Key Takeaways
- Cold calling is very much alive in 2025, with average success rates around 2-3% and top teams hitting 6-10% meeting rates when they tighten targeting and messaging.
- Winning teams treat cold calling as a precision play, not a numbers game: verified direct dials, tight ICPs, and relevant talk tracks beat brute-force dialing every time.
- It now takes an average of 3-8 call attempts to reach a prospect, but 82% of buyers say they accept meetings with sellers who proactively reach out when the call is valuable.
- AI-augmented calling (predictive dialers, real-time coaching, intent data) is quickly becoming table stakes, with roughly 75% of B2B companies using AI in outbound by 2025.
- Reps who follow data-backed call structures, avoid weak openers, and own about 55% of the talk time on cold calls see significantly higher meeting booked rates.
- Multi-touch, multi-channel sequences (calls, email, LinkedIn, voicemail) and disciplined follow-up often double conversion vs one-off dials.
- If your internal team cannot consistently hit modern cold calling benchmarks, outsourcing to a specialist like SalesHive can produce more meetings at lower risk and cost.
Cold calling in 2025 is far from dead, it is just different. Average success rates hover around 2-3%, but top-performing outbound teams routinely hit 6-10% by combining better data, AI-driven workflows, and modern call frameworks. This guide breaks down the latest benchmarks, proven scripts, and management strategies so B2B sales leaders can turn cold calls into a reliable, scalable pipeline engine.
Introduction
Cold calling in 2025 is not dead. It just finally grew up.
Buyers screen more calls, pick up less often, and have zero patience for generic pitches. Average cold calling success rates sit around 2-3% of dials turning into meetings, down from nearly 5% a year earlier, but top outbound teams still hit 6-10% when they combine better data, sharper messaging, and smart technology.
In other words: spray-and-pray is dead. Smart cold calling is very much alive.
In this guide, we will walk through the top sales strategies for cold calling in 2025, including:
- The current state of cold calling (benchmarks and what “good” looks like)
- How to build targeted lists and improve connect rates
- Modern, data-backed cold call frameworks that actually book meetings
- How to use AI and tech without losing the human touch
- Coaching, metrics, and management plays that keep SDR teams performing
This is written for B2B sales leaders, SDR managers, and founders who want cold calls to reliably create pipeline again, without burning out reps or blowing up budgets.
The State of Cold Calling in 2025
Let’s ground this in reality before we talk strategy.
Cold calling is still widely used
Despite all the think pieces about its demise, most sales orgs still lean on cold calling in some form. HubSpot’s 2025 State of Cold Calling survey found that about 68% of sales professionals work at companies that use cold calling and 65% personally make cold calls at least occasionally. Many of those teams report their call volume has grown year over year, not shrunk.
RAIN Group’s prospecting research backs this up: roughly 82% of buyers say they accept meetings at least sometimes with sellers who proactively reach out to them. Decision makers have not stopped talking to sales, they have just raised the quality bar.
Benchmarks: what the numbers really say
A few key stats paint the current picture:
- Average cold calling success rates land around 2-3% of calls resulting in a booked meeting or qualified opportunity, with Cognism’s 2025 data putting the global average at about 2.3%.
- Top-performing teams routinely hit 6-7% and some crack double digits by focusing on better targeting and talk tracks, not just more dials.
- The typical B2B rep makes around 50-60 calls per day. Some sources peg the average at 52 dials with a 7-10% connect rate, meaning you speak with maybe 4-6 humans per day if you are average.
- Most studies agree it takes 3-8 call attempts to reach a prospect, but nearly half of reps give up after one or two attempts.
- Once you connect, 50-70% of those connects can turn into real conversations when the rep is prepared and relevant.
So yes, averages are ugly. But the spread between average and top-performing teams is huge, and that spread is almost entirely about strategy and execution, not product or luck.
The big shift: from volume to precision
Ten years ago, you could get away with slamming 100-150 dials a day into a half-decent list and booking meetings through sheer persistence.
In 2025, that game is over:
- Spam and robocalls have made buyers trigger-happy on the decline button.
- Cell phone adoption and remote work mean your ‘business hours’ guess may not match when people want to talk.
- Every serious buyer is being bombarded on email and LinkedIn in parallel.
The teams that are still winning with cold calling have shifted from brute-force volume to disciplined precision: tight ICPs, verified direct dials, persona-specific scripts, and cadences orchestrated across phone, email, and social.
Let’s break down how to do that.
Strategy 1: Make List Quality a First-Class Citizen
If your list is trash, your cold calling strategy is already dead. No script or dialer fixes bad data.
Tighten your ICP and segmentation
Start with the basics:
- Ideal customer profile: industry, company size, geography, tech stack, business model.
- Buying committee roles: economic buyer, technical buyer, champion, power users.
- Trigger events: funding rounds, hiring spikes, expansion into new regions, tech migrations.
You should not have one massive list called ‘Prospects’. Instead, aim for focused segments like ‘US-based SaaS companies, 100-500 employees, using Salesforce, hiring AEs in the last 90 days’. Build messaging and call plans for each segment.
Use verified, phone-centric data
Across multiple studies, connection rates hover around 10-17% on average, but that is heavily influenced by whether you have good phone data. When reps are dialing switchboards and dead numbers, everything downstream tanks.
Invest in:
- Data providers that focus on verified direct dials and mobiles.
- Validation passes before lists hit the dialer (pinging carrier data, removing obviously bad numbers).
- Enrichment that adds role, seniority, and tech stack so reps know who they are calling and why.
SalesHive, for example, bakes list building and verification into their cold calling programs, combining third-party data with proprietary validation and performance feedback from thousands of calls. The result is fewer wasted dials and more live conversations.
Score and prune your lists
Do not treat all leads equally. Use simple scoring to prioritize:
- A-tier: perfect ICP fit, high-intent signals (content engagement, site visits), senior persona.
- B-tier: good fit, fewer or weaker signals.
- C-tier: fringe fit, no intent.
Hit A-tier accounts during your best connect windows. Recycle or pause leads that show no engagement after a full cadence. Protect your reps’ time and your phone reputation.
Strategy 2: Use AI to Multiply, Not Replace, Your SDRs
AI is everywhere in sales, but a lot of teams are either over-automating or under-using it.
The smart play is simple: let AI handle the grunt work and pattern recognition, while humans handle the conversations and nuance.
Where AI actually helps in cold calling
Here are some practical use cases that are working today:
- List research and enrichment: AI agents can research accounts and contacts, summarize recent news, and surface likely pain points before the call so reps are not starting cold.
- Dial scheduling and prioritization: tools can suggest the best time to reach specific personas and automatically queue calls for those windows.
- Predictive dialers: instead of manual dialing, AI dialers place calls back-to-back, dropping voicemails automatically and routing connects to available reps.
- Real-time guidance: live call assistants can suggest next questions, objection responses, or talk track snippets based on what the prospect is saying.
- Post-call analysis: AI transcribes and analyzes calls at scale, surfacing patterns like which openers book more meetings or how top reps handle a specific objection.
Studies in 2025 have shown that B2B companies using AI in outbound see 30-50% improvements in lead generation and conversion, alongside big time savings per rep. Many report cutting manual research and admin by several hours per week.
Avoid sounding like a robot
The risk is obvious: if you lean too hard on automation, your calls start to feel scripted and inauthentic, exactly what buyers hate.
Guardrails:
- Use AI to feed insights into your reps’ workflow, not to write long monologues.
- Limit on-screen prompts to short, human-sounding phrases reps can adapt.
- Record and review calls regularly to ensure tone and pacing still feel natural.
SalesHive’s approach is a good model: they use AI in their platform to power dialing, reporting, and email personalization (through their eMod engine) while the actual cold calls are handled by trained human SDRs who know how to adapt in the moment.
Strategy 3: Run a Modern, Data-Backed Cold Call Framework
The difference between a mediocre and great cold call is usually decided in the first 30-60 seconds.
Conversation intelligence platforms like Gong have analyzed hundreds of thousands of cold calls and uncovered some counterintuitive truths:
- Common advice like opening with ‘Did I catch you at a bad time?’ actually makes you significantly less likely to book a meeting.
- Pattern-interrupt openers and clear reasons for calling perform much better.
- In successful cold calls, reps talk more, not less, roughly 55% of talk time, because they need to educate and sell the meeting.
- Winning calls often have longer uninterrupted monologues (30-50 seconds) where the rep clearly articulates problem, impact, and next step.
A simple cold call framework for 2025
Here is a practical framework you can roll out to your team:
- Opener and permission (10-15 seconds)
- Quick introduction and check-in that does not scream ‘telemarketer’.
- Example: ‘Hey Alex, this is Maya with Acme Revenue. I know you were not expecting my call, do you have 30 seconds and I will be brief?'
- Credibility and reason for calling (10-20 seconds)
- Who you help and the situation that triggered the call.
- ‘We work with B2B SaaS sales leaders like you who are trying to drive more outbound pipeline without tripling SDR headcount. I saw you are hiring AEs in EMEA and thought this might be relevant.’
- Value proposition tied to their world (20-30 seconds)
- Specific outcomes you deliver, ideally quantified.
- ‘Typically we help teams increase meetings from cold outbound by 30-50% in 90 days by tightening data, scripting, and coaching, without asking reps to do more dials.’
- Engagement question (10-20 seconds)
- Invite them into the conversation with a focused question.
- ‘Curious, how happy are you right now with the number of sales-qualified meetings your SDRs are generating from cold outreach?’
- Explore briefly (30-60 seconds)
- If they engage, ask 1-2 quick questions to confirm fit: current process, main constraint, current volume.
- Close for a meeting (10-20 seconds)
- Transition to a scheduled conversation instead of trying to solve everything live.
- ‘Makes sense. Rather than wing this on a surprise call, would it be worth 20 minutes next week to walk through what we are seeing other SaaS teams do to double meetings from cold outbound?'
You can tune the language to your brand, but the structure holds: short opener, clear reason, persona-specific value, quick engagement, then a clean ask.
Scripts are guidelines, not gospel
Avoid over-scripting. Reps should know the framework and key phrases by heart, but they should sound like themselves.
Practical tips:
- Write scripts as short bullets, not long paragraphs.
- Include 2-3 alternative openers so reps can experiment.
- Give reps a menu of objection responses rather than one ‘perfect’ line.
- Listen to call recordings weekly and update the script library based on what actually books meetings.
SalesHive does this continuously across their client base: cold calls generate real-time feedback, which then shapes scripts, emails, and even product positioning. That loop is part of why high-volume agencies see patterns faster than a single in-house team.
Strategy 4: Build Multi-Touch, Multi-Channel Sequences
If your cold call is the first and only touch a prospect ever sees from you, you are playing on hard mode.
Most modern outbound motions orchestrate calls alongside email and LinkedIn touches. Research across multiple sources suggests it takes around 8 touches, often over several channels, to secure a meeting with a new prospect.
Why multi-channel beats phone-only
- Recognition: If a prospect has seen your name in their inbox or on LinkedIn, they are more likely to pick up or at least not hang up immediately.
- Reinforcement: Calls can reference recent content or a prior email, making the conversation warmer.
- Fallbacks: If you hit voicemail, you can follow up with a relevant email referencing the attempt.
A simple 12-15 touch sequence over 10-15 days might look like:
- Day 1: Personalized email with a strong subject line.
- Day 2: First call block; if voicemail, leave a short, value-focused message.
- Day 3: LinkedIn view and connection request.
- Day 5: Second call; reference email and any engagement.
- Day 6: Follow-up email with case study or relevant benchmark.
- Day 8: Third call; adjust angle based on role and any signals.
- Day 10: Comment on or engage with prospect’s LinkedIn content.
- Day 12: Final call attempt and breakup email.
You can add more touches for strategic accounts, but the idea is consistent: your cold call is part of a story, not a random interruption.
Make voicemails work for you
Voicemail is not dead either, but it needs to be short and intentional.
Guidelines:
- Aim for 20-30 seconds, max.
- Focus on one problem and one outcome.
- Reference something specific about their company or role.
- Tell them you will follow up by email so they know where to look.
Example:
‘Hey Alex, Maya with Acme Revenue. We help B2B sales teams increase meetings from cold outbound by about 30% in 90 days by fixing data and scripting, not just adding headcount. I will send an email with a quick breakdown, if it is not relevant, no need to reply, but it might be useful as you are scaling the team.’
Then actually send that email.
Strategy 5: Coach to the Right Metrics and Benchmarks
You cannot fix what you do not measure, and you can easily ruin a cold calling program by measuring the wrong things.
Core metrics that matter
At a minimum, track these at the rep, segment, and campaign level:
- Dials: raw activity.
- Connect rate: connects divided by dials (live person answers).
- Conversation rate: real conversations divided by connects.
- Meeting rate: meetings booked divided by conversations and dials.
- Pipeline per meeting: average opportunity value created per meeting.
Benchmarks will vary, but a solid B2B motion might see:
- 50-70 dials per day per full-time SDR.
- 10-20% connect rate if you are using good data and calling during prime windows.
- 50-70% of connects turning into meaningful conversations.
- 5-10% of conversations turning into meetings.
If your numbers are far off these, you have a diagnostic starting point.
Use metrics to diagnose, not to bludgeon
When results are off, ask where the funnel is breaking:
- Low connect rate: data quality, time-of-day/week, caller ID reputation.
- High connects, low conversations: openers are weak, reps sound like telemarketers, or target persona is wrong.
- Good conversations, few meetings: weak value prop or poor meeting close.
Then coach specifically to that stage:
- Role-play openers or objection handling.
- Rewrite value props and test variants.
- A/B test different call times or segments.
Make coaching a habit, not an event
The best teams treat coaching as part of the job, not a quarterly fire drill.
Tactical ideas:
- Weekly call review: listen to 2-3 calls as a team, celebrate wins, and workshop improvements.
- Objection-of-the-week: pick a common objection and have every rep record a best-practice response.
- Leaderboards on quality metrics: meetings booked, conversations per 100 dials, not just dials.
SalesHive layers this into their SDR management: every cold caller has an SDR manager who monitors performance, provides ongoing coaching, and uses call recordings for quality assurance. That level of attention is what most in-house teams intend to do but struggle to maintain.
How This Applies to Your Sales Team
Let’s pull this out of theory and into your reality.
If you are a founder or solo sales leader
You probably do not have the bandwidth to spin up a full SDR team, but you still need pipeline:
- Block 5-10 hours per week dedicated to outbound, including cold calls.
- Focus on a very narrow ICP where your offer is a no-brainer.
- Use a simple call framework and a short, repeatable sequence across phone and email.
- Track just a few numbers: dials, connects, meetings.
Once you have a repeatable pattern, you can decide whether to hire your first SDR or bring in an agency like SalesHive to scale what is working.
If you manage a small SDR/BDR team
You are likely fighting on three fronts: hiring, enablement, and pressure from leadership for more pipeline.
Priorities for 2025:
- Benchmark honestly against modern data and your own history.
- Standardize your call framework and run weekly role-plays.
- Invest in data and dialer tools before simply adding headcount.
- Pilot AI features that clearly save time or boost conversion, real-time coaching, call summarization, or smart sequencing.
- Consider a hybrid model where an external partner like SalesHive covers additional segments or regions while your internal team focuses on strategic accounts.
If you lead a larger sales org
At scale, your challenges shift from ‘does this work’ to ‘how do I keep this performing and efficient’. Cold calling strategy at this level looks like:
- Aligning SDR, AE, and marketing around common ICPs and messaging.
- Running A/B tests on scripts, sequences, and data sources every quarter.
- Using AI and analytics to spot coaching opportunities and systemic issues early.
- Continuously balancing internal resources with specialized partners for specific motions (e.g., new markets, product launches, or dormant territories).
Most importantly, you need to protect your team from chasing vanity metrics. In 2025, no one cares that you made 100,000 dials if they did not turn into qualified pipeline.
Conclusion + Next Steps
Cold calling in 2025 is harder in some ways and easier in others.
It is harder because buyers are overloaded, success rates have dipped, and basic tactics are commoditized. But it is easier because you have far better data, AI tools, and proven frameworks than any previous generation of sellers.
The teams that are winning are not the ones yelling ‘cold calling is dead’ or the ones blindly doubling dial counts. They are the ones who:
- Treat list quality and ICP targeting as strategic assets.
- Blend AI with human conversation instead of trying to automate everything.
- Use modern, data-backed call structures focused on selling the meeting.
- Orchestrate calls within multi-touch, multi-channel sequences.
- Coach consistently to a small set of meaningful metrics.
If you have the appetite to build all of that internally and you have the time, go for it. Use this guide as your blueprint.
If you need pipeline faster, or simply want a partner who lives and breathes this stuff, look at working with a specialist like SalesHive. With 100,000+ meetings booked for 1,500+ B2B clients, US-based and Philippines-based SDR teams, AI-powered personalization, and month-to-month, risk-free engagement, they can plug a modern cold calling engine into your go-to-market without the usual growing pains.
Either way, the phone is still one of the fastest paths to net-new pipeline in B2B. The question is not whether cold calling works in 2025, it is whether your strategy is built for 2025, not 2015.
📊 Key Statistics
Expert Insights
Treat cold calling as selling the meeting, not the product
On a cold call, your job is to sell 15-30 minutes of time, not your entire solution. Top reps keep the pitch tight, focused on one or two specific outcomes, and ask for a low-friction next step instead of diving into deep discovery on the first call.
Own the opening 30 seconds with a clear reason for calling
Gong's analysis shows that vague openers and small talk tank conversion, while reps who quickly state who they are, why they're calling, and what is in it for the prospect see significantly higher meeting rates. Build a crisp opener your entire team can deliver in under 20 seconds.
Coach to a few core metrics, not a dozen vanity numbers
For SDR teams, focus day-to-day coaching on dials, connects, live conversations, and meetings booked by segment. Once those are healthy, layer in more advanced metrics like opportunity conversion and revenue per dial to refine targeting and talk tracks.
Blend AI automation with human nuance
Use AI for list research, call scheduling, and real-time suggestions, but keep humans in charge of tone, judgment, and relationship building. The teams winning in 2025 are not replacing SDRs, they are multiplying their output with AI while still sounding like real people on the phone.
Align cold calling with account-based and multi-channel plays
Cold calls perform best when they land in the context of other touches, targeted ads, tailored emails, and LinkedIn engagement. Tie your call scripts to the same problem statements and value messages used across your ABM campaigns so prospects experience one coherent narrative.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Relying on giant, untargeted lists and brute-force dialing
Spray-and-pray lists create low connect rates, bad conversations, and burned territories. Reps waste time talking to people who will never buy, which drags down morale and inflates cost per meeting.
Instead: Tighten your ICP, enforce firmographic and role-level filters, and invest in verified direct dials. Aim for fewer, higher-quality records and measure list sources by meetings and pipeline, not just number of contacts.
Using generic, overused openers and product-centric pitches
Openers like 'Did I catch you at a bad time?' and feature dumps in the first 20 seconds cause prospects to shut down quickly, slashing your chance of booking a meeting.
Instead: Use pattern-interrupt openers, state your reason for calling, and lead with a relevant problem or outcome for that persona. Train reps on a simple call framework they can adapt in real time.
Giving up after one or two attempts
Most prospects will not pick up on the first call, and research shows it often takes 3-8 attempts to get a live conversation. Stopping early means you are doing all the hard work of list building for your competitors.
Instead: Set a standard contact strategy per persona, for example, 5-6 call attempts over 10 business days, supported by email and LinkedIn. Automate cadences so reps do not have to remember who to call next.
Measuring only dials instead of conversations and outcomes
High dial counts without context encourage button-pushing behavior and hide systemic issues like poor data or weak messaging. You can hit activity targets while still missing pipeline goals.
Instead: Track dials, connect rate, conversation rate, and meeting rate together. Use these ratios to diagnose where your cold calling motion is breaking and coach specifically to those stages.
Treating cold calling as a standalone silo
Isolated calling ignores the reality that buyers see emails, LinkedIn, ads, and website content alongside your phone outreach. Disconnected messaging confuses prospects and dilutes brand trust.
Instead: Align cold call scripts with your email copy, website messaging, and ABM campaigns. Build integrated sequences where calls reference prior touches and reinforce the same core narrative.
Action Items
Define or refresh your 2025 cold calling benchmarks
Set specific targets for dials per day, connect rate, conversations, and meetings by segment, based on current industry data and your own historical performance. Publish these benchmarks to the team and review them weekly.
Standardize a modern cold call framework and script library
Create persona-specific openers, value props, and objection-handling snippets organized in a simple flow (opener, reason, relevance, value, question, close). Role-play weekly so reps internalize the framework instead of reading a rigid script.
Tighten list-building and data quality controls
Audit your top data providers, remove bad records, and require verified direct dials for priority segments. Track meetings and pipeline by list source so you can double down on the ones that actually perform.
Implement or upgrade AI-powered dialing and coaching tools
Use AI to prioritize call times, automate voicemail drops, surface real-time prompts, and analyze talk tracks. Start with one or two high-impact use cases rather than trying to automate everything at once.
Build multi-channel, multi-touch outbound sequences
Design cadences that mix calls, emails, LinkedIn touches, and voicemails over 10-15 business days. Make sure every call references prior touches and offers something of value, such as an insight, benchmark, or micro-audit.
Consider partnering with a specialized cold calling agency
If you need pipeline faster than you can hire, ramp, and manage an in-house SDR team, evaluate a partner like SalesHive that can plug in trained SDRs, proven playbooks, and AI-powered tools without long-term contracts.
Partner with SalesHive
SalesHive’s model is simple: you get dedicated SDRs (US-based and, when appropriate, Philippines-based callers), a custom sales playbook, and an AI-powered platform that handles dialing, reporting, and email personalization. Their in-house eMod engine automatically personalizes cold emails so that your phone outreach is reinforced by relevant inbox touches, while verified calling lists and an integrated dialer help maximize connect rates. Because SalesHive runs on month-to-month agreements with risk-free onboarding, you can stand up a modern cold calling program quickly, test it in the real world, and scale it based on results instead of locking yourself into a long contract.
For B2B leaders who want to hit 2025 pipeline targets without reinventing the SDR wheel, partnering with a specialist like SalesHive is often the fastest, lowest-risk path to getting more high-quality meetings on the calendar.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Is cold calling still worth it in 2025 for B2B sales?
Yes, if you do it right. Average success rates sit around 2-3%, but top-performing outbound teams hit 6-10% meeting rates by using better data, AI-assisted workflows, and tight messaging. Buyers have not stopped taking calls, roughly 69% say they still accept cold calls when they are relevant, but they have no patience for generic pitches. For B2B teams selling higher ACV products, even a small bump in conversion can translate into a lot of pipeline.
How many cold calls should an SDR make per day?
Most benchmarks show around 50-60 dials per day for a full-time outbound SDR, with around a 7-10% connect rate in B2B. The real question is not just volume but whether those calls turn into conversations and meetings. A highly targeted SDR making 45 great calls with a 6-8% meeting rate usually beats someone doing 90 random dials into a bad list. Set volume expectations that still leave time for research, notes, and follow-up.
How many attempts should we make before giving up on a prospect?
Plan on 3-8 call attempts over 10-15 business days, supported by email and LinkedIn touches. Studies show most reachable prospects who will ever pick up do so by the 3rd to 5th attempt, yet nearly half of reps stop after the first call. After 5-6 high-quality attempts and supporting touches, it is reasonable to pause or recycle the record into a nurture segment.
What is a good cold call conversion rate in 2025?
At the top of the funnel, a healthy B2B cold calling motion often looks like this: 10-20% of dials connect to a person, 50-70% of those connects turn into real conversations, and 5-10% of conversations convert to meetings. That usually puts you in the 2-5% meeting-per-dial range overall. If you sell into enterprise or highly technical roles, you may see fewer meetings but much higher deal value, which still delivers strong ROI.
How does AI actually help with cold calling?
AI now assists across the entire outbound workflow: it can prioritize accounts, suggest the best times to call, auto-dial and leave smart voicemails, surface live coaching prompts during the call, and analyze recordings for patterns in talk tracks and objections. Teams using AI in outbound report 30-50% lifts in conversion and big gains in rep productivity because SDRs spend more time in conversations and less time on manual tasks.
Should we build an internal SDR team or outsource cold calling?
If you have the time, budget, and management bandwidth to hire, ramp, and coach SDRs, building in-house can work well. But many B2B companies underestimate the cost and complexity: recruiting, training, playbook development, tech stack, and ongoing management all add up. Outsourced partners like SalesHive already have trained SDRs, proven scripts, and AI-powered tools. For many teams, a hybrid model, a small internal SDR pod plus an external partner, provides the best of both worlds.
What does a modern cold call script look like?
Modern scripts are really flexible frameworks. A typical flow is: quick permission and pattern-interrupt opener, who you are and why you are calling, a one-sentence value proposition tailored to the persona, a relevance hook that ties to their role or industry, a focused question to engage them, and a clear, low-friction ask for a next step. The goal is to sound like a sharp human who did their homework, not a robot reading a page.