The AI Playbook That 4X’d Replies and Closed 6 Deals

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Cold outreach often feels like shouting into the void, carefully crafted emails, optimized subject lines, yet silence.

You refine your approach, hit send, and… nothing.

Nouman, founder of OBoudFirst a company that helps business do multi-channel outbound on autopilot, flipped the script.

Frustrated by low engagement from VPs of Sales, he asked himself:

“Who actually uses this data every day?”

The answer, SDRs and AEs.

Instead of chasing decision-makers, he engaged end users first, asking them to run a test of his service before reaching out to the sales leader.

The Goal

1. Create a success story prior to engaging with VPs

2. Create a champion who would be excited to make an intro to VP

3. Book more meeting with sales leaders

How?

1. Experiment with engaging users of his offering before engaging buyers

2. Leverage Clay plus AI to build target list and create highly personalized emails

3. Leverage Instantly to run outbound sequence

The Results

• Response rates jumped to 12%, compared to the usual 3-5% in previous campaigns.

• 43% of responses were positive, compared to 20-30% in previous campaigns.

• Six deals closed in a week.

• SDRs and AEs forwarded emails to their sales leaders without being asked.

Key Takeaways from Nouman’s Approach

• Empower the Right People – Instead of chasing decision-makers, engage the people who actually use the product. Their endorsement carries weight.

• Give Before You Ask – Offering free, high-value insights or tools lowers resistance and builds trust.

• Make the Process Easy – SDRs had no risk in testing the product, making it frictionless to pass along.

• Leverage Social Proof – Once SDRs saw results, they naturally wanted to share them with their team.

Get Free Access to Nouman’s Playbook

Curious how Nouman made this work?

Like, comment "Claybook" and tag a friend on this LinkedIn post 

What You’ll Get:

• Nouman’s Clay workbook with tables to find companies, find contacts, and automatically create personalized emails for each contact.

• AI prompts built into tables:

  1. Business Model Analysis

  2. Sales Leader Identification

  3. Company Analysis

  4. Sales Personnel Details

  5. Email Personalization.

After you engage with post we’ll send a link to the Clay workbook + instructions straight to your LinkedIn inbox!

How to Use Nouman’s Clay Workbook to Build a Target List and Personalize Emails in 4 Easy Steps?

1. Click Create Workbook using Template

2. Customize companies to match your target accounts by navigating to the SDR Companies Table and editing Source information.