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Mason Cosby runs Scrappy ABM, an 18-person agency. His own event spend this year was $30-40K across 14 events, covering flights, hotels, and tickets. He averaged eight opportunities per event.
Most teams spend more and book less. This episode is the reason why, and the fix.
What you’ll learn
The five audiences you can build for any event without the organizer giving you a single name
Why email is the warm-up, and the LinkedIn notification trick that lands a second message in the inbox from a different sender
The three roles Mason assigns on the event floor, and the handoff line that books meetings on the spot
How 650 hours and 354 SOPs became nine AI employees with names like Strategist Suzy
The stat that made Mason stop hiring people with ABM experience
Episode Highlights
02:28 The $200K event with no pre-event plan
04:30 The five audiences, walked through
05:42 Why sponsors are buyers too
06:49 Email as the warm-up, and the notification trick
08:20 The half-a-gift direct mail play
10:00 Three roles on the floor: networkers, offers, setters
13:00 Capturing notes on-site and booking on the spot
16:51 When texting works, and when it backfires
18:17 The introduction play that makes you sticky
21:10 650 hours and 354 SOPs with Claude
23:20 CRIT: Context, Role, Interview, Task
25:31 Nine AI employees inside ClickUp
29:21 The 78% stat and the hiring reversal
31:42 What Scrappy ABM hires for now
34:47 The three interview questions Mason always asks
37:40 Six plays that surface pipeline without new spend
40:03 Book the dinner first, then the flight
Key Takeaways
1. The organizer will not deliver your ROI
Six months ago Mason onboarded a client who had put $200K into a single event. Major sponsorship, a booth, a speaking session, a happy hour, an executive car service. When he asked how the pieces connected, there was no answer. The plan was that the organizer would make it pay.
"They are not doing the prep work to make the event ROI positive before your plane takes off."
He does not blame the team. Everyone is stretched, and the assumption feels safe: the organizer wants you back next year, so they must deliver a return. They will not. The prep work does.
2. Build five audiences before you arrive
Every event has five audiences you can reach in advance, and none of them require the organizer to hand you anything.
Last year’s attendees. The worst events Mason has seen run a 20-30% return rate. The best run 70-80%. If you went last year, you are already holding part of this year’s list.
Your target accounts in the host city. They never have to attend. Land a day early, stay a day late, and “I’m in town for the event” becomes the easiest meeting ask you will send all year.
The sponsors. Sponsors are spending money to acquire customers, which means they are in buying mode. This one changed which events Scrappy ABM targets at all.
Social. People post that they are going, weeks out.
The event app. Often opens well in advance with the attendee list sitting inside.
3. Email warms up. Another channel closes.
Mason’s sequencing: email first, then the LinkedIn DM. The reply usually arrives in the second channel, with some version of “hey, I saw your email.”
The detail most people miss: when you DM someone who is slow to open LinkedIn, LinkedIn emails them a notification. That is a second message in their inbox from a different sender, and it can land where your own follow-up would not.
For the $200K client, the big swing was direct mail. A glasses case placed in the executive car with a note inside: come see the future of AI in your industry. The glasses waiting at the booth were Meta AI glasses. Half the gift in the car, the other half at the booth.
4. Assign three jobs on the event floor
On-site, most teams fail the same way: everyone does every job at once, and your best closer burns 30 minutes on a bad-fit conversation. Mason assigns three roles.
Networkers walk the floor and find good-fit people. SDRs and field marketers, the ones who can afford to get caught in a long conversation.
Offers are the subject matter experts. Executives, solutions engineers. They go deep on the problem and never pitch.
Setters book the meeting on the spot and stay the relationship owner afterward, so the first sales call feels like a continuation instead of a cold restart.
The handoff line, after 20 minutes of being useful: “I’m not trying to pitch you, but what you’re describing is the kind of thing we solve. Would you be open to a conversation about it?” Then the setter opens a calendar and lets them pick a time right there. No follow-up email. They asked. You are following through.
5. Train the AI on your brain, not the internet
The back half of the episode is a different story. Since March, Mason has spent 650 hours rebuilding how his agency works, with Claude.
The output was 354 SOPs totaling 800,000 words. Nobody wanted to read them. Then they became the training data for nine AI employees inside ClickUp, with names like Strategist Suzy and Content Casey, that now draft work, review it, and compliance-check the humans against the Scrappy standard.
The framework underneath it is CRIT: Context, Role, Interview, Task. Interview is the step everyone skips and the one Mason rates highest. Make the AI ask you questions before it produces anything.
6. Stop hiring for experience that failed
78% of ABM programs are deemed failures. Mason did the math on his own hiring: recruiting for ABM experience meant a four-in-five chance the person had built something that did not work. He now hires people with no ABM experience, because they arrive without the bad habits, and lets the SOP system train them from day one.
Near the end he lists six plays for surfacing pipeline without a dollar of new spend. Closed-lost re-engagement is the first, and he says the first two alone hold a million dollars of pipeline at most companies. The other four are in the episode.
If you’re enjoying these episodes, reply and let me know what you’d love to learn more about: AI workflows, hiring, growth, GTM strategy, anything.
Catch you next week,
Jared
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