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#72 · Juggling so many clients—should I stop outreach?

youtube ↗Cold Email

I've tried a bunch of outreach channels — 60 super-personalized videos (booked 1 call, no conversion), a bit over 200 cold emails (no booked calls), Looms — and I keep feeling like I'm starting from square one each time, stuck in analysis paralysis about where to invest my time and money. What should I do?

First, 200 emails is very little in the grand scheme of things — getting zero booked calls off that just means your positive reply rate is under 0.5%, which about half of people land at, or you could have a decent reply rate but are still in random-noise territory because the sample is too small. You need to send 2,000, honestly more like 10,000, before drawing conclusions — that's the hard pill to swallow. On the 60 super-personalized videos only getting 1 call: if you send high-quality personalized videos across 3-4 platforms (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, email), people realistically have about a 50% chance of seeing it, and a really high-quality personalized video might add another 20% chance of a reply — so you might reasonably expect a 10-20% reply rate. Getting only one call out of 60 like that is odd — it suggests either the service isn't actually valuable/solving a real problem, or you're not presenting it well, or something else is off that's hard to diagnose without seeing it directly. If you want real feedback, link a video and the exact outreach copy you're using so it can actually be looked at.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Cold Email

What’s the update on the cold email campaign video you made a while back?

I paused the campaign after getting a huge influx of positive replies – people were eager to hop on calls, which wasn’t realistic for me to handle. I had to pump the brakes in certain regions to keep growth sustainable. Here are the final stats: I ended up with 26 replies. When I launched the campaign I was opening at about 2‑2.5 % and have now scaled that up to roughly 4‑4.2 % after some split‑testing. I even recorded a video showing the iterations and published it, which helped a lot of people make money with cold email, confirming I was on the right track. I plan to follow up with deeper dives into the rest of the sales process, but it’s tough to justify the time right now because each sales call takes a lot of effort – I need participants who are comfortable having their calls published, and there’s a liability factor now. Producing one of those deep‑dive videos costs me about 10‑15 hours versus the 30‑45 minute videos I make now. I still think doing cornerstone content like this about once every 10‑15 videos is strategic, so I’ll keep it in the pipeline when the timing feels right.

cold emailcampaign updatestats
youtube ↗Sales

What do you think about cold calling for outreach compared to cold email or Loom videos, especially regarding spam risk and effectiveness? Do you recommend it over cold email, and what's the best outreach method you'd suggest?

I don't cold call anymore because of three main issues. First, you often don't get a pickup—if you call 100 people, maybe only 30‑50 actually answer, wasting a lot of time. Second, even when you get past the voicemail, you frequently reach a gatekeeper or front desk instead of the decision maker, and gatekeepers tend to discard your message. Third, after finally reaching the decision maker, they're often busy or give excuses, so you don't get meaningful time with them. Overall, I'd estimate that 80% or more of cold calls are wasted, making it negative leverage—you'd need to make five calls just to get one worthwhile conversation. I much prefer sending Loom videos, which let you convey your message asynchronously and avoid those gatekeeper and pickup problems.

cold callingoutreachloomapollos
youtube ↗Cold Email

Why am I only getting two negative responses from 75 Loom outreach videos and what am I doing wrong?

You’re creating three Loom videos a day, which is good volume, but you’re only seeing two negative responses and no other replies, meaning you’re not extracting enough value from your outreach. You’re likely sending the videos only via LinkedIn or email, whereas you should be sharing them across all platforms. Seventy‑five unique touches isn’t a lot; you need to raise your expectations for how many outreach pieces are required before you start closing deals. Think of the barrier to entry: if two or three clients were guaranteed from 75 videos, the service would have no value. You’re probably younger than most, so set higher expectations. The main issue is top‑of‑funnel visibility—if prospects aren’t even seeing the videos, the rest of the funnel doesn’t matter. Optimize for broader distribution and higher volume to improve results.

loom videosoutreachtop of funnel
youtube ↗Cold Email

Could you make a video showing how to serve clients with a larger budget, something like $5,000 to $15,000?

Sure, I can talk about it now and, if there’s enough demand, I’ll make a full video later. The reality is that with a bigger budget you can move everything about ten‑times faster, maybe even a hundred times faster. For example, most people are limited to about nine mailboxes sending 30 emails each per day – roughly 270 emails total, or 135 new leads per day in a two‑step sequence. If you scale up to 90 mailboxes at 30 emails each, you’re looking at 2,700 emails a day, or 1,350 new leads daily, for a very low monthly cost (around $270 if you use a mailbox reseller). At a 0.02% reply rate that’s 27 positive replies, which can translate to three calls a day. With a good campaign you can convert 10‑15 calls per day, and even if 30% drop off you still get seven to ten quality calls. Assuming 45‑minute calls, you can fill an entire day’s calendar and close a couple of deals daily. If each deal is $2K, that’s $4K a day, or about $80K a month running 20 days, not counting upsells or retainers. In short, if you’re well‑resourced you can realistically schedule $80K‑plus a month with a productized offer by going all‑in on cold email, as long as you have enough leads to fulfill the volume. This means broadening your top‑of‑funnel targeting across more general niches. For a $5K‑$15K budget, $270 is only about 2.7% of the spend, leaving roughly 4% of margin for growth.

budgetcold emailscale