Slow couple of weeks. Was in France seeing family and friends. Back now.
Here’s everything I published in Q1 at Outbound Kitchen, plus what’s coming in Q2.
This newsletter is also available in video and audio. Watch or listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Snipd.
What we cooked in Q1
March 2026
Podcast - OK28: How ElevenLabs is Scaling Outbound From 5% to 46% With Human SDRs Jonathan Chemouny (GTM at ElevenLabs) on rebuilding SDR motion and moving reply rates from 5% to 46%.
Podcast - Best AI for Account Research? I Tested 7 AI Models
March 2026 benchmark. Seven models, same account research test. Which one wins and where each breaks.
February 2026
Newsletter — I tracked 232 outbound teams. Here’s what I found.
47% of the 232 outbound teams I tracked grew their SDR headcount in 2025.Podcast — OK26: 5 AI Cold Call Training Scenarios Every Outbound SDR Team Should Run
Troy Johnson (SDR Enablement at Jumpcloud) on the 5 AI roleplay scenarios.Newsletter — ClickUp built THIS before scaling dials
The call prep system behind 3x pipeline and 150 dials/day.Newsletter — 9 ways I use Claude Code for outbound
Call prep, tradeshow workflows, campaign building. The 9 workflows I run before touching Clay.
January 2026
Podcast — OK25: How to Build a Profitable Outbound SDR Team
Jay Glenn on SDR P&L math, headcount decisions, and why the payback window is now 9 months.Newsletter — How to prove outbound is working (to your CEO)
The exec dashboard that answers the questions your CEO is actually asking.Podcast — OK24: How DoorDash Scaled Outbound from $291M to $8.6B
Diane Ring (ex-DoorDash) on full-cycle field reps, city-level ownership, and scaling to $8.6B without SDRs.Newsletter — How to Divide Your Outbound Market Into Territories (7-Step Guide)
TAM → SAM → ICP → territories. Seven steps for splitting a market cleanly.Podcast — OK23: How to Build SDR Enablement from Scratch
Troy Johnson on when to hire your first enablement lead and the 3 things every outbound playbook needs.Newsletter — 100 emails → 1 meeting (2015). Now it’s 1,000+
Cost per opportunity is at an all-time high. What actually moves reply rates in 2026.Podcast — OK22: How to Cold Call for Higher Connect Rates
Jason Bay (CEO, Outbound Squad) on higher connect rates, better conversations, and meetings that show up.
What’s coming in Q2
The Pantry (Launch: May 20th)
I’m converting the paid newsletter into The Pantry. Building it now. I’ve been saying “soon” for months. Should have shipped it in Q1. Finally committing.
When I recorded the video yesterday, I had not finalized the launch yet. I worked on it this morning, and the date will be May 20.
How it splits:
Free newsletter: keeps running. Free advice, frameworks, playbook walkthroughs.
Paid (Pantry): the full system. Systems, prompts, files, Claude Code setups (agents, etc), AI workflows. Everything I build with customers or my previous full-time roles, turned into something you can run yourself.
What’s already built and landing inside:
I’ve shipped a lot of internal tools for customers recently using Claude Code. Templatized versions land in The Pantry so you can run them on your own data.
Three worth calling out:
Tradeshow attendee scrapers: workflows for pulling attendee lists from the apps and sites where they actually live.
Account-based outbound campaign system: the one I didn’t plan to build, and the one I’m most impressed with right now. Account list → contact discovery → outbound message, with a feedback loop baked in. Works across cold email, cold calling, and LinkedIn outreach. Built for sales teams running real multi-channel motions, not solo reps.
Rep call-shadowing system: records call transcripts with reps, then turns them into recommendations. Flags where time is being lost, what could be done differently, and where reps can add more value. Built to sharpen team workflows.
The campaign system isn’t ready yet. I’ll share progress.
Pricing when Pantry launches: $79/month or $499/year.
To everyone who supported the paid newsletter until now: thank you. You made this possible. That’s why your current rate stays, a small way to say thanks.
Already a paid subscriber? Nothing changes as long as you stay subscribed. (If you cancel and come back later, the new rate applies.)
On the fence? Subscribe before The Pantry goes live to lock in the current rate.
Q2 podcast lineup
Growth Marketing director of Gorgias
Co-founder & CRO of Reachdesk
Growth Outbound working with a team of 20+ rep outbound team and building their own internal sales app
Systems and newsletters in the pipeline
Account research system
How to scale outbound teams in 2026
How I use Clay for outbound
Account-based gifting system
Cold calling system
How Snowflake uses AI for outbound
Event system: how to maximize tradeshow output as a sales team
How to build AI outbound systems for your team
Trend watch: top outbound teams building their own apps for SDRs and AEs
Help I’m still looking for
Finalizing my US mobile phone number benchmark for 2026. I have datasets from Clay data providers (Upcell, Leadmagic, etc), Wiza, Apollo.io, Lusha, and LeadIQ. Still need ZoomInfo (normally should be good) and Cognism.
If you work at a lead gen agency or in RevOps and have access to either, reply to this email. Will pay for this.
Happy to be back!
Let’s get cooking,
Elric
