In today's episode, I chat with Mike Ellis, co-founder at Kale Acquisition, about building end-to-end cold email systems for companies targeting local businesses.

We explore how they generated over $1.5 million in closed revenue for one client in a year, why they focus on high-ticket full-service offerings instead of lead-gen only, and Mike's VC-style approach to picking clients with the best differentiated offers. He shares his journey from BDR at a SaaS company that grew from $500K to $10M ARR through cold email, becoming an early Clay expert, and eventually niching down to local business targeting. Mike reveals his infrastructure strategy of buying twice the inboxes needed and rotating every four weeks, why deliverability matters more than fancy Clay tables, and his controversial take that aspiring agency owners should work at an established agency first to learn best practices and build vendor relationships.

Enjoy 🙂

(00:00) Introduction to Outbound Wizards
(00:28) What Kale Acquisition Does and Local Business Focus
(01:06) Journey to Finding the Niche
(03:34) $1.5M in Closed Revenue: The Real Success Metric
(05:38) Why High-Ticket Full-Service Beats Lead-Gen Only
(07:03) Thinking Like a VC: Picking Clients With Best Offers
(08:14) Testing Campaigns for Target Clients Before Signing Them
(10:11) Why Local Business Data Is Different (And Harder)
(11:16) Deliverability: The Most Important Thing Nobody Focuses On
(12:27) Journey from House Painting to BDR to Agency Owner
(13:48) Productizing the Offer: When and How
(15:36) Future of Cold Email: Distribution and Brand Will Win
(17:04) Infrastructure Strategy: Buying 2x Inboxes, Rotating Every 4 Weeks
(18:21) Best Advice: Work at an Agency First (Not What Mike Did)
(20:21) Closing and Contact Information

🔗 CONNECT WITH MIKE

👥 LinkedIn
💻 Website

🔗 CONNECT WITH SAURAV

🎥 YouTube Channel

🐦 X (Twitter)

📸 Instagram

💻 Website

👥 LinkedIn
📧 Email - saurabh@salesrobot.co

🙏 LEAVE A REVIEW If you enjoyed listening to the podcast, we'd love for you to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help others discover the show :)

👋🏼 GET IN TOUCH You can also reach out with any feedback, ideas or thoughts about the lessons you've learned from the episodes.