Episode 57: Outbound at a Crossroads

In this episode of the RevOpsAF podcast, host Matt Volm, CEO and Founder of RevOps Co-op, welcomes Mustafa Saeed, CEO and Co-founder of Luella. Mustafa’s journey is as unconventional as it is impressive: from funding his university studies as a YouTuber, to building (and rebuilding) marketing agencies, to serving as a sales rep at Clearco, and advising accelerators and SaaS startups on GTM execution.

Today, Mustafa leads Luella, a company orchestrating AI agents designed to protect sender reputation, monitor deliverability, and enforce safeguards in real time. With AI-generated spam exploding and providers like Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn cracking down harder than ever, the risks of reckless automation are now front and center for revenue leaders. In this episode, Mustafa and Matt unpack the changing realities of outbound, the safeguards operators should adopt, and why human oversight is the key to preserving trust and performance in AI-driven GTM.

Outbound Isn’t Dead—But the Old Playbook Is

For years, cold email was one of the most cost-efficient growth channels. But the “spray-and-pray” era has officially ended. Google and Microsoft have aggressively tightened spam filters, Apple Mail now summarizes messages for recipients, and platforms like LinkedIn are suspending entire companies for scraping and automation abuse.

“Volume-based outreach is no longer rewarded. AI sales tools are making it easier to spam infinite numbers of prospects, but harder than ever to land in the inbox.” – Mustafa Saeed

The data backs it up: sales leaders consistently report diminishing returns from outbound over the past two years. While AI has amplified the problem by enabling anyone to auto-generate endless “personalized” sequences, Mustafa insists outbound is still worth protecting. It remains one of the fastest, most reliable channels to take a company from zero-to-one—especially compared to the cost and time of paid ads or content marketing. But it has to evolve.

The future belongs to operators who combine AI’s scale with human judgment, focusing on precision, relevance, and compliance over brute-force volume.

For operators trying to slice through complexity, our post It’s Time to Catch Up, RevOps: Your Cold Prospecting Motion Is Broken is essential reading—walking you through the lost signals and how to regain control.

Why Human + AI Collaboration Beats AI Alone

Unchecked AI automation is dangerous—not just for pipeline but for brand equity and compliance. Mustafa shares chilling examples:

• AI gone rogue: An AI “board member” once sent sexist outreach, eroding trust overnight.
• Compliance risks: In health tech, one wrong word in outbound copy can trigger regulatory action.
• Data leaks: Hackers have already tricked AI SDRs into exposing client credentials.
• Platform bans: Vendors like Apollo and Seamless have seen their LinkedIn pages deleted for scraping abuses.

“There’s a misconception that AI agents should be entirely autonomous. That’s how you burn markets. Human oversight needs to be baked into the workflow.” – Mustafa Saeed

To tie this in with operational excellence, check our article on A Case for Automation: GTM Document Management—a great reference for building scalable, safe automation systems.

Practical safeguards include:

• Approval Workflows: Admins approve AI-generated offers or lead magnets.
• Sales Rep Reviews: Humans review personalization before outreach is sent.
• Automation Limits: Start small, test copy with <25 sends, and only scale when positive replies emerge.
• Segmentation & Isolation: Dedicated IPs and domains per rep to avoid company-wide contamination.
• Infrastructure Monitoring: Proactive alerts if deliverability metrics trend down.

RevOps leaders, often the stewards of systems and compliance, are uniquely positioned to own this guardrail layer—ensuring automation accelerates performance instead of creating risks.

The Deliverability Playbook: Guardrails Every Operator Needs

Deliverability isn’t just “set it and forget it.” It’s an ecosystem of moving parts that operators must continuously optimize. Mustafa breaks down the biggest levers for revenue teams:

1. Messaging First

If the content isn’t relevant, nothing else matters. AI-generated fluff that fails to provide value will go straight to spam. Testing hooks, offers, and lead magnets with smaller cohorts before scaling is critical.

2. Volume Controls

Gone are the days of blasting hundreds of emails from one inbox. Mustafa recommends 15–25 cold emails per mailbox per day, a dramatic reduction from years past. To scale safely:

• Use multiple secondary domains instead of your company’s primary.
• Rotate senders to distribute volume.
• Warm up new mailboxes gradually.

3. Authentication & Infrastructure

Operators must enforce proper authentication protocols: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Beyond that, avoid shared IP pools (where your reputation is tied to bad actors). Mustafa recommends dedicated IPs per rep—ensuring that if one rep makes a mistake, it doesn’t tank the whole company’s sending reputation .

4. Placement Testing & Monitoring

Most deliverability “scores” inside tools are unreliable because Google and Microsoft don’t disclose true spam rates. Instead, Mustafa’s team runs placement tests, sending real emails to test inbox vs. promotions vs. spam. Continuous monitoring flags issues before revenue is lost.

5. List Hygiene & Source Accountability

Where reps source leads matters as much as how they email them. Stale databases = bad signals. Tools like ZeroBounce (verification) and Clay (custom signals + enrichment) help keep lists fresh, relevant, and deliverable.

6. Engagement Signals

Don’t ghost prospects. Microsoft and Google track reply rates and reward timely responses with better inbox placement. Deliverability isn’t just about technical setup—it’s about authentic two-way engagement.

“The number one thing you can do to improve deliverability is just not be a spammer. If you’re providing value, you’ll land in the inbox.” – Mustafa Saeed

For operators setting up guardrails elsewhere, Why Every Quote Exception Comes at a Cost offers insight into institutionalizing safe defaults in GTM workflows.

RevOps as the Outbound Gatekeeper

This conversation highlights a growing truth: outbound success now lives or dies by RevOps leadership. Sales reps may push for scale, but only operators can design the guardrails that protect reputation, enforce compliance, and maximize long-term deliverability.

Mustafa points to Luella’s early adopters—including the SVP of RevOps at Oracle and the RevOps team at TravelPerk—as examples of operators leading the charge. By embedding safeguards directly into GTM workflows, RevOps can transform AI from a liability into a durable competitive advantage.

Career Lesson: Taking Chances on People

To wrap, Matt asks Mustafa about the people who’ve shaped his journey. Rather than pointing to a single mentor, Mustafa credits a collective: his parents, his co-founder, and especially his first boss, who promoted him after just six months and handed him responsibility for an entire book of business.

The lesson for RevOps listeners? Take chances on people—even when they don’t “check all the boxes.” Many of the best operators (and entrepreneurs) thrive when someone gives them an opportunity they technically weren’t “qualified” for on paper.

Final Thoughts

Outbound isn’t dead—but the lazy playbook is. Deliverability, reputation, and compliance are now RevOps problems as much as they are sales problems. The future of outbound lies in balancing AI’s efficiency with human oversight, operational guardrails, and a relentless focus on delivering value.

Revenue operators who master this balance won’t just save outbound—they’ll redefine it.

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