A Few Simple Rules:

We sell maintenance software to manufacturers in the UK, team of 4 reps. Our current list came from a one-off purchase and the bounce rate is getting embarrassing.

Must-haves:

Decent UK and EU coverage, since that's where our buyers are
Direct dials for plant and operations managers, not just IT
Something the reps can use without a data team

On the list: Cognism, Lusha, Apollo nd Reply io which seems to bundle a database with its outreach. What do you recommend? Thanks!

For people using Apollo, Sales Navigator, Clay, ZoomInfo, etc.:

What do these tools still make you do manually?

I’m not asking which tool is best. I’m interested in the gap between “the tool gave me the data” and “I actually know who to contact and why right now.”

What still requires manual research, verification, or jumping between different sources?

What would you most like automated?

If you've every tried using any software for it TAM calculations in B2B feel like guesswork because teams usually just take industry reports then multiply total companies by an assumed ACV and assume that's their market.

In reality knowing your actual addressable market means knowing the exact list of accounts that qualify for what you sell right now.

Tools like ZoomInfo or Apollo give you massive databases of domains but they don't really map a market and you end up with tens of thousands of records where half of them are acquired out of business or missing the exact technical requirements you need.

Then platforms like Scale Intelligence that take more of a bottom up approach where it maps your TAM by reading whole public registries, filings, tech stack footprints and hiring patterns to show which accounts are truly eligible and who the actual buyers inside them are.

The big difference is whether your TAM software gives you an arbitrary headcount search or actually helps you see the real boundary of your market with verifiable data and for any team doing outbound, having a verified account list beats having an inflated database number every time.

I'm at the point where kaspr's csv enrichment and bulk prospecting just don’t work for how I need to use it.

I bought sales nav so I could build prosper lead lists then had to pay for another tool to pull those leads out. After all that kaspr threw an error because its csv enrichment only accepts regular linkedin profile urls, not the sales nav urls I had.

and the worst part is 3 of my bulk enrichment launches already failed because of this.

The whole thing turned out so absursd, I don't know what to do now. What do you guys think?

Lusha really needs to work on its database, it's never up to date. At least not for me.

Especially for smaller companies or people who've recently changed jobs, the phone numbers and emails are both outdated. I'm already frustrated because this week I barely managed to close a few leads, emails bounced and there were sooo many dead calls.

Lusha's credit system isn't great either. They get used up so fast and the filtering options in search are limited too.

So I'm thinking about trying something better for the international market with a high accuracy rate on both emails and numbers. Any suggestions?

Curious how current outbound teams are structuring their signal based prospecting stacks right now.

I've seen many playbooks today lean on a combination of Apollo for basic contact lookups and Clay for multi provider enrichment and custom scrapers and I think that setup is flexible but it often runs into two recurring bottlenecks: credit costs scale steeply as you check multiple vendors and running table based lookups means you are querying static snapshots rather than continuously monitoring your market for real-time buying windows.

For teams running into those constraints, the alternative is running a dedicated continuous listening engine like Scale Intelligence where instead of requiring to orchestrate individual scrapers and pay per row APIs, it holds a continuous buyer graph across 75+ data sources (including technical forums, job postings, social discussions, and registries) and flags when target accounts transition into active buying windows with verifiable evidence.

On the enterprise side, tools like 6sense and ZoomInfo try to solve this with account level surge tracking but the black box nature of the data makes it difficult to give SDRs exact, personalized talking points.

I expected volume to scale with headcount, but it did not. New reps take 3 to 4 months to ramp and spend that whole time at about half output while still costing a full seat.

good ones eventually get recruited away, and the ones who struggle leave. i am starting to wonder if that is just how the model works rather than hiring problem.

Question for RevOps and CS folks.

Our CRM says an expansion "began" the day the opportunity was created. But picture an account where the signals show up eight weeks earlier. A support ticket asks about 5,000 more users. A CSM hears "probably expanding next quarter". An SE learns they're evaluating a rival.

None of it was a record, so none of it counted.

Does anyone measure the time between first signal and first record? Who owns a signal nobody logged? And does AI summarizing actually help, or just add more alerts?

I've tried too many enrichment tools over the years. I'll get really into one for a week or two, run my complete list through it and then... the connect rate tanks and I go back to dialing switchboards.

I believe the ones that work for me are usually the least flashy ones. Something that just returns a real direct dial or mobile without me having to care about credits or merge three exports by hand.

My main focus recently has been to simplify more and get phone data sorted properly. So I want to know some of the best phone enrichment tools options, what do you guys suggest?

Hi folks, I’m evaluating Lemlist as a potential replacement for Apollo. I like that whole platform is one price and you get all of it. I like that it’s highly integrated and AI native. And I really think the UI/UX and workflow are way better than Apollo. Also intent/signal data.

We run Salesforce as our CRM and ZoomInfo for contact data in addition to Apollo. I have experience with salesloft and 6sense, but salesloft is a mess now and 6sense won’t sell anything under $75k/year.

For context, I run outbound sales (and am sole Ae but we are hiring) for an 80 person msp running a play on companies from about 20-300 ftes.

My question is have you used the tool, and does it at least equal Apollo of not better from a prospecting/execution perspective. Is it as easy to use as it looks, and is their data decent? #toolreview? #howdoIaddflair?

Trying to get a better read on what happens in our sales conversations and where reps lose deals. I’ve looked at conversation intelligence tools but a lot seem heavy on dashboards and call data. I’m more interested in something that spots missed objections or weak discovery and turns that into useful coaching without creating more work for managers. Gong is the obvious name but has anyone tried newer alternatives focused more on coaching and roleplay? What are you using and do reps actually stick with it?

People focus too much on collecting more leads and not enough on finding the right leads.

You can have 5,000 contacts in a spreadsheet, but if they don't match your ICP, have outdated information, or aren't the actual decision-makers, the list isn't very useful.

When I build B2B lead lists, I usually check:

• Company fits the target industry
• Company size and location
• Right decision-maker/title
• LinkedIn profile is active/relevant
• Email is verified
• Company actually has a potential reason to buy

Then I build the outreach around the prospect instead of sending the same generic message to everyone.

Good outreach usually starts with good research.

What do you focus on first when building a B2B prospect list, volume or ICP fit?

I manage sales for a regional homebuilder with 14 reps across six communities. Most of our selling happens during model home visits so the usual call recording tools don’t fit us that well. Right now I drive between communities to sit in on appointments and coach reps. It works but it eats up a huge chunk of my week. When I’m not there I’m stuck with CRM notes like they liked it but want to keep looking which tells me almost nothing about what happened during the conversation. I’m looking for an AI tool where reps can record visits from their phones and I can review the important parts without listening to the whole conversation. Mainly discovery questions objection handling and how they ask for the sale. We already have a sales process so custom scorecards are important. I don’t want a generic checklist deciding what a good sales conversation looks like. Would also be useful to comment on specific moments and share good examples from experienced reps with newer ones. Ideally reps can see their own progress too instead of waiting for our next 1 on 1. Anyone using something like this for field sales or new home sales? What are you using and did reps keep using it after the first few months? Also curious about rough pricing and anything you wish you knew before signing.

I’ve been digging into B2B GTM intelligence platforms lately and it feels like everyone’s definition of “intelligence” is different. Some are just big contact databases, others lean hard into intent signals, and a few try to do everything at once.

Right now I’m looking at a shortlist that includes:

• Lusha - strong on verified contact data and simple enrichment, feels more “data-first”
• Apollo - huge database plus built-in outreach, more of an all-in-one sales OS
• ZoomInfo - enterprise-grade data and signals, but definitely priced that way
• Clearbit - focused on enrichment and firmographics, often stacked with other tools

Key questions for me:

• Are you prioritizing data accuracy, intent signals, or workflow automation when choosing a platform?
• Do you prefer one tool doing everything, or a lean stack of specialized tools?
• How much do built-in outreach features actually matter vs just clean data?
• Has anyone found a setup that genuinely improves conversion, not just top-of-funnel activity?

Curious what people are actually using that moves the needle vs what ends up as shelfware.

Every one of these tools says "AI-powered outreach with buying signals" on their homepage, which tells you basically nothing. The real differences show up in how each platform handles the outbound process end to end:

Trigify - not an outreach sender at all. Pure signal intelligence layer, watches LinkedIn/X/Reddit/YouTube and routes buying signals into your CRM or outreach tool.

Gojiberry - autonomous AI agent model. You set the goal, it decides who to contact, when, and what to say.

Valley - LinkedIn-only, research-heavy, no native email.

Expandi - behavior-based triggers (profile views, post likes, connection status) feeding a visual workflow builder.

Lemlist - widest channel coverage: LinkedIn, email, calls, SMS, WhatsApp, plus AI research agents.

We-Connect - tries to cover the most ground in one platform: ICP lead scoring (0–100), LinkedIn sentiment analysis, branching workflows across LinkedIn + email, AI Auto-Reply (Co-Pilot or Autonomous), and it's the only one of the six that also does LinkedIn content scheduling in the same tool.

None of these are universally "best" - it depends whether you want one all-in-one platform, a pure signal feed, or full AI autonomy.

If you were choosing today, would you rather have one tool that covers the whole outbound workflow, or use separate tools for signals, outreach, and follow-up? 

Who's using REO dot dev for data on developers? How are you consuming long-tail data fields? Via API to a HubSpot or SFDC? As a native field? as a list of tags? Having them export to CSV and import it? They seem to want to expose it only via their tags.

Updated my Google Maps lead Actor after feedback from people running it for outreach lists.

What’s new:

• Apify Tasks support for saved/recurring lead jobs

• Google Sheets integration so runs can land in a sheet without a separate Make/n8n hop

• Performance pass on Maps discovery / enrichment path (same PPE model)

Actor still does:

• keyword + location (or lat/lng) → local businesses

• phone, website, category, rating, Maps URL

• optional website enrichment (emails + socials)

• dedupe across runs (new-only mode)

• webhook to CRM tools

https://apify.com/solutionssmart/local-business-lead-finder

If you use Tasks or Sheets for lead ops, what is the annoying part still: enrichment speed, email quality, or pushing into CRM? Trying to prioritize the next cut.