👋 Hi, it’s Kyle and welcome to Growth Unhinged, my weekly newsletter exploring the hidden playbooks behind the fastest-growing startups.

Yesterday was the first-ever Growth Unhinged Live, which featured 20-minute talks about AI x GTM workflows from leaders at Fin, monday, ngrok, Owner, Profound, SpaceXAI, Tella, and Workflows. THANK YOU for joining and keeping the chat on 🔥. I’ll share recaps in the coming weeks. (If you missed the event, a full recording is available for premium subscribers — just scroll to the bottom.)

The next live event will be the What’s Working in B2B GTM Summit on October 14th. It’ll cover brand new survey data and 10 live field reports.

Now for today’s newsletter, which is about what we might NOT want to automate as GTM becomes increasingly AI-first.

The human experience seems to be getting more important these days, not less.

People instill trust. They reframe how customers think about problems. They simplify complicated decisions. They navigate lots of stakeholders who all have their own opinions.

Here’s the thing: most sales interactions never felt all that human in the first place. The standard is “pretty damn low” in the words of sales expert Samantha McKenna.

Sam runs #samsales Consulting, an all-women firm that has trained 320+ B2B teams how to get better at top-of-the-funnel sales, LinkedIn strategy, and executive branding. I’ve been digging Sam’s pro-tips on LinkedIn and her newsletter, which span everything from calendar etiquette to replying to a referral email to writing a great cold email. (I find myself applying these pretty frequently.)

Today Sam is letting me share her proven sales frameworks and pro-tips with all of you. What we’ll cover:

Everyone’s chasing the same silver bullet: an AI-generated email that feels 1:1.

It doesn’t work, according to Sam McKenna. At least not yet.

Even more important: your buyers are not only numb to it, they’re over it.

“The differentiator is being the one who actually makes the effort, not just appearing to make an effort,” Sam emphasized.

She recommends always starting with LinkedIn research, even if the buyer’s profile seems outdated. Look for common former employers, existing mutual clients, shared connections, and experiences you can authentically relate back to yourself.

It’s not enough to name the thing (“I see you went to Ohio State”). You need a real perspective on it, too: something you’ve read, experienced, or can genuinely connect to. Think: if I’m going to meet this person at a conference and need an ice breaker, what am I going to talk to them about?

Sam loves a funky subject line that breaks the traditional inbox pattern. Your goal should be to pique curiosity and signal effort before the buyer opens your email. Her rule: it should make absolutely no sense except to the person reading it. If you’re writing to Sam, you might consider “Switzerland + favorite Nickelodeon show + Bedoodle” (she’ll immediately know you did your homework).

AI does have a place for accelerating research, she clarified. Just not for generating the outreach itself.

Use AI to build a point of view on the person or company. Find where executives were recently cited, whether they spoke at conferences, whether the CEO keynoted their user event (and what the theme was). Use this as an input for your outreach.

The suggested email structure itself:

Everyone sends outreach emails on Monday mornings at 9am, Sam told me. “You’re competing with a full inbox and a full week ahead.”

She recommends using Monday through Wednesday to write 50 researched emails. Save them as drafts. Then batch-send 50% on Thursday and 50% on Friday.

Weekends are for the follow-up email.

The second email comes within 48 hours of the first. It should be very short. Since you’ve already done the work in the first email, this email should serve as: “I sent you a really good email below. Can you read it and reply?” A short and simple, “Hi, seeing if you had a chance to read my below email - would be grateful for the chat, if you’re up for it” will suffice.

When someone agrees to a meeting, Sam has a strong opinion about calendar etiquette: don’t send a calendar link. She says a calendar link makes the buyer do the work; you want to take the work off their plate.

If you still disagree and think it’s more convenient, she’ll encourage you to consider this angle: Letting them book on your calendar means they’re scheduling around things you could move in the interest of speeding up the timing of the meeting. The best sellers will control every part of their process, not leave something like this up to chance.

What to say instead: “Feel free to send some dates and times that work, and I’ll schedule accordingly. Otherwise, here’s what my week looks like if that’s helpful.”

Offer wide blocks that include every internal meeting you can move. Nothing matters more than booking the meeting while you have momentum.

You’ve done all this work to land a meeting. Don’t squander it out of the gate.

The buyer arrives expecting a standard sales playbook. Maybe a chat about the weather. Perhaps there’s a 28-minute PowerPoint deck. Or you ask something generic like “what interested you in this call?”

Your job is to make every part of the call different from what they’ve experienced before. This begins with rapport-building from the first few seconds either using your research or from paying close attention (e.g., pull something from their background on the video call and ask about it).

Again, cleanly pivot from rapport to business. Most people either linger too long on rapport-building or cut it abruptly. Sam uses two seconds of silence to let the buyer fill the space, then makes her move. Her suggested line: “So,, listen, thanks so much for making time. I’d love to start here.”

Replace standard discovery questions (e.g., “what interested you in this call?”) with a structured framing of the call (e.g., “I could tell you a million things about #samsales, here are three: one, two, three”). Lead with the thing that got them interested, either from an inbound form or the pain you named in the email. Points two and three are cross-sell opportunities; related things they may not know you do.

Then immediately pivot to them. “I’d love to hear about you. I know X, Y, and Z. But tell me about your team and your initiatives for the year ahead, if that’s okay.” The buyer talks for 3 or 4 or sometimes 9 minutes, and that’s the point. “You know you’ve succeeded when they apologize at the end,” Sam advises.

You can now have a conversation between two human beings instead of running a rote qualification script. You might ask an open-ended question, active listening question, or a question behind the question. “The buyer has told you everything you need, and you didn’t have it drag it out of them.”

You could’ve done endless research and written the perfect email. Most people are still going to say no. But if you’re lucky, you’ll get insight into the reason why and be able to respond to it.

Sellers usually send a generic reply like “can you tell me who is?” This message signals that it’s the prospect’s job to figure it out, and it usually gets ignored.

Sam’s preferred structure:

You’re pre-empting every objection in their head: it’s your job, I don’t want anyone knowing I helped you, and I don’t want to get involved.

The standard response here is no response. Sellers don’t reply, mark the opportunity dead, and move on.

Sam always replies and thanks them. “Thanks so much for the reply. I’d still love to stay in touch. If anything changes, let me know. I’ll go say hello on LinkedIn as well.”

There are a few reasons this matters. Other divisions may not be covered by the global deal. Things change, and a pilot opportunity may open up later. That buyer responded to you, which means they’re a warm contact (and they’ll probably change jobs).

Connect with them on LinkedIn, save them in Sales Navigator, and track their job changes. When they move, send another note: “Congrats on the new role. I’d love to talk about how we can help you here.”

Sellers are told to push back on this, and try to get the next meeting booked immediately.

Sam disagrees. “At some point you have to respect their boundaries and what they’ve asked you to do.”

She sends this reply: “No worries. Really appreciate the guidance. I might send you a couple of notes leading up to that, and I’ll touch base in a quarter!”

Then she sets a real cadence of 3-4 touches over the next quarter. Touch 1 is in 1.5 weeks, touch 2 is 4 weeks after that, and touch 3 is 5 weeks after that.

Every nurture touch carries a POV and a specific value. Be consultative even when it doesn’t serve you directly. There should be no ask in the close of any nurture (they already know what you want).

The buyer often replies early on their own. You’ve now accelerated the timeline without a single “just checking in” email.

Sam’s guiding philosophy is to make an effort for the person, what she calls Show Me You Know Me® (SMYKM).

It applies from the first outreach all the way through a 10+ year client relationship. It applies everywhere including networking events, cold email, LinkedIn engagement, and conference run-ins when a proposal is already in the prospect’s inbox.

Following this advice doesn’t need to be super complicated. But it does stand out in a sea of generic outreach, automation, and AI slop.

Get early access to the full recording from Growth Unhinged Live: Real AI x GTM Workflows, Uncovered.