Welcome to the GTM Launchpad newsletter! Each week I will share a sales play to help you grow your business, level up your sales game and succeed in the trenches

Last week tested me

72 hours. 175 DMs
$8,000 closed from $0

No automation
No gimmicks
Just raw follow-up and focus

By Friday night I was reminded of something we all forget when the pressure’s on

Most deals don’t die because of bad product or timing
They die because we stop following up with purpose

This wasn’t luck

It was systems, sweat and a refusal to coast when it got heavy

So this week let’s talk about the thing that revives more pipeline than any new sequence or shiny tech stack ever will…

Follow-up

Sponsor of the Week - Smartlead

When you’ve got 20K+ cold emails in flight, follow-up isn’t optional…it’s a system

A few weeks back, I ran a Smartlead campaign that sent 10,000+ emails and pulled a 23% positive reply rate

It wasn’t luck…it was clean sending, smart sequences, and structured follow-ups that actually hit

Smartlead makes it simple

✅ Auto-rotates inboxes to protect deliverability
✅ Detects replies + sentiment automatically
✅ Keeps you scaling without frying your domain

If you’ve ever felt buried in cold email chaos, this is your fix

🎥 Watch the clip: “I Sent 10,000+ Cold Emails… Here’s What Happened” 👇

What’s Working Right Now

If your team’s dragging this quarter this is the reset to run right now

Deals slow
Inboxes get loud
Reps lose patience

The ones who still hit quota?
They follow up like pros not pests

Here’s what separates them 👇

1️⃣ Follow Up with Context

If your reps are still writing “just checking in” they’re already losing

Follow-ups should earn attention not ask for it

Example

“Hey Sarah saw your team rolled out the new Hubspot instance last week
Curious did that free up any bandwidth on outbound or still stretched thin?

Every follow-up needs a reason to exist
Tie it to a trigger, a change or a new insight

2️⃣ Follow Up with Cadence

The best reps don’t follow up more…they follow up better

2-3 thoughtful touches over 2 weeks beats one desperate Hail Mary

It’s about rhythm, not randomness

Think of follow-up as a heartbeat not a fire drill
Your system should pulse…not panic

3️⃣ Follow Up with Confidence

If you know you can help, stop acting like you’re interrupting

Every follow-up is a reminder that you care more about solving their problem than they do right now

Confidence isn’t arrogance
It’s clarity

When your reps believe they can actually move the needle it comes through in every message

🚫 Where Teams Fall Apart

• “Checking in” culture: adds no value, burns trust

• Waiting too long: timing kills more deals than objections

• No system: without structure, follow-ups become wishes

The Move This Week

Pull 10 stalled deals from your CRM

Ask one question 👇

“Did we actually follow up, or did we just send reminders?

Then rewrite three of those follow-ups today
Give them context, cadence, and confidence

That’s how you revive the pipeline before year-end

Testing What’s Real | The Mobile Verification Debate

If you’ve been following me on LinkedIn, you probably saw the little storm I kicked up last week around mobile verification and connect rates 😅

Look I’ve been cold calling since 2007. I’ve lived through every trend and armchair take from “phone is dead” to “dialers are back”

So instead of arguing, I’m running the data

This week, I’m testing a 1,500 contact experiment across five micro ICPs. Half raw CRM data, half mobile verified to see if validation tools actually move the needle

Baseline so far (new rep first week on phone)

132 dials → 15 connects → 6 conversations → 11% connect rate

Next up
✅ SureConnect (first test)
✅ TitanX + Wiza (up next)

If SureConnect’s 20-30% claims hold up, that’s 200–300 conversations from 1,000 verified dials and real math for any SDR team running cold call-heavy motions

If you’re curious or want to run your own test, they’re running a starter plan

You can test it here → SureConnect

👉 I’ll share the early results in next week’s issue

Until then, let’s stop debating and let the data talk

Tom’s Play of the Week: The 2-2-2 Rule

If your team needs a follow-up rhythm, steal this 👇

2-2-2 Follow-Up Rule

→ Follow up 2 days, 2 weeks, and 2 months after the first touch

Each time, bring new context, not new pressure

It keeps momentum alive and conversations warm without turning your reps into robots

Simple rhythm, serious results

Bonus Resource - Video of the Week

How to Scale Millions of Personalized Emails with Just 3 Tools
Smartlead Office Hours

More tools don’t mean more results

They mean more chaos

In this Office Hours session, Wesley Hoang (Co-founder at Cymate) breaks down what he calls “The Outbound Trinity.” It’s how his agency scaled to $1.5M+ in revenue using just Clay + Smartlead + one automation layer

It’s not about blasting more messages

It’s about building a system that balances automation and creativity so every email feels personal even at scale

What You’ll Learn
✅ How to simplify your outbound stack and still scale
✅ Clay + Smartlead live workflow breakdown
✅ How to automate without sounding robotic
✅ Frameworks for writing emails that actually convert

If your reps are buried in tools but still struggling to hit reply goals this one’s worth the hour

Watch here👇

A Quick Thank You

Huge shoutout to everyone who grabbed The Outbound OS last week 🙏 The feedback’s been unreal. I brought that $99 system back to give folks something practical when the noise gets loud

And inside The Outbound Underground, Max used the Cold Email GPT from the kit live during office hours. He and I built a full campaign for a fencing contractor in under 5 minutes 😳 and Aviva ran with the Cold Call GPT to work on how to open and convo with her new ICP

That’s the kind of execution that fires me up

If you missed it on Friday but want a copy, reply to this email and I’ll send you the checkout link directly

If you grabbed it already, thank you for supporting and trusting the work

Final Thought

November doesn’t reward the loudest teams
It rewards the ones who follow through

Every deal that closes this month will trace back to someone who didn’t quit after “no response” or stopped testing after one bad day

Be that leader
Be that team

Show your reps what consistency really looks like

Because when you lead by example… following up, testing what’s real and building systems that work, you don’t just close more deals… You build a culture that refuses to quit

— Tom

P.S.- 👉 What’s your team’s biggest follow-up challenge right now? Hit reply and tell me I might feature it next week

Thanks for reading. See you again next week at 8 am MST!

- Tom Slocum ✌️

How can The SD Lab help you?

If your outbound pipeline is stuck we fix that

The SD Lab works with founders, sales leaders and enablement pros to install outbound systems that actually generate pipeline

Here’s how we help teams level up fast 👇

🚀 The Revenue Accelerator

2 to 12 week outbound consulting sprints for B2B orgs with 10–20+ reps

✅ Lift SQLs by 20–30%
✅ Coach reps with real call reviews + AI scorecards
✅ Rebuild outbound messaging + targeting
✅ Deliver a scalable system your team can own

👉 Best for: Series A-B SaaS orgs, new SDR teams, stalled pipeline

📓 Custom Sales Playbooks

4 to 8 week builds of cold call flows, email copy, objection handling and targeting strategy

You bring the ICP, we build the message and motion
Final asset = plug-and-play playbook your team can use or scale

👉 Best for: founders, enablement leaders, agencies building outbound

🎯 Targeted Workshops + Power Hours

Live tactical sessions for your team. No fluff, just results

💥 Cold call clinics
💥 Email teardown sessions
💥 Social selling & DM strategy
💥 SDR workflow optimization

👉 Best for: fast enablement, rep upskilling, team offsites or new hire ramp

🧠 Outbound Underground

Our private Slack community for reps & rising sellers

🔓 Weekly office hours
🔓 Tech tool perks
🔓 Peer feedback, templates and real talk

🎟️ Join here » — free & paid options available

Curious what this could look like for your org?
Book a 20 min strategy chat no pitch just clarity 👇

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