Why Taylor Thomson Refuses to Chase Email Volume

Sales development teams are often judged by activity. More emails sent. More sequences launched. More volume across the top of the funnel. Taylor Thomson has built a revenue operation that rejects that logic entirely.

At WITHIN, Thomson’s team regularly achieves open rates approaching 50 percent on cold outreach. That number stands in stark contrast to industry benchmarks, where 20 to 25 percent is considered solid performance. The difference is not better software or clever templates. It is a deliberate refusal to scale outreach at the expense of relevance.

“I’m pretty happy with a 50 percent open rate on a cold email,” Thomson says. “When teams chase volume, you watch that number slide. Forty percent becomes thirty. Thirty becomes twenty. And the extra volume never makes up for the damage.”

Why Volume Becomes a Trap

The logic behind high-volume outreach is easy to understand. Sales engagement platforms make it simple to automate sequences, schedule follow-ups, and reach hundreds of prospects per day. When pipeline pressure mounts, volume feels like control.

The problem is what happens next. Early emails might be personalised. Later touches rely more heavily on templates. Prospects recognise the pattern quickly. Engagement drops. Teams respond by increasing volume further, accelerating the decline.

Thomson does not argue against technology. WITHIN uses best-in-class CRM and sales engagement tools. The issue is not automation itself, but how easily automation encourages behavior that undermines trust.

“When personalisation starts to feel like too much effort, that’s when quality erodes,” he explains. “And once that happens, you are cheapening the value of the people you have who are capable of having real conversations.”

The Economics of Personalisation

WITHIN’s approach trades reach for relevance. Instead of loading hundreds of prospects into a sequence, BDRs focus on a smaller number of accounts and invest meaningful time in research.

That research goes beyond surface-level personalisation. It includes recent company activity, expansion plans, leadership changes, and competitive context. Outreach is framed around specific business realities, not generic role-based messaging.

The result is fewer emails sent, but far more engagement per message. Prospects respond because they recognise effort and relevance. Over time, that effort compounds into trust.

This trade-off is uncomfortable for many organisations. Volume is easy to measure. Research quality is not. Open rates, response rates, and conversation quality take longer to materialise. Thomson argues that discomfort is precisely the point.

Why Context Matters

WITHIN sells complex, high-value relationships. Deals take months. Multiple stakeholders are involved. Trust is not optional.

“You can’t start a relationship on spray-and-pray ground and expect it to go somewhere meaningful,” Thomson says. “That’s not a foundation you can build on.”

This context matters. A company selling low-cost SaaS to small businesses may be able to rely on volume. WITHIN cannot. When the sales motion requires credibility and partnership, outreach must reflect that reality.

This is where many teams misapply best practices. They borrow high-volume tactics from transactional sales environments and deploy them in relationship-driven businesses, then wonder why results deteriorate.

The Marketing Prerequisite

Thomson is explicit about one condition that makes his approach viable. Business development must be supported by strong marketing.

“You can’t build a successful BD engine without a marketing engine behind it,” he says.

Marketing creates familiarity. It gives prospects context before outreach ever occurs. When a BDR reaches out, the email is not the first touchpoint. It is a continuation of awareness that already exists.

Without that foundation, personalisation demands increase dramatically. Volume becomes even less effective. Marketing and BD must function as a single system, not parallel efforts.

Protecting Long-Term Effectiveness

One of the less visible consequences of high-volume outreach is domain reputation. When emails are ignored or flagged, deliverability suffers. Over time, even well-crafted messages land in spam folders.

High engagement protects against that outcome. When recipients open and respond, email providers learn that messages from the domain are welcome. This preserves long-term outreach effectiveness.

Volume-first strategies often burn through addressable markets quickly. Prospects remember generic outreach. Future attempts are filtered out before they are read. Recovery is slow and expensive. Prevention, Thomson argues, is far cheaper.

Accepting Bandwidth Limits

Every BDR faces the same constraint. There are only so many hours in a day. Personalisation takes time.

Rather than fighting that constraint, Thomson embraces it. Fewer prospects. Better research. Higher standards.

This approach forces better prospect selection upstream. Marketing identifies accounts showing intent. BD focuses energy where relevance is highest. The system rewards precision rather than activity.

A Counter-Intuitive Discipline

Thomson’s philosophy runs against prevailing sales narratives. Automation promises scale. AI promises personalisation at volume. The message is always more.

His answer is less. Fewer emails. Fewer prospects. Fewer activities.

What replaces volume is discipline. Measuring what matters. Protecting reputation. Investing time where it produces durable outcomes.

The result is not faster metrics, but better ones. Conversations that lead somewhere. Relationships that compound. Revenue that reflects trust rather than noise.

For organisations selling complex services, Thomson’s message is clear. Email volume is not a growth strategy. Relevance is.