#98 John Karsant: SDRs in the Age of AI, Cold Calling, and Building Pipeline Without Hiring

John Karsant shares the unexpected path that took him from college tennis and coaching to sales, remote work, and ultimately founding LevelUp Leads in 2021. John explains how a bold life move—quitting coaching and moving to Argentina to learn Spanish—pushed him to find one of the rare remote roles available in 2015, where he became the first SDR at a small startup and learned sales by wearing multiple hats.In this conversation, John breaks down what appointment setting really looks like today and why many companies choose outsourced SDR support instead of building an internal team. He explains the real costs and risks of hiring in-house (tools, management, ramp time, churn) and why SDR turnover makes consistency hard to maintain. John also walks through the different ways teams use outsourced outbound: testing new markets, launching new products, expanding internationally with native English speakers, or covering peak demand around conferences and events.Federico and John dive into what’s working now across outbound channels. John shares why cold calling is the strongest single channel today, and why a multi-channel approach (calls + email + LinkedIn) can improve conversion by adding touchpoints and awareness. They also talk about common mistakes companies make—especially setting unrealistic meeting goals without prior outbound data—and why outbound should often start as a testing and learning process, not an immediate ROI play. John offers a practical view on when to adjust campaigns and how to avoid overreacting too early.Finally, John tackles the big question: SDRs in the age of AI. He shares why most buyers assume messages are AI-written, how to keep personalization human, and why real relationships—podcasts, events, in-person connections—matter more than ever. He closes with his outlook on the future of SDR work: outbound is getting harder and more crowded, but the need for human-to-human selling isn’t going away.About John Karsant:- https://levelupleads.io- https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkarsant/- https://x.com/JkarsantAbout Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers- 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/- 🌐 https://densitylabs.io- ✅ https://prevetted.ai🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡- 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast- 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod- 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast