How to Build Outbound That Feels Human, Works Long-Term, and Doesn’t Rely on Luck

Behind the Agency Podcast with Adam Kurzawa, Head of Business Development at Infinum

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Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• Most agencies “get outbound wrong” because they don’t do it at all… until inbound dries up and they panic.

• Mass cold email blasts aren’t outbound. They’re noise. Real outbound is targeted and tailored.

• Start outbound where trust already exists: past clients, past buyers, and close runner-up pitches.

• Follow-up on near-wins creates “boomerang projects” (you lose it… then it comes back).

• His motto isn’t “always be closing.” It’s ABU: Always Be Useful.

• Best relationship accelerator: get out of the digital realm (coffee, office visits, conferences).

• Founders have an unfair advantage: people will take a meeting with a CEO/founder way faster than “head of biz dev.”

• Biz dev is a long game. There are no quick wins—so you build a system that survives slow seasons, elections, and weird markets.

Meet the Guest

Adam Kurzawa is the Head of Business Development at Infinum, a digital product agency that builds products across B2C, B2B, and even IoT (stuff connected to real-world devices). Adam has spent 14–15 years in the digital agency world and is known for a relationship-first outbound approach that’s patient, practical, and way more human than the typical “spray and pray” playbook.

Before Infinum, Adam helped grow the North American team when it was smaller (he references the team previously as Expand The Room)—including lots of co-selling and partnerships.

Episode Summary

1. Outbound’s “origin story” (why it matters)

Adam’s big wake-up moment was the pandemic. He had agencies reach out basically saying: “Inbound is dead. We’re in trouble. We never built outbound.”

That’s when he saw the pattern: outbound gets ignored because it doesn’t give fast dopamine like marketing metrics do.

2. The main tension: agencies want short-term revenue… but outbound is slow

Outbound is a long game, and that’s the part people hate. You might nurture relationships for years before they convert.

“Outbound is absolutely unequivocally a long game.”

3. Their unique way of solving it: outbound that’s targeted, warm, and useful

Adam draws a hard line:

• “1,000 emails” isn’t outbound (unless you’re selling a very specific SaaS product to a very specific list).

• Agencies sell different things to different buyers—so outreach has to match that reality.

4. Framework, method, or mental model

Here’s Adam’s approach in plain steps:

• Start warm (inventory first)

  • Past clients who already paid you

  • People who hired your team at previous companies

  • Referrals from people who already trust you

• Work “runner-up” deals

  • If you were a finalist and barely lost, keep in touch

  • Add value, stay present, and follow the timeline you already know from the proposal

  • That’s where “boomerang projects” come from

• ABU > ABC

  • “Always Be Useful” instead of “Always Be Closing”

  • Give without acting like every favor has strings attached

• Move people from cold → hot before outreach

  • Learn what they post on LinkedIn

  • Do deeper research (he even mentions people doing vertical deep dives on Reddit for honest “real talk”)

  • Then try to get a warm intro

• Warm intros done right

  • Don’t dump work on your friend

  • Write the intro note for them and make it easy to send

5. Common mistake or ‘cringe’ moment

Adam shared a hilarious (and painfully real) story: he had a genuinely great two-hour conversation with a guy at SXSW, and the moment Adam said “biz dev,” the guy basically wrote him off.

Translation: leading with “I’m in sales” can kill the vibe—even when you weren’t selling.

“Ugh, you’re a sales guy?”

Fix: be a human first. Let the “what do you do?” part show up naturally.

6. Where the founder/leader still belongs

Adam made a strong point: founder-led outbound is a cheat code.

People assume a founder conversation is peer-to-peer, not a pitch. If you’re under ~$10M, this matters a lot because you probably don’t have a big sales team.

“People will take a… meeting with a founder or a CEO before a head of business development…”

7. Hiring, scaling, or process lessons

Two big operational lessons came through:

• Balance short-term vs long-term

  • When a revenue opportunity is in front of you, handle it first.

  • But the moment it’s handled, you have to snap back into outbound mode.

• As you scale, expand inside accounts + learn from losses

  • More clients = more chances to “land and expand”

  • Losing deals is part of the job, but you should squeeze learning out of every loss

  • If you’re a finalist (top 3), keep the relationship alive

He also shared a simple mental model for stability:

• Think of your business like a table with four legs (pillar clients).

• Lose one leg and don’t replace it? You get wobbly fast.

• The goal is constant backfilling—especially when the market is weird.

Notable Quotes

“That is not outbound.”

“Instead of ABC… it’s ABU, always be useful.”

“There are no quick wins.”

“Clients can smell [desperation] a mile away.”

Learn More / Get in Touch

Visit → infinum.com

Email → adam.kurzawa@infinum.com

LinkedIn → adam.kurzawa (his LinkedIn handle)

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