Cold calling didn’t stop working — teams just kept calling with bad data.
In this Builder Series post, we break down how a RevOps-minded founder rebuilt outbound from the ground up by fixing data quality, reducing waste, and treating cold calling like an engineered system.
Cold calling didn’t stop working.
What stopped working was calling with bad data, vague intent, and no feedback loop.
So when Scott Finden decided to go back to cold calling—not as an AE, but as a founder—he didn’t treat it like a throwback tactic.
He treated it like a controlled RevOps experiment.
And that distinction matters.
Cold calling as a founder is different — and more fragile
Founders have two unfair advantages on calls:
Credibility (“I built this” carries weight)
Stronger close rates
They also have one brutal constraint:
Time is non-renewable
That’s why Scott didn’t optimize for volume.
He optimized for signal quality.
Every bad number.
Every wrong title.
Every ex-employee.
That’s not just a missed call — it’s wasted founder time.
So before dialing, he rebuilt the fundamentals.
The four plays that changed the outcome
1. Break the script — intentionally
Scott tested two openers:
- “It’s a cold call—but a well-researched one. Can I have 30 seconds?”
- “It’s Scott from LinkedIn—have you seen my name tossed around?”
One disarms with honesty.
The other leverages earned familiarity.
The point wasn’t cleverness.
It was testing.
Founders don’t guess what works.
They measure.
2. Lead with pain, not positioning
Instead of:
“Do you need help with revenue?”
Scott anchored calls in patterns he’d already validated:
- What reps say is broken
- Where teams lose time
- What leaders wish they had visibility into—but don’t
This isn’t messaging.
It’s field research turned into call structure.
RevOps teams recognize this move instantly:
Talk to reality, not personas.
3. Eliminate bad data before it reaches the phone
This is where RevOps thinking shows up clearly.
Scott enriched every list before a call block using Lusha:
- Verified phone numbers
- Up-to-date roles
- Company context
- Intent signals
That meant:
- Fewer dead dials
- Fewer “wrong person” conversations
- Higher confidence going into each call
Cold calling didn’t become easier.
It became less wasteful.
4. Go for the close — deliberately
Founders don’t need to “build rapport.”
They already have belief.
Scott leaned into that:
- Direct asks
- Clear next steps
- No hedging
Not aggressive.
Just decisive.
The builder mindset here is simple:
If the system delivers the right conversation, don’t underplay it.
The real lesson: cold calling didn’t change — RevOps did
This story isn’t about founders picking up the phone.
It’s about what happens when outbound is treated like an engineered system, not a grind.
What Scott did differently:
- Treated data as infrastructure, not a prep step
- Removed noise before execution
- Designed calls as experiments, not performances
That’s why this works in 2026 thinking—not 2016 tactics.
Where Lusha fits (without turning this into a pitch)
In this setup, Lusha isn’t “used” during the call.
It runs before the call ever happens.
That’s the quiet power:
- Clean inputs
- Better conversations
- Less wasted effort
For Revenue Builders, that’s the bar.
If bad data reaches execution, the system failed upstream.
The Builder takeaway
Cold calling still works when:
- You respect time
- You trust data
- You design before you dial
Or, said differently:
Execution doesn’t fix broken systems.
Systems make execution worth doing.
