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Nick Rybak explores how modern B2B companies grow through marketing strategies, website innovation, and content that converts. Every two weeks, we talk to marketing leaders and founders about what’s working and what’s not.
Let's pray for a conversion!
Nick Rybak (00:00)
Many people talk about cold outreach, but very few actually know how to make it work. My guest today is one of them. Michael Maximoff is the cofounder of Belkins, one of the world's best outbound agencies, a company that serves hundreds of B2B clients. Michael and his cofounder built an entire ecosystem, three go to market agencies and four SaaS products specifically for cold outreach, each powering a different part of today's outbound. Today, we are diving into the truth behind cold outreach in 2026. What's changed? What's next? And what actually works in the world of AI written messages, strict spam filters and shrinking digital trust. We will unpack why you must build a brand that will support your outbound motion, and the exact framework Michael has seen across thousands of campaigns that brings results. So if you're trying to book more meetings, fix your go to market, or simply stop sounding like ChatGPT, this podcast is for you. I'm Nick Rybak and this is B2B Marketing Flywheel Podcast. So let's dive in.
Nick Rybak (01:09)
All right, Michael, thank you for joining me. I'm super excited to have you here. I've been following you on LinkedIn for quite a while. I'm a big fan of what you've done at Belkins so far, and your agency Zero to Hero Newsletter is a masterpiece. I remember having lots of insights from there a couple of years ago. Happy to have you here.
Michael Maximoff (01:34)
Thanks so much for having me and giving me an opportunity to be your guest on your show. I'm very excited to have this chat with you.
Nick Rybak (01:44)
I really believe you are one of the best people in the world to talk about cold outreach. You've been in the game for years and your company sends millions of emails each month. You run four SaaS products built specifically for outbound teams, and Belkins even publishes an annual benchmark report on cold outreach, which I really like, and I check it every year. I believe no one has a better vantage point than you. So with that, what changed in cold outreach in 2025 from your point of view, and what's going to change next year in ’26?
Michael Maximoff (02:32)
That's a great start. The unfortunate reality is that engagement level is not where it was before. A few years ago, you could expect 5% of people you reached out to, via cold email, calling, LinkedIn, to get back to you with some response. In 2025, it's 1 to 2%. Back in 2017 to 2020, it could be 10%. Response and engagement rates have been going down year after year, and this trend will continue.
One major reason is AI. A few years ago a decision maker might get 100 cold pitches a month. Then every year that volume grew by about 25%, then started doubling, 400 to 600 and more in the last few years. AI created a level playing field. Before, if you were outside the US, people might notice copy issues. Now everyone uses similar AI assisted language. Plus AI SDRs.
The second reason, it's never been so cheap to do outreach. Years ago, tools cost thousands. Now Apollo can be $25 to $50, Instantly offers high volume for about $100, and there are free tools like our FrostBite.
Third, access to leads. Good lists used to be expensive and low quality, now decent data is widely available for a fraction of the cost.
Result, everyone knows how to do outbound, tools are cheap, AI helps, leads are good, so inboxes and DMs are flooded. Engagement is very low and will keep declining as AI assistants and agents scale more messages. That's where we are.
Nick Rybak (06:45)
I agree with each point. The conversion rate benchmarks you mentioned match our numbers at Foresats, even if we don't send millions of emails. That signals your data is close to market averages. I keep hearing “cold outreach is dead.” The trend you described is declining, and many people say it simply doesn't work for them. Even here, two out of three guests told me it's not effective for them. Why do so many people not believe cold outreach can reliably fill their pipeline?
Michael Maximoff (08:04)
The entry point has become very high. I'm doing this for a living for the last 10 years, cold outreach works. Last month, my team achieved a 95% KPI rate on meetings across customers. Thousands of meetings driven by outreach. They convert to opportunities, deals, customers. So it works.
Why do people say it's dead? Two reasons. First, they try to use the old playbook, pull leads from a database like Apollo, run a sequence to the ground, add fresh leads, repeat. Outreach has changed. It's more difficult and advanced. You can't just define an ICP and blast it forever. You need to refine ICP every few weeks. Titles in month one will differ from month six or twelve. You're selling to a buying committee, not one buyer, different personas need nurturing. Outreach is no longer just “hit the number and book a call.” It's communication strategy, build brand, nurture, build relationships. Your CTAs should include awareness, activation, and engagement, not only conversion.
Second, companies that only did outbound and never invested in marketing or brand try to spin up an outbound function and expect magic in 3 months. That won't happen. If you treat outbound as one channel in a multi year motion, have a professional team, invest in marketing, and iterate, over time you refine messaging, ICP, build good lists, connect with people on LinkedIn, generate traffic, optimize, then you get a decent strategy. But it takes time, effort, resources, and grind.
The baseline is higher for everyone now. If you use the same playbook as everyone else, you'll likely fail. You need to step up a few levels to start generating results.
Nick Rybak (12:42)
It's not an easy game. Everything comes back to brand as a multiplier of any activity. For a mid sized company that wants to run this in house in 2026, what should they do to get predictable results, prove it's worth the budget, and then iterate?
Michael Maximoff (13:27)
No big revelations here, but the fundamentals, the basics that always work, are most important and hardest to build. Most founders assume their messaging from years ago still works, that customers use the same language, care about the same things, and that differentiation is unchanged. We at Belkins reinvent our messaging every few years. We revamped last year, my CMO already wants to revamp again next year. Constant transformation.
Your messaging, differentiation, how you speak about your brand, your angles, your competencies, what buyers care about, their challenges and pain points, should be updated. Many teams skip this, but it takes work.
First, do the up to date ICP and buyer research and messaging. Second, align it across the board, website language, emails, social, founders’ narratives. Often, we try to break into a new industry while the rest of the company talks differently. Prospects see your email but nothing follows, misalignment kills momentum. Third, actually do marketing. Many spend on outbound and conferences but not on content, thought leadership, webinars, ads, persona or industry landing pages, white papers. Then prospects get only a few touchpoints, not enough for a full buying journey, so you lose them. Sales then over indexes on conversion, but earlier stages, problem awareness, timing, solution awareness, are neglected. The journey is messy, you need signals from many sources.
So, updated strategy, alignment, and full funnel marketing that addresses all buying stages. Companies often jump straight to execution, “We need pipeline in three months.” You can't build an effective playbook that way. And it's unsexy, hard work, aligning social, updating the website, etc. Lastly, patience. We live in a fast reward world, but outbound and marketing are grindy. It might take years. There's no universal playbook, every company needs a bespoke approach.
This is why we moved from a boxed cold email only solution to addressing the broader system. Email alone wasn't enough to guarantee customer success. We'd book meetings but customers couldn't always close. We felt powerless, they needed more. So we became louder about the upstream issues, took customers by the hand, and helped fix them, repackaged our value to focus on appointment setting plus consulting and technology, acting as an extension of the team. Not all companies want that, they want a quick fix, but it's what's required.
Nick Rybak (22:11)
I'm very aligned with this. A recent example, we ran a successful outreach campaign for our own website dev or design or SEO services. On a call, after qualifications, the prospect asked, “Guys, who actually are you?” That made me realize our inbound closing playbook doesn't fit outbound. They haven't seen the website or case studies. Marketing warms and educates, with outbound, you must do that education during the sales cycle. Teams need time to shift their mindset, outbound prospects aren't warm enough to be sold on the first call.
Michael Maximoff (24:29)
Exactly. Closing outbound prospects requires a different skill set, especially on the first discovery call. Many assume if someone's on a call, they're ready to buy, not true. They may be very early. Use the call to introduce yourself, understand them, extend the relationship, maybe don't sell yet. Do more work, the sales cycle gets longer.
The future of outreach is full funnel, where inbound and outbound work closely together. You may have full funnel SDRs who can drive conversations and conversion but also look for signals and engagement, utilizing marketing to nurture prospects until there's a buying need. Marketing, to me, is a process of a business talking to its clients back and forth, extending narrative and messaging to the market, getting feedback. If you get responses, communication works. If not, something is off, wrong people, wrong message or angle, or not enough effort.
Companies that rely on referrals don't talk to the market, they're numb to what's happening. It's different to ask a paying customer for feedback versus pitching someone who never knew you, your message must be crystal clear, simple, valuable. If they don't engage, maybe your pitch is too complicated, unclear, or not valuable. Active marketing creates that back and forth. When people start responding, great, then use those calls to learn who engages and why, bucket them, and pursue accordingly.
Nick Rybak (28:02)
People also confuse inbound vs outbound readiness. Inbound leads are already in market. Outbound targets include people in market, not in market, two years away, one day away, or just closed with a competitor. You have to nurture, build conversations, and get insights. Outreach is the best way to get real answers. My very first campaign got replies like, “Nick, I don't really understand what you're talking about.” I had to rethink completely. With brand or content, it's harder to get direct feedback, two likes on LinkedIn, five SEO clicks, you still don't know why.
Michael Maximoff (30:01)
That's how we got here. I've been doing our own marketing for 10 years, we became good only recently. Before that, we sucked at social, content, ads, good only at outbound. We still invested heavily, a few million per year at one point, a team of about 40 marketers, content, design, paid, CRO, SEO. We threw everything at the wall to see what sticks. It took too much time and effort. Most customers don't have that luxury, budgets and time are constrained. So they skip marketing, saying SEO or content or social takes too long, they want quick wins.
We asked, how to lead customers to success faster? We flipped the funnel, awareness, activation, engagement, conversion becomes conversion first learning. Use outbound to find messaging and market fit. Appointments are for data. It's faster to validate messaging by reaching different ICPs with different value props and positioning, then analyzing responses and calls. In the first 3 to 6 months, benchmark what works, which industry or persona responds better, which angles, who joins calls and why, what they say after. Validate the playbook quickly.
Then move to engagement, what marketing increases the number of people who want to talk? Maybe they don't want a sales call, do a LinkedIn Live or webinar, invite your list. Some will join if they're later in the journey. Cycle the list again, early meetings prove it works, online events broaden engagement, follow up and push down funnel.
For those who still don't engage, show thought leadership, white papers, studies, state of play, unique data. SDRs send them to the list, ask if it’s relevant, spark conversation. Pull more contacts back via engagement signals. Then nurture the rest with articles aligned to those topics, send them directly, ask if the pain is relevant. Layer retargeting ads across it all.
The strategy is to add channels one by one to increase attention within the same list, validating more each time. Start with a small, intent audience, broaden outward, then cycle back. Build enough touchpoints so buying intent starts happening, signals, inbound leads, booked conversations. Even outbound meetings become warmer because they've seen your brand along the way.
Nick Rybak (36:25)
Previously you said there's no single playbook, but here we found an approach and methodology, a vision you can play with. From a strategic standpoint, that makes sense. Can we make it more tactical and down to earth so someone can pitch this to their CMO or revenue leader?
Michael Maximoff (36:58)
Tactically, start with outreach. Step 1, build a very good list. Not 25,000 companies, start with 1,000 to 2,000 ideal accounts you can literally know by name, by industry, size, location, some clients sell only to hotels in Phoenix. Step 2, build the contact map, not just CMOs, but heads of sales, finance, BD, growth, demand gen, RevOps, form the buying committee. Step 3, use AI to map personas, what each title in this industry cares about, decision making, challenges, language, how to communicate your value, and proof of relief you've delivered to similar roles. The gameplay:13)
In some of your newsletters you said cold outreach is a marketing function, not sales. How should companies attribute success when they run omnichannel outreach plus retargeting and warming? Different teams own different metrics, how do you split success?
Michael Maximoff (50:04)
Pipeline should be the unified metric for everyone, new pipeline, total pipeline, or pipeline value, that's the shared metric between sales and marketing. Neither team alone should own pipeline. Think of it as an acquisition or revenue team united by pipeline. Example, you need $1M new revenue, opportunity to close is 10%, you need $10M pipeline. Sales and marketing work together on how to source and progress opportunities to hit that. Pipeline is the shared North Star.
That said, some organizations are truly sales driven, strong AEs who generate their own pipeline via LinkedIn, conferences, phones, and their book of business. If you add outbound there, they’ll convert most conversations quickly. SDRs can sit under sales and enhance it. Sales might generate 30 to 50% of their pipeline, with SDRs and marketing adding the rest.
Most orgs aren't there. They rely on PLG, marketing, ads, reviews, referrals, inbound. For them, outbound is a nuisance, sales doesn’t know how to work outbound traffic, conversions are low, momentum gets lost. For those, the majority, SDRs should sit under marketing. Sales culture is “go, go, go”, lists, dials, objections, push. Marketing is patient, engage, signal, nurture. If SDRs sit under sales, they often ignore marketing’s webinars, case studies, white papers, so marketing runs TOFU programs to hit their own KPIs, disconnected from SDR needs. It should be the opposite, SDRs tell marketing what assets they need to drive conversations for the current ICP, webinars, blog posts, guides. SDRs then deploy those, generate meetings, and hand them off to sales once there’s clear intent. SDRs become the bridge, caring about pipeline and opportunities, and about marketing because they need those assets to hit their KPIs. Often our SDRs even operate using AE profiles to strengthen continuity. Done right, it creates powerful momentum.
Nick Rybak (55:48)
I love that. I never understood why sales and marketing are such different worlds in many companies.
Michael Maximoff (56:10)
They’re different people. Sales lives on the edge, five to seven calls a day, lots of no shows and objections, constant performance pressure, representing the brand live. Over time, they become transactional and practical, if it doesn’t drive quota, they don’t have time. That can make them ignore what marketing is doing. Marketing lives on engagement, content, brand, ideas, programs, and needs input from sales to align. SDRs bring the best from both worlds. If they sit only under sales, they can become too practical and ignore marketing. If they sit only under marketing, they can get too theoretical and forget the heavy lifting, calls and emails. In between, as part of a growth or revenue team, or marketing with a sales mindset, they thrive.
Nick Rybak (58:40)
Let’s wrap up with something bold. What’s your hot take on outbound in 2025? What do GTM teams consistently get wrong, and what should they do instead? Any LinkedIn myths you hate?
Michael Maximoff (59:11)
You cannot generate leads while you sleep. Those posts, “we got 500 appointments yesterday”, “this sequence or workflow or AI setup is the best”, don’t work for almost anyone. Maybe a tiny percentage. For most, it’s grind, grind, grind. If you chase shortcuts, you’ll try a bunch of hacks, they’ll fail, and you’ll think outreach doesn’t work for your business. Don’t buy into those posts. You’re probably in the group that needs months to build the playbook. It will be tiring and resource intensive. But when you figure it out, it’s rewarding and you’ll grow. You need to do the work, build ICP and USP, keep refining messaging every quarter or more, do the brand homework, educate customers, create many touchpoints. And hold your content to a high standard, if you wouldn’t put your name on it, don’t publish it. It’s unsexy to write about the grind, that’s why you don’t see it on LinkedIn, but that’s how results actually happen.
Nick Rybak (01:01:51)
Thank you for your time. This was exciting. I believe this episode will help people misled by LinkedIn shortcuts and remind them about fundamentals.
Michael Maximoff (01:02:14)
Thanks, Nick, for having me, and thanks for listening.
Nick Rybak (01:02:21)
If you liked the episode, follow Michael on LinkedIn, follow me on LinkedIn, and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Michael also hosts a podcast, make sure to follow that as well. I appreciate your time. Hope to see you next year.
Michael Maximoff (01:02:46)
Thanks, Nick. Great to be on the show, you’re a great host. Guys, subscribe to Nick's podcast. Thanks, Nick.