How a 3-Person Design Agency Booked 11 Qualified Meetings in 30 days by Automating Their Lead Generation

Here’s how we achieved this.

The Problem That Almost Killed Their Growth

When Jake, the founder of Studio Lenz, first reached out to us, he was exhausted. His agency was creating stunning brand identities for tech startups, but finding new clients was slowly draining the life out of his business.

Every Monday morning, Jake would start the same soul-crushing routine. He'd spend the next 10 hours that week hunting for potential clients across startup directories and LinkedIn. Most of the time, he was shooting in the dark - guessing which companies might need design work, crafting generic cold emails, and watching 95% of them disappear into the void.

"I felt like I was playing a lottery every week," Jake told us. "I'd send 50 emails and maybe get one reply. I would be lucky if it wasn’t an ‘Out of Office’ email."

The worst part was that all that prospecting time meant less time for actual design work.

Step 1: Getting Inside Their Process

Before we could fix anything, we needed to understand exactly how Jake's manual process worked - and where it was breaking down.

We spent three hours on a call with Jake, having him walk us through his typical prospecting week step by step. We had him share his screen and show us his bookmarks, email templates, and spreadsheets. We also scheduled follow-up sessions with his two designers to understand what made their best projects successful.

What We Found: Jake had built an intricate system that took him from startup directory to startup directory - AngelList, Product Hunt, TechCrunch's startup database. For each promising company, he'd visit their website, try to figure out if they were the right size, check their design talent, then craft what he hoped was a personalized email.

The process was thorough but completely unsustainable. Jake was doing the work of a full-time researcher, and he was doing it blind.

What We Understood: Through our team conversations, we uncovered a crucial pattern. Jake's best clients - the ones who paid the most and were happiest - all had something in common. They were companies actively hiring senior design people.

The designers confirmed this: "Our best clients always come to us when they're scaling. They've reached a point where they know design matters, but don't have the internal expertise yet."

What We Figured Out: The manual process was fundamentally backwards. Instead of trying to convince companies they needed design work, Jake should find companies that had already demonstrated they valued design by budgeting for senior design hires.

"That makes total sense. If a startup is hiring a Head of Design, they're clearly thinking seriously about their brand."

This insight became the foundation for everything that followed.

Step 2: Designing the Solution

Once we understood the pattern, we could design a system that worked smarter.

How We Built the Solution: Instead of Jake manually searching through hundreds of companies, we'd flip the script entirely. We'd automatically monitor job boards where companies announce they're serious about design.

When a startup posts for a "Head of Design" or "Creative Director," they're essentially saying, "We're ready to invest heavily in design." 

The blueprint was simple: an "Opportunity Scout" that would monitor niche job boards for senior design roles. When it found a match, it would automatically capture the company's details, research their background, and add them to Jake's CRM with a personalized outreach sequence ready to launch.

The ROI Logic: We did the math with Jake. His manual process took 10 hours per week and generated maybe 2 qualified meetings per month. Our system would cost a one-time setup fee but could identify 10-15 qualified opportunities per week while Jake focused on design work. Even with the same conversion rate, he'd 5x his pipeline while getting his life back.

Step 3: Building With Precision

We've learned that the difference between automation that works and automation that annoys people comes down to personalization at scale without losing the human touch.

Our team pulled components from our existing library - job board scrapers, data enrichment modules, email sequencing systems we'd refined over dozens of projects. But the real work was in the details.

The system needed to be smart about targeting. Not every "design" job meant a company was ready for full branding. So we built filters for roles like "Head of Design," "Brand Director," "Creative Director" - ignoring postings for basic "UI Designer" roles.

For each qualified company, the system would automatically gather research: recent funding, company size, industry, executives, recent press coverage. This research fed into email personalization, making each outreach feel like Jake had spent time learning about their specific situation.

Then, the system would send customized emails to startups that posted for a Head of Design. 

Step 4: Quality Control

Before the system sent a single real email, we ran it in a sandbox environment for a full week. It scraped job boards, identified targets, and generated email drafts - but everything stayed in a testing CRM.

The results were eye-opening. In that first week, the system identified 43 potential targets. When we reviewed them with Jake, 39 were companies he would have absolutely wanted to reach manually. Only 4 were false positives.

More importantly, the email personalization was working. Each draft referenced specific details: recent funding, the job title posted, relevant news, industry focus. It looked like Jake had spent 20-30 minutes researching each company individually.

We found some issues - occasionally outdated information, some irrelevant case studies - so we refined the data sources and improved the matching logic. We also discovered timing mattered: companies with postings 3-7 days old were much more responsive.

Step 5: Launch and Results

We went live on a Tuesday morning in August. Within hours, the system had identified three targets and triggered outreach sequences. By week's end, it had reached out to 12 companies.

Then replies started coming in.

By month's end, here's what happened:

• 43 qualified companies contacted (vs. maybe 20 manually)

• 15 positive responses (vs. 2-3 previously)

• 8 qualified meetings booked (vs. 1-2 per month)

• 2 projects signed worth $45,000 total

• Jake's prospecting time: 10 hours/week → 30 minutes/week

The real transformation was in Jake's energy. For the first time in years, he was spending weeks doing design work instead of prospecting. His team could take on more challenging projects because Jake wasn't distracted by pipeline pressure.

Three Months Later: The Compound Effect

The system continued working consistently. By month three, Studio Lenz had booked 23 qualified meetings through automation. Seven converted into projects ranging from $15,000 to $45,000.

But the compound effect was more valuable than immediate results. Jake's manual prospecting had been random - some weeks great leads, other weeks empty. 

The automated system created steady, predictable opportunities.

This predictability allowed better business decisions. Jake could forecast revenue accurately, plan project timelines confidently, and hire his first project manager because he knew the pipeline would support additional overhead.

What We Learned

The best automation amplifies human insight instead of replacing it. Jake's realization about companies hiring senior design people was the key insight. Automation just helped him act on it at scale.

Quality control separates professional automation from spam. The sandbox testing phase was crucial for protecting Studio Lenz's reputation.

Timing matters more than perfect messaging. Reaching companies within a week of posting relevant jobs was more important than crafting perfect subject lines.

The best systems create predictable results, not just better results. Jake's manual process might occasionally find great clients, but it was inconsistent. The automated system created predictable opportunity flow.

In Jake's Words

"Before this system, I felt like I was running on a hamster wheel. Now I wake up to notifications that qualified companies have been added to my pipeline. Companies that have already shown they're serious about design.

"The conversations I'm having are completely different - instead of trying to convince people they need better branding, I'm talking with people who already understand design's value.

"While other agencies cold email random prospects, we're having strategic conversations with companies that have already raised their hand."

Studio Lenz continues using this system today, consistently generating 20-30 qualified meetings per quarter. The core approach remains: find companies demonstrating intent to invest in design, and reach out with relevant insights at exactly the right moment.