easy to justify as an investment for companies whose bottleneck is lead generation, like most businesses under $50k–$100k per month in revenue. Think of it this way: I'm solving their most dire problem—no leads entering the business. I charge them $3,000–$4,000 a month, which is fine because without me they wouldn't even have a business making more than $3k–$4k a month. In my experience, the best automations to sell for small to mid-sized businesses are those that help the top of the funnel. If they already have an outbound system but aren't getting many leads, I'd recommend a speed-to-lead system. Anything close to the top of the funnel—whether outbound or inbound—helps a lot, and that's what I'd recommend.

lead generationai chatbotcold outreach
youtube ↗Client Acquisition

I've been building AI customer service systems, and most clients came from Upwork and referrals — I've got a case study for a big property management company where a system led to big savings, and I built others for medical practices too. My issue is generating demand myself outside of referrals: is this sellable via cold outreach, and can it be turned into a front-end offer? I've sent thousands of cold emails with only one booked meeting, plus LinkedIn DMs and content, and I don't know if that's the right play or if I should pivot.

Right now you're focused on the savings, and I think that's the main thing you've understood automations to provide, but savings is a small fraction of the total value of an automation. Say you build a system that saves 10 salespeople 1 hour a week each — that's 40 hours a month, and if they're paid $50/hour that looks like a $2,000/month automation. That looks sizable, but it's only a small part of the value you're capable of providing. The big thing isn't the savings, it's the revenue: if you free up an hour of a salesperson's time and they can use it to close deals worth, say, $500 in that hour (amortized across their whole workload), you're not just saving $2,000, you're making them an extra $20,000. That's the difference between a savings mindset and a revenue mindset — it's opportunity cost. When I sell a cold email system, I don't say 'this saves you $50/month on cheaper leads,' I say 'this frees up 10 hours a month of your salespeople's time, worth $500/hour, meaning it makes you $5,000.' Reorient your pitch around revenue, not savings — savings only matters if you're working with a multi-billion dollar enterprise. On your second issue: 3,000 emails to one booked meeting is a 0.03% booked-meeting rate. Two meetings would be 0.06%, three would be 0.1% — that's totally fine, not the best ever (ideally 0.5-1%, a meeting every ~200 emails), but it proves it's possible. You've run the equivalent of a 10-minute mile; now make your copy better and run a 9-minute mile.

cold emailai customer serviceopportunity costreply rate
youtube ↗Lead Generation

Do you have any Google Console settings to avoid Google Docs rate limits when running on autopilot? Also, what are your thoughts on asset-based outreach versus a straight book-a-call CTA?

Asset-based outreach requires more time and energy upfront; it yields higher conversion but costs more money and results in fewer leads per day due to bottlenecks. In contrast, a book-a-call CTA converts lower but costs less money because you don’t need to generate assets, and the main bottleneck is scraping Apollo, which costs about 75 cents per 1,000 leads. You can get an Appify subscription and pay per use of your $26 credit (or less with my Nick 30 code). I'm 66 years old, learning this every day, and I'm enthusiastic about it. Regarding guarantees, I offer a Vappy bot that handles calls and orders via a POS system; I guarantee it will save you X, Y, or Z in dollars or hours, or you don't pay. On Maker School: it's purpose-built for people with zero sales experience, those at the start line of their business lacking daily accountability, sales systems, or pitch experience. If you have zero sales experience, this is the system for you. The main expenses are cold email and the Upwork community (the third lead-gen approach I discuss, which is free but time-intensive). Upwork averages $2-$2.50 per application; I recommend sending 10 applications per day ($25/day) for 30 days. In practice most people send only three to five per day, which still yields ROI because you spend the money gradually and can recoup it when a client pays a few hundred dollars. Instantly costs between $40 and $100 depending on the plan. Lead costs are about 75 cents per 1,000 leads, and with my Apify coupon they're even less; you may have some upfront fees, budgeting a few hundred dollars if you're going to be consistent, otherwise it could be around $100. As for Russell's question about free value offers in cold emails: the best offer is to promise to make or save the prospect a specific amount of money, and if you don't deliver, they pay nothing; you'll keep working until you achieve at least the minimum result, then pitch them something else, and even if they don't fall in love with you, you won't charge them. This kind of offer might have a 30-50% refund rate, but it generates strong front-end interest, especially for beginners who gain conversations and skill rapidly. Finally, offering to implement a simple workflow for free can be effective as long as the workflow is personalized and directly tied to a measurable return on investment, balancing risk mitigation with the guarantee.

google consoleasset based outreachbook a callupwork
youtube ↗Client Acquisition

After building an AI automation invoicing system for a creative agency (27 freelancers), I've spent 4 months trying to find similar clients without success; lost direction. What advice do you have for finding clients for this AI automation service?

Use a tiered outreach approach. First, pitch to people who have already paid you—past clients give you about 10× the results per hour compared to cold outreach. Next, go to those who have paid you before, then to prospects who almost paid but didn’t, then to people you’ve already reached out to, and finally to completely cold audiences. Each step down the tier cuts the expected return (≈5×, 2×, 1.5×, 1×). It’s analogous to retargeting ads: validate your offer with a warm audience before spending time on cold leads. In your case, start with the agency you built the invoicing system for, show them the ROI you delivered, and ask for referrals or additional work.

client-acquisitiontier-listwarm-outreachai-automation