Automate Social Media and Lead Follow-up | Rahel Gunaratne
Most owners don't have a lead problem, they have a follow-up problem. Rahel Gunaratne demos Outbound HQ at East Trade Winds.
Hosts: Percy Barr, Wayne Pratt and Bernie Franzgrote
East Trade Winds with Rahel Gunaratne: AI drip campaigns, six-platform social posts, and a unified inbox built for small business owners.
GROWTH CATEGORY: AI & Automation
Brought to you by East Trade Winds and Profit10™.
Most business owners don't have a lead problem.
They have a follow-up problem.
Rahel Gunaratne, founder of Outbound HQ, walked the East Trade Winds room through a working fix, a tool built for owners who started posting, ran out of time, and stopped.
Watch the full conversation here:
Who this is for
SMB owners, solopreneurs, corporate escapees, and leaders building systems.
Key lessons
1. The follow-up gap is where most deals die. Owners chase leads, get a few replies, and lose the rest because nobody owns the next email. Rahel built a five-email drip that runs over thirty days, written by AI in the owner's brand voice, with a trigger that pulls anyone who books a call off the list. The system runs. The owner stops dropping balls.
2. AI keeps your voice when it learns from your past content. Outbound HQ reads what the owner has already posted, then writes in that voice. The first time the design assistant asks a question, the answer becomes saved context. The tool builds preferences as it gets used. The owner sounds like the owner.
3. The human stays in the loop on every send. Nothing posts automatically. Every email, every social post, sits in a queue until the owner clicks approve. Rejecting a post asks why, and that feedback trains the system. The owner keeps editorial control without doing the typing.
Practical steps
- Pick one channel where your follow-up is broken — email, LinkedIn DMs, or Instagram replies — and write down what a five-touch sequence would say.
- Choose one tool this week to handle that sequence. Outbound HQ is one option. Whatever you pick, set a trigger that removes anyone who books a call.
- Set a weekly approval block. Fifteen minutes on a fixed day. Review what the system wrote. Approve or reject. Move on.
About the guest
Rahel Gunaratne is the founder of Outbound HQ and Web Indexer. He helps small businesses solve the problem of being overlooked online — optimising the digital footprint, automating the outreach, and giving owners back the hours they were losing to manual content work. Reach him on LinkedIn.
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Partners on this episode
- East Trade Winds — Free weekly networking that goes somewhere. Tuesdays 8–9 AM EST.
- Profit10™ — Take the free Profit Snapshot. Ten questions. See where your business is leaking profit.
FAQ
What does Outbound HQ actually do?
It runs lead drip campaigns by email and SMS, generates and schedules social posts across six platforms, and pulls every reply into one inbox.
Does the AI post on its own?
No. Every email and every post sits in an approval queue. The owner clicks approve before anything goes live.
Who is it built for?
Solopreneurs, freelancers, and SMB owners who tried to grow a brand, ran out of time, and stopped. The pitch is to people whose follow-up has broken down.
