SaaStr's Lemkin: stale human sequences make the case for AI-run outbound
Summary
On November 2, Jason Lemkin dissects two cold emails from a public B2B software company's rep, one still asking about 2024 goals. He argues reps working at volume stop checking their own emails, while SaaStr runs roughly $20M in revenue with 3 humans and 20+ agents that read each account record before sending. Lemkin concedes, "A great human still writes a better cold email than an agent."
TopCloserR Perspective
The takeaway
The problem in this email wasn't the rep's writing. It was a sequence nobody had reread in two years, sent to an account nobody had looked at. Buyers are starting to let agents screen their inbox, so a lazy, generic send will get archived before a person ever sees it.
Who gets the most from this
- In the role
- If your sequences auto-send without you reading them, your name is on whatever they say. More of the outbound volume is moving to agents, so your value is in the account research and the conversations that close.
- Aspiring
- People preparing for their first outbound role. — Show you can research an account in a few minutes and write one email that references the buyer's real stack and situation. That skill holds up whether a human or an agent does the sending.
- In the role
- A hardcoded year in this sequence got past enablement, marketing ops and managers at a public company. If nobody owns whether your sequences still make sense, the sequence is what's doing your selling.
- Aspiring
- SDR team leads moving into running a sales development function. — Expect to be judged on how the system performs, not just on activity counts. Learn how agents get fed account data and how you correct them once so every later send is fixed.
Put it to work
- Reread every live sequence step this weekHead of Sales Development
Pull each active sequence, read every step as the buyer would, and kill anything with dated references, generic menus or no tie to the account.
- Open each email with one account-specific factSDR
Before sending, spend a few minutes on the account: their stack, a recent change, a cost they're about to face. Lead with that, not your product list.
- Assign an owner to every sequenceHead of Sales Development
Name one person per sequence who signs off on its content and reviews it on a set schedule, so nothing survives two planning cycles unread.
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