- April 27, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Don’t fall for it.
Those “We’ll book you 100+ meetings” emails hitting your inbox are the sales version of Nigerian prince scams — except the scammers are trying to sell you lead generation services.
Worse? They’re giving you a live demo of exactly why their approach doesn’t work.
Why Most Lead Generation Emails Fail – 6 Real Examples
Here are six real cold emails I received in just one day — all trying to sell me lead-generation services:
Example 1: Generic, Typos, and No Personalization
No personalization after “Hello”, awkward typo (“We’re help”), claims “personalized email sequences.” Landed in junk. No opt-out, logo, or signature.

Example 2: Over-the-Top Claims and Irony
Uses my first name but nothing else. Wild claim of 138 qualified meetings in 73 days. Ironically pushes LinkedIn while cold emailing me. Founder only uses “Alex S.”

Example 3: “Personalized at Scale” Claims
Claims her campaigns don’t land in spam (this one did), “personalized at scale,” and drops big results with a Lindsey Vonn quote for drama.

Example 4: The Persistent Sequence Spammer
The persistent sequence guy. Multiple follow-ups. Low effort, high volume.

Example 5: The Vague Interview Bait
The vague “interview as lever” approach. No company name, no real value, just fishing.

Example 6: Low-Effort Personalization
Lowercase subject line, typo (“1 minte”), minimal customization, still claims “personalized.”

How to Instantly Increase Your Flow of Leads and New Meetings
These weren’t cherry-picked. This is a normal day in my inbox.
If the lead-generation experts can’t make cold email work effectively, what chance does your sales team have?
How to Instantly Increase Your Flow of Leads and New Meetings
Pick up the phone.
It’s hardware with integrated software designed for real, two-way conversations.
Enter 10 digits. Press call. Speak to another human being. If they answer, you can have a real dialogue.
No sequences. No automation. No fake personalization. Just a customized conversation that happens in real time.
Find out if they have a problem you can solve. Book a meeting. Rinse and repeat.
Helping companies shift from broken inbound and spammy outbound to a proven, high-powered phone approach isn’t easy. Many salespeople have either never learned how to hunt effectively or have forgotten while hiding behind screens, automations, and sequences.
It’s no surprise — only 40% of salespeople have good scores in the Hunting competency and if we focus on the bottom half of all salespeople, it’s just 24%. Hunting is just one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies. See the data for all of them here.
We help sales teams get comfortable and effective with proactive phone work so they generate consistent, qualified meetings the old-fashioned (and still most effective) way.
You can reach us here: Let’s talk — on the phone/over Zoom, of course.
