Lieben posts a six step Claude Code build from CRM to first send

Michel Lieben published a six step workflow for building a TAM and a TAL inside Claude Code, starting in the CRM and ending with the first send. TAM is the total addressable market, every company that could fit. TAL is the target account list, the ones you actually email first.

Step one is pulling closed-won and closed-lost deals out of the CRM, Lieben says his team uses folk, and comparing them on industry, size, region, tech stack and who signed. That comparison is the ICP model everything downstream scores against. Step two builds the account list deliberately wide, then strips current customers and open deals before anything else so you do not cold email your own book.

Step three tags every account by region, industry and company size, producing segments like UK Tech or DACH Services, then has AI validate the filters. Is it SaaS or agency, self-serve or sales-led, SMB or enterprise buyers. His argument for bothering is blunt. If you sell to both a US SaaS and a German manufacturer, they cannot get the same email.

Michel Lieben

@MichLieben

X

If you sell to both a US SaaS and a German manufacturer, they can't get the same email.

Blast first or enrich first

Step four is the fork most senders will recognise. Path A is for big segments, blast a free offer to the whole thing and only enrich the people who reply, which Lieben suggests running through Instantly for email and Expandi for LinkedIn. Path B inverts it for segments where every account counts, filter down, add intent and tech stack data from PredictLeads or BuiltWith, then enrich what is left.

Step five scores each account against the ICP model and sorts it into three tiers.

T1 gets priority on every channel. T2 gets volume, cold email only. T3 gets nurtured and re-scored every month

Step six finds three personas per account where possible, who signs, who uses it and who weighs in. The first email goes to T1 crossed with the decision maker.

Read the provider list as a pitch

Lieben sells ColdIQ, a unified API with one key across 40 plus providers, accessed through an MCP in Claude Code. The workflow is written so that unlimited lookups make over-including free at step two and monthly re-scoring of T3 cheap at step five, which is the product's selling point rather than a neutral finding. The named standalone providers inside his waterfall include Prospeo, AI Ark, Apollo, FullEnrich and Findymail.

For people sending, the sequencing is the part that transfers regardless of tooling. Define the ICP from deals you already closed and lost, suppress existing relationships before the first lookup, then decide per segment whether enrichment comes before or after the send. Lieben has posted Claude Code builds before, and this is the account-selection layer that sits above them.