r/leadgeninsiders

Hey everyone,

I'm starting to cold email businesses to offer Google Ads management (mainly service-based businesses and ecom), plus some white labeling for agencies. Problem is, I don't have a website or any case studies to point to yet just experience from past roles.

I'm thinking about offering free work upfront (like a free audit, or even managing a small campaign for free for a set period) just to get my foot in the door and build some real case studies/testimonials I can use going forward. I do not have a problem of doing free work for now FYI

Has anyone here done this successfully? A few questions:

• Does free work actually convert into paid retainers, or does it just attract people who never intend to pay?
• Should I cap it at something specific (e.g., "free for 30 days" or "free audit only") instead of open-ended free management?
• Any tips on how to position this in a cold email so it doesn't come off as desperate or lower my perceived value?
• Would white labeling for other agencies be a better way to get case studies than direct client work, since I'd have their oversight?

Appreciate any advice from people who've been through the "no portfolio yet" phase.

For me it's never writing the email.

It's finding enough good prospects in the first place.

Curious what everyone else struggles with most.

• Finding businesses?
• Finding emails?
• Personalizing messages?
• Following up?
• Getting replies?

What's your biggest bottleneck?

Hi everyone,

I already know how to write cold emails since I previously worked at an agency. However, I don't know how to set up the entire cold email infrastructure from scratch.

I'm looking to learn things like:

• Buying and setting up domains
• Email accounts & inbox setup
• DNS (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
• Warming up inboxes
• Sending tools
• Tracking performance
• Managing campaigns
• Overall workflow and best practices

I'm not looking for copywriting advice, just the technical side of building and managing a cold email system.

Is there one comprehensive course or YouTube tutorial you'd recommend? I'd rather avoid piecing together knowledge from dozens of short videos. I'm looking for something that covers the entire process from A to Z.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I'm wondering if sending sales docs like pitch decks, proposals etc that are personalized to the receivers company is common or not practiced in early stage of sales lifecycle. If anyone has done it does it increase reply rates?

Background:

I recently launched a B2B service targeting a specific niche in the US healthcare-adjacent space. I'm a solo founder working around significant family caregiving responsibilities, which leaves me about 2 hours a day on the laptop.

The Problem:

My current outreach is manual; personalised emails, 3-5 per day, to a targeted list I'm building by having Claude crawl the web for my target client profile. But I have to verify each entry on the list myself...

It's working methodically but slowly, and I'm burning through leads faster than I can find new ones. And it feels like I'm putting way too much time into the verification process and customizing every mail, which might not even get read.

What I'm looking for:

• Advice on finding qualified B2B leads at scale with a medium to small-sized budget.
• Tools for lead enrichment on a near-zero budget
• Safe higher-volume outreach methods that won't get my primary Gmail account flagged.
• Experience tips, tricks, hacks or anything in between in selling services to US clients from outside the US

Happy to share more context in DMs. Not looking for someone to do this for me, just genuine advice from people who've been here.