A solo consultant's 21-step n8n workflow finds and emails prospects on its own
In plain words
An agile coach built an 'AI operating system' with Claude Code: n8n pulls prospects from Apollo, reads their LinkedIn posts, has Claude write personal emails and loads them into Instantly.
What happened: Finding and emailing prospects now runs without them, using 60–90% less AI processing per run.
Source: contra.com ↗
How to do it yourself
Our suggested steps. The company didn't publish theirs.
- 1
Export 50 ideal prospects from Apollo (or LinkedIn Sales Nav).
- 2
In n8n, loop through each and grab their latest post or company news.
- 3
Send each to Claude with the prompt below.
- 4
Push the email into Instantly as a draft sequence you approve.
- 5
Track replies and tune the prompt every 100 sends.
The instructions to give the AI
Paste this into Claude (the free plan is fine), swap the [brackets] for your details, and test it on a few real examples.
This is one part of the setup. It won't connect to your phone, inbox or other apps on its own; the steps above cover that.
Agent instructions (prompt)
Write a cold email to [name], [role] at [company]. Their recent post/news: [paste]. My offer: [one line]. 80 words max, mention their post naturally in the first line, one clear ask, no fluff, no 'I hope this finds you well'.
[Highlighted] = replace with your own details before you run it.
What you should get back: "Hi Priya — saw your post on hiring 5 SDRs. We cut ramp time in half. Worth 15 minutes?"
Written by Quickly and Good, inspired by this case.
More detail: tools, prices and what you'll need
The company used: n8n + Claude + Apollo + Instantly
You could use: n8n + Claude + Apollo + Instantly
- Claude
AI assistant for writing, analysis and long documents; can connect to your tools.
Free plan; Pro $20/mo (monthly) · Official site ↗
- n8n
Workflow automation that connects apps and adds AI steps; can be self-hosted.
Free to self-host (Community Edition); cloud: see pricing · Official site ↗
Prices from each tool's own pricing page, checked Oct 2026.
What you'll need
- ☐An automation tool (n8n, Make or Zapier)
- ☐Connections to each app involved (email, CRM, sheets, calendar)
- ☐An AI model account/API key
- ☐The agent instructions (prompt)
- ☐Error handling: what happens when a step fails
- ☐Testing with real data for a week
- ☐A human review step before anything goes out to customers
Can I do this myself?
Yes if you have built a Zapier/Make/n8n workflow before. If those words are new, hire a builder.
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