The Autonomous SDR
Setup time: 25 minutes | Weekly value: 5-10 hours of lead qualification and email drafting automated
Turn raw email lists into qualified, personalized outreach—without touching a keyboard.
The Architecture:
Trigger: New row in Google Sheets
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Action 1: Apollo API — Enrich email with company/role data
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Action 2: GPT-4 — Calculate ICP Score (1-100)
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Action 3: Filter — If ICP Score > 70
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Action 4: Claude API — Generate personalized cold email
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Outcome: Draft appears in Gmail (ready for one-click send)
Step 1: Google Sheets (Trigger)
Configure n8n to watch for new rows in your prospect sheet. Minimum fields: email, source.
{
"spreadsheetId": "your-sheet-id",
"sheetName": "Prospects",
"triggerColumn": "A",
"pollInterval": 300
}
Signal: New lead entered = workflow begins.
Step 2: Apollo API (The Enricher)
Pull company data, title, employee count, funding stage, tech stack.
{
"email": "{{row.email}}",
"reveal_personal_emails": false,
"reveal_phone_number": false
}
Signal: Raw email becomes rich prospect profile.
Step 3: GPT-4 (The Qualifier)
Score against your ICP criteria:
{
"model": "gpt-4",
"messages": [{
"role": "system",
"content": "Score this prospect 1-100 based on: company size 50-500 employees (30pts), Series A-C (25pts), tech/SaaS industry (25pts), VP/Director title (20pts). Return only the number."
}, {
"role": "user",
"content": "{{apollo_enrichment_data}}"
}]
}
Step 4: Claude API (The Copywriter)
Generate personalized email for qualified leads:
{
"model": "claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022",
"messages": [{
"role": "user",
"content": "Write a 3-sentence cold email for {{name}} at {{company}}. They are a {{title}} at a {{employee_count}} person {{industry}} company. Reference their recent {{trigger_event}}. Pitch: [YOUR VALUE PROP]. Tone: conversational, no fluff, one clear CTA."
}]
}
Step 5: Gmail Draft (The Staging Area)
{
"to": "{{row.email}}",
"subject": "{{claude_subject_line}}",
"body": "{{claude_email_body}}",
"isDraft": true
}
Expansion Ideas:
Add Clearbit for company news/trigger events
Integrate with Calendly for automatic meeting link insertion
Layer in LinkedIn profile data for deeper personalization
Build A/B test variants with different Claude prompts
From manual prospecting to one-click sending—your pipeline fills itself.
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