Apex Staffing is a 12-person recruitment agency specializing in healthcare and nursing placements across the UK. Before SDR GROW, their outbound consisted of one consultant manually sending LinkedIn messages and occasional cold emails. The results were inconsistent — some months produced meetings, most months produced nothing. Their reply rate sat at 1.5%.
Three weeks after implementing SDR GROW, their reply rate hit 11%. Here is exactly what changed.
What Was Apex Staffing Doing Before?
Their outbound process had four problems common to most recruitment agencies:
- Single channel. All outreach was through LinkedIn messages. No email sequences, no multi-channel coordination.
- Two touches maximum. If the first message got no reply, they sent one follow-up and moved on. Most replies happen between touch 5 and touch 12.
- Generic messaging. Every message opened with "We specialize in healthcare recruitment." No personalization, no insight, no reason for the prospect to engage.
- No deliverability infrastructure. When they did send email, they used their primary business domain with no SPF, DKIM, or DMARC configured. Open rates were below 25%.
What Did We Change in Week 1?
Week 1 was infrastructure. No outreach went live until the foundation was set.
- Set up dedicated sending domains. We created two outbound domains with proper SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. Read our deliverability guide for the technical details.
- Built the ICP list. We sourced 800 healthcare decision-makers — Practice Managers, HR Directors, and Operations leads at NHS trusts and private healthcare groups. Every contact was verified and enriched.
- Defined brand voice. We interviewed Apex's founder to capture their tone: direct, empathetic, and clinical expertise-led. Every message would sound like their best consultant, not a template.
- Configured the 16-touch sequence. 8 email touches + 8 LinkedIn touches coordinated across 30 days.
What Happened in Week 2?
Domain warming ran during Week 1. By Week 2, deliverability was strong enough to launch.
The first email batch went to 150 contacts. Results from the first 7 days:
- Open rate: 62% — Confirmed deliverability was healthy
- Reply rate: 7% — Already above industry average on the first batch
- 3 meetings booked from positive replies
Simultaneously, LinkedIn touches went live. Profile views, content engagement, and connection requests preceded the email outreach. Prospects saw the Apex name on LinkedIn before the email arrived.
What Changed in Week 3?
By Week 3, the compounding effect kicked in. Prospects who had received 6+ touches across two channels began replying at higher rates. The competitive intelligence module flagged two NHS trusts that were publicly posting frustrations about their current staffing provider. Apex reached out with targeted messages referencing those specific concerns.
Results at the end of Week 3:
- Reply rate: 11% (across all contacts in the sequence)
- 8 qualified meetings booked
- 2 proposals sent (from the NHS trust outreach)
- Open rate sustained at 58%+
"Within 3 weeks, we had more qualified meetings than the previous 4 months combined. The system does exactly what it promises — predictable pipeline." — Sarah L., Founder, Apex Staffing
What Were the Key Factors Behind the Results?
Three things drove the improvement:
- Multi-channel coordination. LinkedIn and email working together created familiarity before the pitch. Prospects recognized the Apex name from LinkedIn when the email arrived.
- Sequence depth. Going from 2 touches to 16 touches meant Apex was present in the prospect's inbox and feed over a full month. Most replies came from touches 6–10.
- Competitive intelligence. The two NHS trust deals came directly from monitoring competitor complaints. Without the intelligence module, those opportunities would have been invisible.
What Is Apex Staffing Doing Now?
Three months after launch, Apex maintains a steady 9–12% reply rate. They have expanded their ICP list to 2,000+ contacts and are running two concurrent sequences — one for NHS trusts and one for private healthcare groups. The system generates 10–15 qualified meetings per month.
Their outbound is no longer dependent on one consultant's manual effort. It is a machine that runs whether the team is busy with placements or not.
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Apex Staffing did not change their service offering. They did not hire new people. They did not rebrand. They built outbound infrastructure: verified contacts, multi-channel sequences, brand voice alignment, and competitive intelligence. The system produced 8 meetings in 3 weeks and continues to generate pipeline every month. That is what structured outbound looks like.