BuildingReach (formerly Socials for Trades), an outbound agency specializing in commercial trades and facility services, scaled from zero to over $2 million ARR in just 18 months using Smartlead.Â
By developing message-market fit through rapid campaign testing and leveraging email as their primary growth channel, founders Ethan Chamish and Neil Bali grew from initial concept to serving 120+ active clients; all while their own lead generation overwhelmed their sales team's capacity.
Ethan Chamish and Neel Bali founded BuildingReach approximately 1.5 years ago after extensive experience in the commercial trade space.Â
Ethan specialized in marketing and lead generation, while Neel brought expertise in sales and customer success. Together, they identified a significant opportunity: owner-operator organizations in facility services, from elevator repair to HVAC and plumbing; needed better systems to connect with property and building managers.
"We saw a real opportunity for an outbound agency focusing specifically on this sector, the commercial trades and facility services side of things, helping owner operator orgs connect with more property and building managers," Ethan explained.
BuildingReach's core philosophy centered on "eating their own dog food"—using the exact outbound systems they sell to clients to power their own growth. This approach proved their methodology while scaling the business.
The agency currently serves trades businesses exclusively through email outbound, with LinkedIn automation systems in development. All 120+ active clients are hosted and managed through Smartlead.
BuildingReach chose Smartlead as their foundational infrastructure after evaluating the competitive landscape.Â
"At the end of the day, you have to take a bet on one tool or another. It was a no-brainer taking that bet on Smartlead," Ethan stated.
Leveraged email's speed and affordability to ship "tens of 20 of campaigns to different targets and test different messaging" until finding offers that generated healthy inbox metrics and strong reply rates.
Hosted all 120+ active client campaigns within Smartlead, managing hundreds of email accounts, domains, and sequences from a centralized platform with clear visibility and control.
Built sophisticated campaign sequences for their own lead generation, launching major campaign waves (particularly in November) that dramatically increased inbound lead flow to their sales team.
Utilized Global Analytics to spot problems faster, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions across all client accounts—calling it "a big unlock" for agency operations.
Began integrating SmartProspect for lead sourcing, recognizing its potential as "a very big unlock for our agency" despite not yet fully utilizing all capabilities.
Developed repeatable systems proven through their own success that could be replicated across diverse commercial trades clients, from HVAC to elevator repair companies.
Scaled to over $2 million ARR in just 18 months, all powered through Smartlead-based outbound campaigns and referrals from satisfied clients.
Served 300+ total clients since launch, currently maintaining 120+ active client relationships simultaneously—all managed through Smartlead infrastructure.
Internal campaigns jumped from 37 leads per week (7.4 per day) in Q3 to 136 leads per week in November after launching new campaign sequences—a 266% increase.
Weekly pipeline opportunity value surged from $240,000 in Q3 to $884,000 in November—a 268% increase demonstrating campaign quality, not just quantity.
Marketing campaigns generated more volume than the sales team could handle:Â
"We had to even turn down the volume of our marketing campaigns... Smart Lead was capable of driving more volume than our sales team was able to fulfill."
Successfully proved their approach by achieving exceptional results with the same systems sold to clients, creating powerful social proof and referral momentum.
Built scalable infrastructure supporting continued growth without proportional increases in operational complexity or tooling costs.
Ethan identified several critical factors that made Smartlead the foundation of BuildingReach's success:
"Without a doubt, in my opinion, the fastest and most affordable channel to achieve message-market fit. We've only been able to reach a state where any channel could work for us now because we've found message-market fit through email."
"Once you have an offer that lands, it's hard to find a cheaper or more scalable channel to reach all of your TAM than email... it's like controlling your own private ad network."
"From the top down and every single team member there... it was betting on the team and not just the tool."Â
The decision to build a $2M+ business on Smartlead came from confidence in the people behind the platform.
"Global Analytics is a big unlock. It can help us make better decisions, spot problems faster, spot trends and opportunities as well."
"Smartlead has an amazing support team. You can tell they actually have the customer first in mind and they actually do care and want to solve your problems," with special recognition for Akash and Vijay.
The Slack community provides validation of issues, inspiration for new campaigns and integrations, and connection with like-minded professionals in a niche space.
BuildingReach continues expanding its Smartlead implementation, rolling out LinkedIn automation while maintaining email as their primary growth and client fulfillment channel.
By betting on Smartlead, BuildingReach scaled from concept to $2+ million ARR in 18 months, serving 120+ active clients in the commercial trades space.Â
The platform's ability to facilitate rapid message-market fit testing, scale affordably, and manage complex multi-client infrastructure enabled founders to prove their methodology while building a thriving agency, ultimately generating so many leads they had to throttle their own marketing.
This case demonstrates how specialized agencies can leverage Smartlead's infrastructure and economics to build substantial businesses by "eating their own dog food"—using the exact systems they sell to achieve remarkable growth for both themselves and their clients.
Ready to scale your agency like BuildingReach? Sign up for Smartlead's 14-day free trial and build your own $2M+ ARR success story.
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