Grease Trap Cleaners had never sent a cold email. Then 16 leads in 12 days.
Ten years of customers, all from Google. Here's how we built their first outbound engine, the bet that didn't pay off and the simple email framework that did.
16
leads from 5,836 kitchens about 1 in every 365 kitchens we emailed asked for a price, a call or a visit
Commercial kitchen services · Cold email · First outbound ever
01 / At a glance
The numbers
16leads in 12 days
5,836kitchens emailed
1 in 365kitchens became a lead
33closed-won customers the targeting came from
0leads from 1,479 emails built around a signal
0outbound before we started
"What we really want is a playbook."
Gabriel Martelino, owner, on our first call
02 / Who they are
A great business that had never prospected
Grease Trap Cleaners pumps grease traps, picks up used cooking oil and cleans drains for commercial kitchens. Gabriel Martelino owns it. Matt Davolio runs sales.
They've been at it for ten years. Every customer they have found them on Google and called in.
"We have never approached the restaurants next door."
Gabriel Martelino, owner
IndustryCommercial kitchen maintenance: grease traps, used oil, drains
Engagement90 days: data, lists, email, calling and a playbook to run it
03 / The challenge
Starting from zero, with a lot to protect
They'd never sent a cold email or made a cold call. Their worries going in were the ones every first-time outbound team has.
What goes out in their name."We're not ready to shoot any emails out until we approve everything."
Getting dragged into price.Matt didn't want to open with the lowest price in town and start a race to the bottom.
The brush-offs.Gabriel: "We know they're gonna say, 'We already have someone.' We know they're already gonna say, 'What's your price?'"
He wanted to go anyway.
"I'd rather try and fail than not try at all."
Gabriel Martelino, before launch
04 / How we tackled it
We built them a revenue engine
Gabriel didn't want a few campaigns. He wanted a system his team could keep running after we left. We built it in four steps.
1
33
Start from closed-won
Their best customers, the deals they'd already won.
2
16
Find the buying signals
Our 3,000-signal workflow found 377 public events across those accounts. 16 signals kept showing up before a kitchen signed.
3
Who buys
Build the lists
Kitchens showing the signals, plus every decision maker in the types of kitchen that buy. Existing customers taken out.
4
2 channels
Go after them
Calling and email side by side. A new angle every couple of weeks. Keep what gets leads.
"Overall, I'm very happy with the amount of detail in that. Very, very good... just a layer of confidence on what you guys are doing."
Matt DavolioDirector of Sales and Business Development, Grease Trap Cleaners · on the lead database we built them
05 / What the signals showed
Who their best customers really were
The signal work told us more about their customers than ten years of inbound had.
14 of 33best customers were kitchens in flux: a new site, a taken-over space or a fresh kitchen permit.
How fast a signal turned into a customer
Health citation
6 days
Grease trap permit
70 days
A new owner in an old kitchen buys.One pizzeria took over a former cafe, filed a permit for a grease trap and became a customer 70 days later. The new owner had no vendor yet.
Permits flag the bigger accounts.Kitchens that had filed a kitchen or plumbing permit tended to sign bigger contracts.
Some of the best accounts aren't restaurants.They come through facility managers who run kitchens for someone else.
Schools were a guess.The report flagged school kitchens as worth testing, with no customer to prove it. Two school districts became leads.
That last point changed the list. We stopped thinking "restaurants" and started thinking "anywhere with a commercial kitchen".
06 / What we all expected
Everyone thought the phones would win
They're a phone company at heart. Every customer calls in. Matt put it simply: "Our culture is very, like, call first."
I went in with the same bias. A couple of years ago I'd have told you email to restaurants was "a complete and total waste of time." So we ran both.
Cold calling · 6 to 23 Oct
Dials2,610
Conversations198
Meetings1
1 meetingPeople picked up and talked. It barely booked.
Cold email · 21 Oct to 2 Nov
Emails13,395
Kitchens5,836
Leads16
16 leadsKitchens asking for prices, calls and site visits.
Bars show the steps, not the scale.
The line we heard most on the phone was "we already have a vendor." That's exactly what Gabriel said we'd hear. A cold call asks someone to switch vendors on the spot. An email lets them answer when they're ready.
07 / The bet that didn't pay off
We bet on the signals. The plain email won.
We thought the signals would be the message. If a kitchen just changed owners, say so. If it just had an inspection, open with that. It felt like the most relevant email anyone could send.
It wasn't. Every email we wrote around a signal came back empty.
New owner175 sent
0
Kitchen rebuild98 sent
0
New kitchen344 sent
0
Inspection550 sent
0
Vendor approval312 sent
0
The plain email17,923 sent over two runs
17
Leads per campaign. The signal angles also ran as single "who handles this?" emails, with the same result.
So the signals did their job. They told us which kitchens to go after and which kinds of kitchen to add to the list. They just made a bad opening line.
A kitchen manager doesn't care that you noticed their permit. They care whether the trap gets pumped and what it costs. A plain, simple email to the right list beat a clever one every time.
08 / The framework that worked
Three short emails, one thread
We're not publishing the exact emails. Those belong to Grease Trap Cleaners. Here's the framework underneath them, block by block, so you can build your own.
Email 1 · day 1The memory question8 leadsfrom 5,836 sent
A question they can answer from memory.Something about their own operation, not about you.
One line on what you do.Plain words. What gets handled and what they get after.
A small, free offer.Something useful that doesn't need a meeting.
An easy yes.A question they can answer in one word.
A friendly way out.A one-word reply for "not now", so nobody feels sold to.
The first line does the work. A manager who knows the answer replies with it. Now you're in a conversation.
Email 2 · 3 days laterThe two-line nudge7 leadsfrom 5,025 sent
The pattern you see most.One sentence about what usually goes wrong for businesses like theirs.
One easy thing to reply with.And what they'll get back if they do.
Two sentences, same thread, so it reads like a nudge. It earned leads at the same rate as the first email.
Email 3 · 4 days laterThe polite exit1 leadfrom 2,534 sent
Maybe you're already fine.Say it, and mean it. For a lot of readers it's true.
A one-word reply if you're not.Make the next step as small as possible.
It closes the loop cleanly. It also pulled the least, so keep it short or test cutting it.
Write your own
Fill-in versions of the framework, with our lessons already built in.
Email 1 template
Subject: [Thing you service] at {Company}
Hi {First name},
When was the [thing you service] at {Company} last [done]? A lot of teams can't say who booked it.
We [what you do] for [type of business]. [One true line of proof. If you don't have one, cut this.]
Want a price for {Company}?
Reply "no thanks" if you're not looking right now.
{Your name}
Email 2 template
Hi {First name},
The thing we see most: [the problem you find, in one sentence].
If you reply with [what they have now] and roughly how often, I'll send you a price by [day].
{Your name}
Email 3 template
Hi {First name},
Last note from me. If [the problem] is already handled at {Company}, you're ahead of most and I'll leave it there.
If not, reply "price" and I'll send one over.
{Your name}
09 / What the leads said
They didn't want a review. They wanted a price.
We could read 15 of the 16 replies. Here's what they asked for, names removed.
A price or a quote7
A call or a site visit3
Something else: a plain yes, an answer, "who are you?", a forward5
"If you can send us a quote we'll consider a vendor change."
Chef and owner
"Yes, I'd like to schedule a site visit in the coming weeks."
Hotel
Nobody asked for the free offer. Remember Gabriel's prediction? They asked what it costs.
Who replied
9 restaurants and food businesses2 school districts2 nonprofit kitchens1 hotel1 distillery
6 of the 15 weren't restaurants. Anywhere with a commercial kitchen has a grease trap. The signal work is why they were on the list.
10 / What we'd do next time
Six lessons
Use signals to pick who, not what to say.The signals showed us who buys. Every email that led with one got zero leads. The plain one got 17.
Have a price ready.Almost half the leads asked for one. You don't have to open with the cheapest number in town. But answer with a range the same day.
Don't stop at restaurants.Schools, nonprofits, a hotel and a distillery all replied. Your data can point you there before your gut does.
Ask what they know by heart.A question about their own kitchen got answered in three words.
Always send the follow-up.Two sentences pulled almost as many leads as the first email.
Answer the same day.A kitchen that asks for a quote on Tuesday will ask someone else by Thursday.
Want results like these?
If you sell to restaurants, commercial kitchens or any local business, book a call with our team. We'll show you how we'd build this for you.
If this all looks like a lot, no worries. We run it for you: the signals, the lists, the emails, the calls and the follow-up.
James Nolle, co-founder of Revlution. Email numbers from EmailBison as of 2 November 2026; the headline 16 counts 21 October to 2 November. A lead is a reply the team marked interested. Calling numbers from our dialer, 6 to 23 October. Gabriel's and Matt's quotes are word for word from our recorded calls. Prospects are unnamed. Nothing here is rounded up.
