You don’t need a bigger list, you need better reasons to write. We’ll start with a crisp ICP and multiple personas per account, mine fresh signals (ideally <7 days, ≤30 max), hand-craft a few examples to set the bar, then have Fay generate full, send-ready emails (plus a short LinkedIn DM). Finally, we scale, because cold email is a numbers game.

The 5-Step Playbook

1) Start with a tight list (10–20)

Start small so you can learn quickly. Define ICP = who you help, the core pain you fix, and the buying triggers that make outreach timely. Always target 2–3 personas per account (numbers game: more valid doors into the same logo = higher odds).

ICP cheat sheet (define yours like this):

• RevOps Automation: B2B SaaS, 50–500 FTE, NA/EU.
  Exclude: agencies/consultancies.

• Dev Productivity: Product-led SaaS, 100–800 FTE, active platform/SDK.
  Exclude: single-founder, open-source-only.

• Healthcare Scheduling: U.S. multi-site clinics/ASCs, 11–250 FTE.
  Exclude: payers/pharma.

Key_person = decision-maker or strong influencer for your offer.

Examples:

RevOps (CRO, VP RevOps, Director Sales Ops); Engineering (VP Eng., Director Platform, Staff Eng. Tooling); Clinical Ops (COO, Practice Admin, Medical Director).

Fay Prompt

Note: This is just for your reference. It's recommended to study the prompt first and creating your own version of it.

Build a 10–20 row seed list for my ICP.

ICP (2–3 lines): {who we help + the core pain + buying triggers}
Exclusions: {industries/titles/geos/competitors you DO NOT want}

Return a CSV with columns:
company_name, website, linkedin_company_url,
key_person_name, key_person_title, key_person_linkedin_url, key_person_work_email,
persona_bucket  # e.g., RevOps, Sales Leadership, Sales Ops

2) Add icebreakers (1–3) + pain evidence (2–4)

We’re collecting receipts that spark ideas and make your note feel inevitable.

• Icebreakers (tie to your offer): personal, recent, specific. They earn attention.
  Inspiration: a keynote/talk, meaty post/podcast quote, award, standard adoption, committee membership, notable collaboration, OSS contribution, public demo.

• Pain evidence (tie to your offer): account-level signals that justify why now, ammo to agitate and create FOMO.
  Inspiration: hiring that implies your project, migration/change-log, security/reliability incidents, review trends, compliance deadlines, funding/expansion that adds complexity.

Source ideas:

Icebreakers → conference agendas, podcasts, long-form posts, awards, standards bodies, GitHub/OSS, interviews.

Pain evidence → change-logs/docs, status/incidents, hiring pages, G2/Capterra, investor letters/press, SEC filings, release notes, compliance calendars, migration write-ups.

Freshness rule: aim <7 days (ideal), ≤30 max.

Be bold. Everyone’s parroting the last LinkedIn post, don’t be a parrot! Hit major, significant events that matter.

Offer Brief (paste before the prompt)

• Offer name & one-liner: {e.g., “Pipeline Hygiene Copilot - kills spreadsheet work and fixes CRM drift for RevOps.”}

• Primary pains we solve (3–5 bullets): {e.g., duplicate leads, opp hygiene, forecast drift…}

• Buying triggers: {e.g., new CRO, territory rebuild, tool migration…}

• Proof points / case study snippets (numbers only, no links): {e.g., “-38% time-to-clean in 30 days; +12% pipeline coverage QoQ.”}

• Differentiators (what we do that others don’t): {short bullets}

• Disallowed claims / guardrails: {e.g., no “guarantees,” no “AI replaces reps”}

• Voice: {e.g., peer-to-peer, concise, no hype}

Pro tip for strength: If you can’t describe the signal in one specific sentence with a recency window (e.g., “announced a territory rebuild last week”), it’s not strong enough.

Fay Prompt

Note: This is just for your reference. It's recommended to study the prompt first and creating your own version of it.

Use the OFFER BRIEF above to guide relevance. Update the table from above.
Leave cells blank if nothing credible is found.

For each row, find:
- personal icebreakers: 1–3 items tied to the key_person that help open a conversation
- pain evidence: 2–4 items at the company level that imply urgency for this OFFER

WHAT TO FIND + WHERE TO LOOK (offer-aware):

ICEBREAKERS (1–3 per contact) — personal, recent, tied to the OFFER
- What good looks like (examples):
  • “Gave a talk on pipeline governance last week” 
  • “Published a teardown of data quality fixes yesterday”
  • “Joined the industry standards committee on {relevant area} five days ago”
  • “Launched an internal enablement program on {topic} this week”
- Where to look (examples):
  • Conference agendas/speaker pages, website, podcasts/webinar descriptions, long-form blog/LinkedIn posts, awards/recognitions, standards bodies/working groups, OSS contribution notes/READMEs, internal/company newsroom summaries, product roadmap AMAs, etc.

PAIN EVIDENCE (2–4 per account) — company-level signals that imply urgency for the OFFER
- What good looks like (examples):
  • “Hiring RevOps analyst to rebuild territories (3 days ago)” 
  • “Announced CRM migration in Q3 (6 days ago)”
  • “Post-incident note on forecast accuracy/reliability (2 days ago)”
  • “Compliance deadline noted for SOC2/PCI this month”
  • “Series B expansion plan adding 10 AEs this quarter”
- Where to look (examples):
  • Careers pages, product changelogs/release notes, incident/status summaries, review trend summaries (G2/Capterra roundups), investor/press summaries, SEC/CFO letters, compliance calendars, engineering/product blogs, migration write-ups, company LinkedIn, website, case studies, etc.

Append these columns:

ib1_text, ib1_source_link, ib1_recency_days
ib2_text, ib2_source_link, ib2_recency_days
ib3_text, ib3_source_link, ib3_recency_days

pain1_text, pain1_source_link, pain1_recency_days
pain2_text, pain2_source_link, pain2_recency_days
pain3_text, pain3_source_link, pain3_recency_days
pain4_text, pain4_source_link, pain4_recency_days

offer_tie_summary  # 1–2 lines explaining how the above signals connect to THIS OFFER

Guidelines:
- Prefer <7-day freshness; accept ≤30 only if highly relevant to the OFFER.
- Icebreakers must be personal & substantive; Pain must imply a why-now for the OFFER.
- Be bold and original; avoid generic fluff that every sender uses

3) Write 2–4 manual, full-email examples (no AI here)

This is the only manual step, deserves it a little time. It prevents robotic tone and sets the bar. Some deception in the subject line is required (curiosity, not sales) and should be linked to an icebreaker, not the pain/offer except when the pain is massive and obvious. Typos and light grammar slips are fine; human > perfect.

Use this skeleton for reference:

Subject: <curiosity-driver, ≤45 chars, tied to icebreaker>

Hi <name>,

<icebreaker — reference the event/item>

<pain reference — what they’re likely facing based on evidence>

<pain agitation — consequence/cost if they ignore it>

<offer + case study — 1 number, 1 proof, short and specific>

<soft CTA — offer a one-pager or 90-sec Loom (not a 30-min meeting)>

Best,
<your name>

Subject vibes (mass-relatable, no sales words):

“{name}, that product teardown slapped” · “Your SOC2 note got me thinking” · “That roadmap AMA was… spicy” · “Congrats on the new data team (and the headache)”

Save 2–4 of these, you’ll paste them into Step 4.

4) Generate entire emails + a LinkedIn DM

Paste your manual examples so Fay mirrors your voice and shape. We’ll update the same CSV again with send-ready outputs. No links in any output.

Fay Prompt

Note: This is just for your reference. It's recommended to study the prompt first and creating your own version of it.

Using the table from previous steps and the manual examples below,
generate for EACH ROW:

  (a) one complete cold email (subject + full body) and
  (b) one short LinkedIn DM.

=== MANUAL EXAMPLES START ===
(Paste the 2–4 full emails you wrote in Step 3 here)
=== MANUAL EXAMPLES END ===

Rules for the EMAIL:
- Subject ≤45 chars, curiosity-driven, tied to an icebreaker, no sales words.
- Body starts with "Hi <first_name>

5) Scale to volume

You’ve iterated Steps 1–4 and have a style that works. Now turn up the dial, because cold email is a numbers game.

Fay Prompt

Note: This is just for your reference. It's recommended to study the prompt first and creating your own version of it.

Ok, now fetch 100 more prospects that match the same ICP and persona mix.
Append them to the SAME CSV with ALL columns from the previous steps (key_person fields, icebreakers/pain texts with recency, and the final email + LinkedIn DM).
Prefer <7-day signals; ≤30-day max. Avoid duplicates by company + person

Download & ship to your sequencer

Export the final CSV from Fay (it now contains your contacts, persona buckets, fresh icebreakers/pain notes, and full email + LinkedIn DM fields).

Import that single file into your sequencer (Outreach, Lemlist, Instantly), map the columns to your templates, and let the system schedule sends at your preferred pacing. You’ll keep the deceptive-but-relevant subjects, the human tone, and the soft CTAs, now at volume.

Final pocket checklist

• Freshness: <30 days, ideally <7.

• Subject lines: curiosity-driven, zero sales words.

• Full emails only (subject + greeting + complete body).

• One case study, one soft CTA (one-pager or Loom).

• Show real homework; include a relevant case study.

• If you wouldn’t send it to a friend at that company, don’t send it.