u/Hadis_b2bsales

I used to look at lead gen mostly as a volume problem.

Not enough replies? Find more people. Pipeline looks thin? Add more leads. Campaign slows down? Build another list.

But the more I’ve worked with outbound, the more I think a bad list at 10x the size is still just a bad list.

Sometimes 50 companies with a clear reason to care outperform thousands that technically match the ICP.

Curious what changed this for other people.

Was there a campaign, client, channel, or specific result that made you stop caring as much about lead volume and focus more on lead quality?

And what do you actually look at now before deciding a lead is worth contacting?

Had this happen a few times now and I’m curious how others handle it.

The prospect tests the product, technical side looks good, they get the results they were looking for, and during the calls everything sounds positive.

Then the pace completely changes.

“Need to discuss internally.”

“We’re reviewing.”

“Will get back to you.”

And suddenly a deal that felt pretty real starts moving at 10% of the speed it was moving during the test.

I used to think getting through the technical evaluation was the hard part. Starting to realize that might just be one step of a much longer process.

For people who sell into enterprise, what usually happens after a successful test on your side?

Do you try to get procurement/budget owners involved before the test finishes? Set a clear next step before giving them access? Or is this slowdown just normal and you learn to live with it?

Would be interested to hear what’s worked for people who deal with this regularly.

There’s a lot of B2B marketing advice that sounds completely reasonable when you first hear it.

Post consistently. More leads = more opportunities. Personalize every cold email. Be everywhere your audience is. Never stop following up.

Some of it works. Some of it only works in the right situation. And some of it you keep doing for months because everyone else says you should.

What’s one piece of B2B marketing advice you followed for way too long before realizing it just wasn’t working for you?

And what changed your mind?

I keep seeing people say the same things lately.

Cold email is dead. SEO is dead. LinkedIn is too crowded. Webinars don’t work anymore.

Then you talk to someone who’s still getting a good chunk of their leads from one of those.

Starting to think most channels don’t really die. They just stop being easy.

What are you still getting results from that everyone else seems to have written off?

And what do you think is making it work for you?

I was wondering about this as almost anything nowadays has some kind of automated solution.

From lead research, emails, content, reporting, CRM-related activities, follow-ups – there is much that you can automate.

However, there were occasions when automation only made the result worse, and I ended up doing things manually again, lol.

What’s one thing in your marketing process that you still like to do manually?

And what did you try to automate which wasn’t worth the effort?