Sales Playbook from Conor McCarthy, Sales Lead @lemlist
About Conor
Conor McCarthy started his career at Hotjar, first as an SDR and then as an Account Representative, where he gained experience in prospecting and managing mid-market deals. He later joined lemlist as a full-cycle AE for the EMEA region. Less than a year in, he was promoted to Team Lead and now manages a team of 3 AEs while helping refine processes and hit sales targets.
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+4 years in B2B sales Tech
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Proudest Achievement
became Sales Lead at lemlist in less than a year
About lemlist
lemlist is the sales engagement platform helping 40,000+ sales teams worldwide book more meetings and close more deals.
With lemlist, sales teams can:
  • Find leads with verified contact information
  • Run multichannel outreach via email, LinkedIn, calling, and WhatsApp
  • Ensure email deliverability with warm-up and monitoring tools
  • Leverage AI to generate message variations and prepare for calls
  • Use lemlist directly from HubSpot and Salesforce
ICP & personas
  • Personas: Sales/RevOps, Sales Managers
  • Company profile: typically ~25–100 sales reps; can go upmarket (1,000+ employees)
  • Common GTM: tech/SaaS, tech-savvy buyers
Deal size & sales cycle
  • Average deal size: $8k–$10k ARR
  • Larger deals: $40k–$60k ARR
  • Sales cycle:
    • 1–3 months for ~$8k–$10k ARR
    • 3–9 months for $40k–$60k ARR (budgeting, replacement, readiness)
Team structure & setup
  • Full-cycle AEs (no SDRs/BDRs)
  • Split by territory (US, LATAM, France, EMEA)
Inbound vs outbound
  • Currently: ~20–25% of pipeline from outbound (growing)
  • Target split: 30% outbound / 70% inbound
Tools
Tools used
lemlist, Hubspot, Sales Nav, Clay, GPT, Claap, Perplexity
The lemlist sales team is still relatively young and has historically been driven by inbound. The challenge now is to build and sustain a weekly prospecting cadence with clear goals and KPIs.‍
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Business goals
  • Department goal: $5M ARR for the year
Individual AE targets
  • Level 1 AE: $4,000 MRR/month
  • Senior AE: $4,500 MRR/month
Model: Full-cycle AEs (no SDR/BDR split)
Pipeline mix target: 30% outbound
Activity
  • Outbound calls per rep: 120–150 dials/week (team call blocks to build consistency and confidence)
  • Monthly coverage: 20–30 target accounts
    • 3–4 ICP personas per account (Sales/RevOps, Sales Managers)
  • Multichannel prospecting: email, LinkedIn, cold call, WhatsApp
    • Warm calling: schedule the call after 1–2 written touches (email/LinkedIn)
  • Outbound meetings booked: goal 4–5 per rep per month
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Cold calling is still a really effective measure to get in touch fast and communicate your value in a 30‑second interaction.
Lead sourcing and qualification
Lead sourcing at lemlist is well dialed-in. With support from the growth team, each rep is fully autonomous in building their own prospect lists—using the lemlist database and third-party tools to enrich with even more data.‍
List building and enrichment via Lemlist & Clay:
  • Filter the account list (geography, industry, number of employees)
  • Find multiple targetable contacts (Head of Sales, GTM Engineer, Sales Ops)
  • Add external data: (toolstack, job openings, sales team size, etc.)
  • Enrichment (LinkedIn, email, and phone)
After collecting the data, reps leverage custom GPTs to craft targeted icebreakers on the company or prospect, then plug them into cold calls and sequences.
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Done by lemlist. It’s becoming a one‑stop shop: find people, enrich contacts, run campaigns, even dial
Buying signals prioritized
  • Hiring momentum in Sales/RevOps; hiring a Go-To-Market Engineer is a key trigger
  • Known competitor in the stack (clear replacement value moving to a modern, AI-driven approach)
  • LinkedIn engagement (post, like, comment)
Buying signals are core to the team’s prospecting strategy. The more we collect, the more a rep can confirm lemlist is a strong fit for that company.
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A Go‑To‑Market Engineer hire is a huge signal. If they’re using a competitor, we’re confident in our value proposition.
Lead scoring & prioritization

With an international market and a universal product for B2B companies, lemlist’s total addressable market is massive. That’s why lead scoring is critical—to make sure reps target the right people at the right time.
The lead score increase if :
  • Company employee is between 100 & 500
  • Sales Time size is between : 25 & 100
  • Competitor is known
  • Sales CRM is SalesForce or Hubspot
  • In-campaign scoring (lemlist): replies, connect+ on calls, multichannel engagement
  • Prioritize where signals and interactions compound
Refreshing lists
  • Refresh when active prospect count drops below a minimum threshold (booked, not interested, sequence completed)
  • Strategic review every 2–3 months: adjust persona mix, signals, and scale what performs
Data ops hygiene
  • Deduplicate and enforce rules of engagement
  • Keep HubSpot sync always-on to avoid data distrust
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We don’t have issues with sync. The main thing is that reps trust the outbound process, and with lemlist + HubSpot, they do.
Unique strengths & differentiators
1. Quality over volume
Review at 2–3 months (not 2 weeks); adjust personas and signals based on outcomes
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We focus on quality and conversion rates, not volume. A 7–8 touch campaign with real quality beats a generic 20–22 step blast.
3. Modern pattern interrupts
LinkedIn voice notes are rare and memorable in EMEA
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Team calling builds confidence fast. After a block, everyone’s like: ‘Okay, that was good — I didn’t die. Cold calling is good.’
4. AI in the workflow
Call briefs (company/contact context), message variation, time saved in the dialer
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Using lemlist AI for company/contact summaries during dialing saves so much time — time is money when you’re calling.

5. True multichannel orchestration
Email + LinkedIn + Calling + WhatsApp with conditional branches based on engagement
Templates & resources
Favorite intro email snippet
Subject : 2026 sales stack
Hello {{firstName}}, ‍ {{month}} is perfect for a 2026 stack check.I saw you’re on {{tool}} at {{companyName}}, curious to compare? I can show how teams targeting {{ICP}} use lemlist to {{ValueProposition}}. Worth exploring? {{signature}}
Steal & apply these 5 moves from Conor’s playbook today!

✅ Switch to warm calling
Send a short value touch (email/LI) on D0; call on D1–D2. Measure meetings.

✅ Build tighter lists
20–30 accounts/month × 3–4 personas/account. Anchor to hiring signals and known stack.

✅ Put calling on the calendar
Two team calling blocks/week to hit 120–150 dials/rep. Confidence compounds.

✅ Use LinkedIn voice notes
20–30 seconds, clear value + next step. Memorable pattern interrupt.

✅ Protect deliverability
Warm-up + multiple inboxes + varied messages. Ignore opens; optimize for positive replies and meetings.