38 Cold Calling Playbooks CEOs Used to Add $2M Revenue

In the world of SaaS, growth is the name of the game, and trailblazing CEOs are constantly innovating their sales tactics. While traditional cold calling might seem outdated, a modern approach, often dubbed “Cold Calling 2.0,” has emerged as a powerful strategy for acquiring new users and boosting revenue. This method moves beyond unsolicited phone calls, focusing instead on precision, personalization, and strategic email outreach to warm up potential leads. In this article, you will learn how to master the Cold Calling 2.0 playbook, backed by real-world examples from top software CEOs.

You’ll get a 4-step system to launch your own Cold Calling 2.0 strategy, inspired by tactics from CEOs at companies like Chili Piper, Koncert, and Referrizer. These examples were collected directly from CEOs who have used these methods to achieve significant growth, with some reaching valuations over $500 million.

The 4-Step Playbook For Cold Calling 2.0

Cold Calling 2.0 is a systematic lead generation technique that allows you to prospect new accounts without making blind cold calls. It’s about turning a cold outreach into a warm conversation by leveraging data, targeted emailing, and a deep understanding of customer pain points. Here is a step-by-step guide to implementing this strategy in your own company.

1. Step 1: Define Your High-Velocity Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Before you even think about outreach, you need to know exactly who you’re targeting. This means going beyond basic firmographics and identifying the specific cohort of customers that convert into revenue the fastest. This involves a combination of analyzing deal size, win rate, and sales cycle length. Markus Stahlberg of N.Rich emphasizes that a data-driven ICP is crucial, as it allows you to focus on accounts most likely to close.
2. Step 2: Build Targeted Lists and “Warm Up” Leads Digitally. Once you have your ICP, the next step is to build a targeted list of prospects. Instead of making purely “cold” calls, modern salespeople use digital touchpoints to warm up their outreach. This includes engaging with prospects on platforms like LinkedIn, tracking email opens, and monitoring digital engagement with your content. Stefan Smulders, who grew Expandi to $7 million in 20 months, utilized tools to scrape lists of users of complementary technologies, knowing they were already struggling with a problem his tool could solve.
3. Step 3: Initiate Contact with a Strategic, Personalized Email. The core of Cold Calling 2.0 is a systematic and targeted email strategy. These emails should be short, personalized, and focused on a single goal: getting a referral to the right person in the organization. Rather than pitching the product directly, the goal is to start a conversation by asking to be pointed in the right direction to discuss a specific problem your product solves.
4. Step 4: Make the Call and Focus on a Consultative Approach. By the time you pick up the phone, the prospect is no longer a stranger. They may have been referred by a superior or have already engaged with your content. The goal of this call is not a quick sale but to build a relationship and understand their needs. Chris Orlob, who helped grow Gong to over $200 million, stresses the importance of asking discovery questions that get to the heart of business pain, as “Money Follows Pain.”

40 Examples of Cold Calling in Action

Here are real-world examples from software companies that have successfully used cold calling and strategic outreach to fuel their growth.

• Andre Cvijovic of Referrizer shared that his cold calling machine makes 30,000 calls per week, which was instrumental in growing revenue to $3.8 million.
• The team at Referrizer launched a massive cold calling initiative that took them from $5,000 a month in revenue to $140,000 a month in just six to seven months.
• Andre Cvijovic built an internal Salesforce system specifically for their massive calling efforts, enabling his engineers to support the new sales focus.
• By hiring “superstars only” from platforms like Craigslist for commission-only sales roles, Referrizer built a high-performing outbound team without upfront salary costs.
• Koncert’s CEO, Senraj Soundar, explained how their AI-powered dialer allows a single sales rep to have 8 to 12 conversations in an hour, equivalent to three days of manual productivity.
• The Koncert platform utilizes AI to figure out if a live human has picked up the call, connecting only live calls to reps to maximize efficiency.
• Kyle Vamvouris of Vouris started his career as an SDR, emphasizing the importance of cold calling and cold emailing to book outbound sales appointments.
• N.Rich’s CEO, Markus Stahlberg, highlighted that focusing on a “High-Velocity ICP” allows SDR productivity to be boosted by over 300% by targeting the accounts that turn into revenue the fastest.
• Michael Burns from vFairs spoke about building a playbook for repeatable revenue, a process that can be fueled by initial cold outreach to diagnose market needs.
• Nicolas Vandenberghe, co-founder of Chili Piper, described his early strategy as calling a “bunch of companies and said you have a problem that I can solve,” leading to their first customers.
• Chili Piper’s first paying customer, FiveStars, was secured after a cold outreach identified a 7-minute delay in their SDRs booking meetings, a problem Chili Piper was built to solve.
• By identifying that SDRs were taking too long to book meetings for account executives, the Chili Piper team validated their core value proposition through direct outreach.
• Alina Vandenberghe of Chili Piper explained their obsession with ICPs, targeting, and the “16 touches” required before a prospect buys, a process often initiated by cold outreach.
• Kyle Racki of Proposify detailed their experimentation with building a sales team to go after larger businesses, a move that requires a strong outbound motion.
• The Vouris team notes that a common failure is the “hire and hope” strategy, where sales reps are hired without a documented process, leading to failure.
• Kyle Vamvouris helped an organization scale from $400k to $1.2 million in ARR in 11 months by refining the sales process, including the introduction of SDRs for cold outreach.
• Chris Gannon of Captivate Talent warns against hiring an SDR to create demand if you’re a founder with a new product, stating a “23-year-old out of college…will not take you to the promised land.”
• Mark Kosoglow, Outreach’s first employee, started on 100% commission and sold a million dollars worth of the product in six months through direct sales calls.
• At Outreach, the first sales hire was tasked not just with selling but with building out processes to create a scalable team.
• Amin Yazdani of Craver discussed adapting enterprise outbound tactics for the SMB market, noting that assumptions about lead generation and sales cycles must be adjusted.
• Kyle Vamvouris emphasizes that sales is a numbers game requiring both quantity and quality of activities to hit revenue targets.
• vFairs CRO Michael Burns stressed the importance of diagnosing gaps in the selling process to ensure reps can have effective conversations.
• Adam Baker of Dealpad believes the founder is always the best salesperson in the company due to their deep product knowledge and ability to move the needle on features.
• At Dealpad, the team will not proceed past qualification for a demo unless they get access to the executive sponsor on the call.
• Adam Baker notes a mistake many AEs make is “accepting the first pain,” which often sits locally and isn’t a critical business problem, leading to smaller deals.
• The team at Expandi leveraged LinkedIn groups to message prospects directly without sending a connection request, using it as an easy conversation starter.
• Mark Fershteyn of Recapped explains that complex sales over $10,000 are not just sales; they are project management, requiring a structured, repeatable motion.
• GetAccept’s CEO, Samir Smajic, stated that in the early “hustle phase” (zero to $2M ARR), founders must do sales themselves.
• Samir Smajic advises hiring sales managers who have full sales cycle experience and are not too senior to get their hands dirty in the early stages.
• Ryan Staley shared a strategy of analyzing the five biggest wins, five fastest wins, and five biggest losses to refine the go-to-market and sales outreach strategy.
• Ryan Staley’s team hit a $166,000-a-month deal by shifting focus from small deals to enterprise-level targets.
• Ken Hoppe from Modigie built a sales-led growth company by focusing on providing something every B2B sales organization needs: accurate contact data.
• Charles Dairo of Beezop generated 50+ demo requests by telling a relatable story on LinkedIn about the operational problems in his previous agency.
• The team at Testimonial.to uses automated cold outreach to contact every company launching on Product Hunt daily.
• Vladimir Blagojevic from Fullfunnel.io uses LinkedIn to drive five and six-figure inbound opportunities by proactively growing his network and engaging the entire buying committee.
• Cledara’s team, which grew 5x last year, stressed the importance of having a clear go-to-market strategy to guide sales efforts during a downturn.
• Jason Andrew, who sold Limelight Health for $93 million, spoke about the importance of founder relationships and trust to secure the first enterprise customers.
• John Doherty of Getcredo explains that “the money is in the follow-up” and has optimized his process to nurture leads effectively after initial contact.
• Nicolas Vandenberghe emphasizes that when creating a new category, the initial sales motion involves convincing a market that they have a problem they didn’t know about.

Conclusion

You just learned how to drive significant revenue using the Cold Calling 2.0 playbook, with tactics from leading SaaS founders. By defining a sharp ICP, warming up leads through digital channels, and using a consultative sales approach, you can turn cold outreach into a predictable revenue machine. To continue your growth journey, explore Founderpath’s resources for non-dilutive capital and tools to help you scale.

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