BUSINESS COACHING
How ActionCOACH Milwaukee Generated 217 Leads and 136 Booked Meetings in Three Months With Done-For-You Cold Email
217 leads and 136 booked meetings in three months
Leads generated
Meetings booked
Outbound channel used
CLIENT REVIEW
Hear it straight from the client
Mike McKay
Founder at ACTIONCOACH MILWAUKEE
THE CHALLENGE
Where they were stuck
ActionCOACH Milwaukee had built a thriving coaching practice almost entirely on referrals and networking, with no cold outreach channel of their own. Founder Mike McKay wanted a predictable way to start new conversations with business owners, but building cold email infrastructure in-house was too costly and complex, and as a self-described super skeptic he was wary of trusting another vendor to do it for him.
Growth relied entirely on referrals and networking, with no outbound channel of their own
Building and warming cold email infrastructure in-house was too costly and complex
As self-described skeptics burned by past vendors, they were reluctant to trust another provider
THE SYSTEM WE BUILT
How we solved their problems
Infrastructure & Warmup
Outbound System built and warmed dedicated sending infrastructure that went live in about five business days, with the first leads landing by day seven. Mike says he barely noticed the warmup period because it happened so quickly.
Message & Copywriting
Outbound handled all of the copywriting and built a compelling, owner-to-owner message aimed at the trades, construction, manufacturing, and professional-services owners ActionCOACH serves, so every send felt relevant rather than generic.
Run & Repeat
ActionCOACH runs roughly 10,000 emails a month on the infrastructure and consistently books fifteen to twenty interviews per cycle. Across more than 50,000 emails, they've had essentially one complaint, and the channel is completely additive to their referral network.
Mike McKay is the founder of ActionCOACH Milwaukee, a business coaching firm on a mission to create a thousand millionaires out of owner-operators. He works primarily with trades, construction, manufacturing, and professional-services companies, helping them break the bottlenecks that keep owners stuck. For years, ActionCOACH grew the way most coaching firms do: through referrals and relentless networking. They had never run cold outreach at all.
The problem with a purely referral-driven pipeline is predictability. Mike wanted a channel he could turn on and rely on, but he didn't want to build cold email infrastructure himself. "There's no way we could build that infrastructure for the rate that we pay you guys to just take care of all of it." There was also trust to overcome. "I'm a super skeptic. We've had all kinds of businesses that were gonna help us do things," he says, so he was reluctant to hand the work to anyone. A referral from another Outbound System client in Indianapolis got him in the door.
Outbound System built and warmed the sending infrastructure and had it live in about five business days, with ActionCOACH seeing their version of leads by day seven or eight. Outbound also did all of the copywriting and built the message, which Mike credits with making the whole thing easy to run. On the entry plan of roughly 10,000 emails a month, his marketing team has sent every email in the allotment for three months straight. From those sends, ActionCOACH books three interviews a week and stays booked out weeks in advance.
Across three months and more than 50,000 emails, the program produced 217 leads and 136 booked meetings, with essentially one complaint the entire time. "We get fifteen to twenty good booked-in interviews that let us start conversations," Mike says, every single time they run it. The channel has proven completely additive: at a recent networking event he ran into two owners the campaign had booked months earlier, greeted one by name, and is now in talks to work with his business. For a skeptic who compares most B2B marketing spend to lighting a fire in the parking lot, the consistency won him over. His advice to other owners: "If you're B2B, in particular, this is a great tool."
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about this case study, answered.
Can cold email work for business coaching and consulting firms?
Yes. ActionCOACH Milwaukee generated 217 leads and 136 booked meetings in three months from more than 50,000 emails, an entirely additive channel on top of the referral network their practice was built on.
Should I build cold email infrastructure in-house or use a done-for-you service?
For most B2B firms, done-for-you is faster and far cheaper than building it yourself. ActionCOACH was live in about five business days with leads by day seven. In founder Mike McKay's words, there's no way they could have built that infrastructure for the rate they pay to have it all handled.
What results can a coaching or professional-services firm expect from cold email?
Results vary by offer and audience, but ActionCOACH books fifteen to twenty interviews per 10,000-email cycle and stays booked out weeks in advance, with essentially one complaint across more than 50,000 sends.
MORE CASE STUDIES
More Cold Email results
See how other B2B teams turned outbound into booked meetings.
TULLIUS PARTNERS
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
23
Leads in 2 months
38%
Positive reply rate
Strategy
Tullius Partners is an M&A advisory firm with more than 45 years of experience helping business owners sell, raise capital, and plan for succession, with particular depth in facilities-services industries like commercial janitorial. Their growth depends on a steady flow of conversations with owners approaching a transition, a small and high-value audience that is difficult to reach at scale through referrals alone. Outbound System built segmented prospect lists by industry, company size, and ownership profile, then wrote owner-to-owner messaging that led with Tullius's 45-year track record and their focus on maximizing enterprise value. Dedicated sending infrastructure was configured to protect deliverability, and cadences were timed to feel like a trusted advisor reaching out with a relevant idea rather than a sales pitch. Their account manager refined messaging and targeting each week based on which segments and angles produced the highest-intent replies. In two months, the campaign generated 23 qualified leads at a 38% positive reply rate.
Read The Full Case Study →
"Outbound System is an excellent platform for generating leads and booking appointments. Our account manager, Brandon, was thorough and strategic in his approach to our cold email campaigns. He was also highly responsive to any questions or concerns we had. The onboarding and campaign management were efficient, and we consistently received leads each month. We highly recommend Outbound System to any business looking to grow its pipeline through effective outbound outreach."
Brian Schlittenhardt
Associate at TULLIUS PARTNERS
OCEAN
SAAS
20
meetings booked in 1 month
37%
Reply Rate
Strategy
Selling a prospecting data tool to agencies that do prospecting for a living is a unique challenge. These buyers know every trick in the book and can spot lazy outreach from a mile away. Ocean's campaign had to be a demonstration of the product's value, not just a description of it. We built prospect lists using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Findymail to identify agency leaders actively scaling their outbound operations, companies hiring SDRs, posting about lead gen challenges, or publicly discussing data quality issues with their current providers. Cold email messaging was structured as a direct challenge: "your current prospecting data is costing you meetings," backed by specific performance comparisons showing how Ocean's database outperformed traditional tools on match rates, data freshness, and contact accuracy. LinkedIn outreach ran simultaneously, with personalized messages to agency founders that referenced their specific outbound approach and suggested where Ocean's data could improve their results. The campaign wasn't just outreach. It was a live case study. Every response Ocean received was proof that the data powering the campaign (their own product) actually worked. The approach hit a 37% reply rate and secured 20 meetings in a single month, with account executives competing internally for the leads, a problem most SaaS companies would love to have.
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"Our account executives fight over OS leads"
Dave Schneider
VP of Marketing at OCEAN
