The Agents of Change Digital Marketing Podcast · Rich Brooks | Interviews with Marketing Experts | SEO | Social Media Market

Cold Outreach That Converts with AJ Cassata

·36 min·2 clips

AJ Cassata shifted from pitching a $5,000-$10,000 paint job to asking for one hour next weekend for an estimate.

1. The Agents of Change episode 614, hosted by Rich Brooks of Flight New Media, covers cold outreach by email, LinkedIn, and phone, plus a short segment on checking AI-generated meeting summaries. 2. Guest AJ Cassata is the founder of Revenue Boost, a B2B agency, and says he has helped over 440 clients grow without paid ads after starting in door-to-door sales at 19. 3. Cassata's thesis is that cold outreach is "timeless" rather than outdated, and that because most outreach is "half-hearted and spammy," a few principles can make a sender stand out. 4. Before the interview, Brooks describes using Orbi, his custom ChatGPT assistant, with a coaching chronicle document from business coach Lisa Danforth, and getting a factually wrong summary on the 4.0 model that was corrected on 5.2 after he asked it to "take your time." 5. From over 10,000 doors knocked, Cassata learned to deliver a pitch in 10-15 seconds and to ask for an hour for an estimate rather than pitching a $5,000-$10,000 paint job. 6. He lists three ways to stand out: social proof as "table stakes," free lead magnets such as audits (with ChatGPT generating 30 ideas), and segmented campaigns by industry and job title so CEOs and marketing directors get different messages. 7. On pattern-breaking, he recommends genuine research on the person or company, tests humor and longer emails, and notes that AI models can draft a researched first line when deal sizes are too small for manual research. 8. He recommends starting with email because LinkedIn caps outreach at about 100 messages a week while email allows around 1,000, and advises using a dedicated cold-email tool such as Instantly instead of HubSpot or Mailchimp to protect domain reputation. 9. Using Brooks's custom GPT service as the example, he walks through picking two to three target industries and company sizes, building a list in Apollo.io in about 30 minutes for roughly $100 a month, and running 3-5 campaigns side by side with a 3-4 email cadence. 10. Cassata says campaigns most often fail on the list, that only 3-5% of a market is solution-aware at any time, and that the Instantly study found 58% of replies on the first email and 42% on follow-ups.

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