Muhammad Ali

Muhammad AliAug 4, 2026

𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝘄𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Everyone is trying to prove how much research they did. "Loved your latest post." "Sorry your dog died." "Congrats on the funding." People obsess over getting attention instead of being relevant.  The irony is that most of those emails would've still been irrelevant, even if every personal detail was correct. Compliments and cute first lines have almost nothing to do with what gets someone to reply because if you test AI-personalized first lines against zero personalization on a tighter segment, you'll get the exact same results. On the other hand, when your targeting is specific enough, the email is already personal before you say anything personalized. Say you're selling to marketing agencies. Instead of "marketing agencies," go after "performance agencies running paid social for DTC brands under $5M." Same email, still no personalization added. Reply rates jump because your email is already relevant without mentioning their company dog's name. Tight segmentation beats generic personalization, but we still believe in personalization. Just not the "love your dog, he's so cute" kind. We personalize around timing instead. It's about layering in trigger events (funding announcements, job postings, tech stack changes), and it moves reply rates again, even with tight segments already in place. The difference is you're not personalizing to seem friendly. You're personalizing because you caught them at a buying moment. That's when even a simple "saw you just posted for an SDR role" beats a perfectly segmented cold email sent at a random time. You can trick someone into opening an email. You can't trick them into needing what you sell.

Muhammad AliAug 25, 2026

𝗞𝗻𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝗰𝗸. “𝗪𝗵𝗼’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲?” 𝗕𝘂𝘆 𝗺𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 Sounds ridiculous, right? Yet that's how most cold calls sound. People love saying cold calling is dead. I don't think it is. A hundred years ago people knocked on doors. Then they picked up the phone. Now they send emails, LinkedIn messages, and DMs. The channel keeps changing. Human conversation doesn't. The real problem has never been cold outreach. It's that you're asking a complete stranger to trust you. And strangers don't. That's the gap every salesperson has to close. Not with a longer pitch. Not with a better script. with the first few seconds. Your opening isn't supposed to sell your product. It's supposed to earn the next 30 seconds. One of my favorite examples is: "Hey COMPANY ABC , I'm calling about your competitor. Give me a call back." Why does that work? Not because it's manipulative but because it creates curiosity. And curiosity earns attention. The best reps don't just memorize scripts. They prepare for people. They research the company. They understand the prospect's world. They know the likely pain points before they ever dial. Because a cold call isn't about convincing someone to buy. It's about giving them one good reason not to hang up. Everything else comes after that.

Muhammad AliAug 12, 2026

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝟭𝟮 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹. Your subject line was great. Your intro was personal. Your value prop was clean. Then you ended it with "Do you have 15 minutes for a quick chat this week” Gong analyzed over 300,000 cold emails and found that asking for a meeting on the first touch drops your reply rate by nearly 50%. So pls stop demanding time and start asking for permission to send value. Try asking: "Open to seeing a 30-second video on how we fixed this for [Competitor]?" "Mind if I send over a quick 1-page breakdown of the workflow?" this instantly doubles your replies because The prospect can say "sure" in two seconds without committing to a meeting. Once they watch the video or read the 1-pager and see real substance, they ask for the call. Anyway, do you have 15 minutes for a quick chat this Thursday at 2 PM? 😂