I’m about to show you something most people won’t believe until they build it themselves. A consultant I know just closed $340K in new business over 90 days using a tool most people have never heard of and a strategy that sounds too simple to work.
No ads. No content marketing. No “thought leadership.” Just targeted outreach done right with AI doing the heavy lifting.
THE OLD WAY IS BROKEN (YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS)
Traditional outbound is dead. Cold email is dying. Everyone’s inbox is a war zone of generic “Hey, I noticed your company” messages that get deleted before the second sentence.
But here’s what nobody talks about: personalized outreach at scale still works. The problem is that actual personalization takes too much time. Writing custom emails to 500 prospects? That’s 40+ hours of work. By the time you’re done, half those companies have already hired someone else.
So people use templates, which don’t work. Or they hire VAs, which is expensive and inconsistent. Or they give up and just post on LinkedIn hoping for inbound.
There’s a better way.
MEET CLAY (THE TOOL THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING)
Clay is what happens when you combine a spreadsheet, a data enrichment platform, and AI into one tool. It’s scary good at finding prospects, researching them, and writing personalized outreach that doesn’t sound like it came from a bot.
Here’s how my consultant friend used it to close $340K in three months. I’m giving you the exact playbook because I watched him build it and I’ve since replicated parts of it myself.
THE $340K OUTBOUND SYSTEM
THE SETUP:
Target market: B2B SaaS companies between $5M-$50M ARR that just raised Series A or B funding.
THE PROCESS:
1. Clay scrapes funding announcements from Crunchbase and tech news sites
2. Enriches company data (tech stack, employee count, recent hires)
3. Finds decision makers (usually VP of Sales or CRO)
4. Researches each decision maker (LinkedIn activity, recent posts, company priorities)
5. Claude Sonnet 4.5 writes custom emails referencing specific details about their company and role
6. Emails sent through a warm domain with proper deliverability setup
RESULTS: 34% open rate, 12% reply rate, 8% booked meetings
THE MATH:
1,200 emails sent over 90 days
96 meetings booked
24 proposals sent
11 deals closed
Average deal size: $31K
Total revenue: $341K
TIME INVESTMENT:
Initial setup: 8 hours
Weekly maintenance: 2 hours
Everything else: automated
WHY THIS WORKS WHEN EVERYTHING ELSE FAILS
The secret isn’t Clay. The secret is that Clay lets you do actual research at scale. When you email someone and mention their recent LinkedIn post about struggling with sales automation, they pay attention. When you reference their Series B announcement and connect it to a specific problem you solve, they respond.
This isn’t spray and pray. This is targeted, researched outreach that happens to be automated. There’s a massive difference.
Most people fail at outbound because they’re optimizing for volume. They think more emails equals more meetings. Wrong. Better targeting and better personalization beats volume every single time.
TACTICAL TAKEAWAY #1: BUILD YOUR FIRST CLAY OUTBOUND CAMPAIGN THIS WEEKEND
SATURDAY SETUP (3 HOURS):
1. Sign up for Clay (start with the free trial)
2. Define your ICP: industry, company size, funding stage, whatever matters
3. Use Clay’s “Find Companies” template to build your first list (aim for 100-200 companies)
4. Add enrichment columns: tech stack, recent news, decision maker contact info
5. Let it run overnight (enrichment takes time)
SUNDAY SETUP (2 HOURS):
1. Add AI integration to Clay (works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini)
2. Write your email prompt (I’ll give you one below)
3. Generate 10 test emails, review them
4. Refine your prompt based on what sounds good vs robotic
5. Generate the full batch
6. Export to your email tool (I use Instantly, but there are others)
THE EMAIL PROMPT THAT WORKS:
“Write a concise cold email (under 100 words) to {{First Name}}, {{Title}} at {{Company}}. Mention their recent {{Recent News/Funding/LinkedIn Post}}. Explain how companies in {{Industry}} with {{Company Size}} typically struggle with {{Specific Problem}}. Offer to share a specific framework we used with {{Similar Company}} that achieved {{Specific Result}}. End with a soft ask for a 15-minute call. Tone: professional but conversational, confident but not salesy.”
THE TOOLS THAT MAKE THIS STACK WORK
Clay is the brain, but you need a few other pieces to make this print money:
EMAIL SENDING: Use a dedicated tool like Instantly or Smartlead. Don’t send from your main domain. Set up proper SPF/DKIM/DMARC. Warm up your domains for two weeks before blasting. This is non-negotiable if you want emails to land in inboxes.
CRM INTEGRATION: Clay connects to most CRMs. When someone replies, it should automatically create a deal and notify you. I use Go High Level because it handles email, CRM, and follow-up sequences in one place.
MEETING SCHEDULING: Use Calendly or similar. Make it stupid easy for people to book time with you. Every extra click is a chance for them to forget and move on.
DELIVERABILITY MONITORING: Use a tool like Warmy or Lemwarm to keep your sender reputation healthy. If your emails start hitting spam, your whole operation dies. Monitor this weekly.
TACTICAL TAKEAWAY #2: THE FOLLOW-UP SEQUENCE THAT DOUBLES RESPONSE RATES
Most people send one email and give up. That’s leaving money on the table. Here’s the sequence that works:
EMAIL 1 (DAY 0): Personalized outreach with specific value prop
EMAIL 2 (DAY 4): “Following up on my note below. Quick question: are you handling {{Specific Problem}} in-house or considering outside help?”
EMAIL 3 (DAY 8): Share a relevant case study or resource. No ask. Just value.
EMAIL 4 (DAY 15): “Last one, I promise. If this isn’t a priority right now, totally get it. Mind if I check back in Q2?”
This sequence bumps reply rates from 6-8% to 12-15%. The third email (value, no ask) is the one that converts people who were on the fence.
THE REAL NUMBERS (BECAUSE I KNOW YOU’RE WONDERING)
Here’s what this actually costs to run:
Clay: $149/month (Growth plan)
Email Tool: $97/month (Instantly)
Warm-up Service: $49/month (Warmy)
Domains: $50/month (5 sending domains at $10 each)
CRM: $97/month (Go High Level)
TOTAL: $442/month
If you close one $5K deal from this system, you’ve covered costs for a year. My consultant friend closed 11 deals averaging $31K each. You do the math.
I built a complete step-by-step course on setting up Clay outbound systems in the AI BUSINESS ACCELERATOR. It includes the exact Clay templates, email prompts, deliverability checklists, and CRM workflows I use.
👉 COMMENT “CLAY” and I’ll send you the details.
WHAT NOBODY TELLS YOU (THE REAL TALK)
This system works, but it’s not magic. You still need a good offer. You still need to be able to close deals on calls. Clay and AI won’t fix a broken service or a weak value prop.
What it does do is eliminate the excuse that you don’t have time for outbound. It removes the bottleneck of manual research and email writing. It lets you operate at a scale that was previously impossible without a team.
You’re trading money for leverage. $442/month to potentially generate hundreds of thousands in revenue. That’s the trade.
Build it. Test it. Iterate. This is how you grow without relying on hope-based marketing.
Jordan Hale
The AI Newsroom
Seattle, WA
Real AI. Real Results. No Hype.