Not gonna lie ive been bouncing between a few diffrent strategies for b2b saas leads and curious whats working for others right now.

We're at 18k MRR selling to mid-market teams. Cold email used to be our bread and butter but response rates tanked hard this year. Now doing a mix of LinkedIn outbound (manual not automated), some content marketing thats starting to pick up, and testing paid search but the CAC is brutal honestly.

For cold outreach we pull contacts from Apollo and a couple other databases then personalize based on thier tech stack. Getting maybe 8-10% reply rates which feels low. My cofounder keeps saying we should try Prospeo becuase someone in his network swears by it but havent pulled the trigger yet.

What channels are driving most of your pipeline? And if your doing outbound, what kind of response rates are you seeing lately? Trying to figure out if we need to completely pivot our saas lead gen approach or just optimize what we have.

Loss reason, next step, close date, lead source — pick your poison.

Every CRM has at least one field everyone pretends is clean because the dashboard depends on it. Reps fill it because it is required. Managers read the chart because it is there. Then the business makes decisions off a value nobody would defend in a one-on-one conversation.

The weird part is that making the field mandatory often makes the report look better before the data gets better.

For teams that actually fixed this: what changed?

Did you remove fields, audit them against calls/emails, change who enters them, or just stop pretending some values belonged in the CRM at all?

I look after CRM reporting for a B2B SaaS team and I’m putting together our quarterly churn review. CS logs a cancellation reason for every account and there are notes from renewal calls and save attempts. That’s what we use to group the losses and explain them to leadership

For accounts marked low usage, I still want to know what changed in their day to day work and where that work went.

The notes don’t always get that far. We rarely speak to customers again after cancellation so the explanation entered at the time carries straight into the review. Some have been gone for a few months now and I’m struggling to tell how much of the story we ever got

I’m looking for GTM and growth roles where I can own the strategy, run the experiments and build the systems behind them.

I’ve worked with teams from EF and YC, alongside other funded startups. At Pavo, I was the sole engineer building the GTM platform used by a 14-person revenue team, with systems supporting a $660K+ sales pipeline.

Here’s some of the work I’ve built and run:

A Slack agent for messy CRM and pipeline operations. Sales context was scattered across conversations, calls and CRM records. I built an agent that reads those conversations, extracts deal information, updates Attio and assesses deals against a 13-signal health checklist. It also prepares meeting briefs, drafts follow-ups and surfaces stalled deals. The team could work from Slack while the system handled much of the CRM upkeep.

A D2C acquisition motion built around a brand audit tool. Built a research tool that analysed brands through their product catalogue, ads, reviews and technology signals. Used the audit as the entry point for a PLG-style acquisition motion at a major trade show. 70% of booth visitors booked a discovery call. The work covered the research, the offer and the path into a sales conversation.

ICP refinement and outbound across 129 campaigns. Worked on targeting, enrichment and personalised outreach across 12,800+ prospects. Used hiring activity and company signals to identify relevant accounts, then built messaging around a specific reason to reach out.

Campaign analysis that changed where we focused. Found a segment with an 8.3% reply rate against a 4.4% overall baseline and used that finding to refine targeting. The roughly 2× difference was between segments; it helped us decide where to concentrate the next round of outreach.

The infrastructure to keep learning. Built and live-tested a Botdog → Postgres → Attio pipeline to connect outreach activity, messages and replies to company records. That made campaign performance and follow-up easier to inspect.

I make build-versus-buy decisions around the workflow. Sometimes an existing tool is enough; sometimes a small custom integration saves the team hours. I want the team to understand and operate what I hand over.

What I can own

• ICP research, positioning and acquisition strategy.
• Outbound campaigns, messaging, follow-up and partnership experiments.
• PLG and audit-led acquisition motions.
• Funnel analysis, onboarding and conversion improvements.
• CRM operations, deal visibility and GTM automation.

Stack: Attio, Apollo, Clearbit, Sumble, Smartlead, Botdog, Fathom, Slack, Google Workspace, Meta Ad Library, Python, SQL/Postgres, APIs, Claude/Gemini, Docker and GCP.

Available immediately for remote GTM/growth roles, contracts or retainers. Based in India and available for US or EU business hours.

Agencies: open to white-label work and overflow execution, including research, outreach operations, growth experiments and client systems.

Happy to share my background and relevant walkthroughs over DM. Tell me what you sell and where the customer journey gets stuck.

Never dealt with business banking before and just realized we're leaving cash sitting in a checking account doing nothing. What should I even be looking for in a small business savings account to make sure we're not wasting runway?

I’ve been comparing plumbing software for my site, Tools In The Wild, and I’m sharing the main takeaways from each comparison here. This one covers plumbing CRM software. I used our desktop and iPhone testing notes, plus vendor documentation, to compare seven options. I focused on customer records, properties, and communication. I’d love to hear from people using these systems day to day, especially if there’s something I missed or alternatives you love.

One thing I paid particular attention to was managed properties. The tenant who needs an arrival update, the owner approving a repair, and the property manager handling the invoice may all be different people. Saving their contact details is only part of the job. The software also needs to make it clear who gets each message and where unfinished follow-up belongs.

Main things I cared about:

• organizing customers, properties, and the different people attached to a job
• finding previous work when a call starts with an address or phone number
• choosing service-update, estimate, and invoice recipients
• keeping follow-up visible and checking which plans include the required tools

Here’s my breakdown:

FieldPulse

FieldPulse was my overall pick for growing residential and light-commercial plumbing businesses. Multiple contacts, locations, related customer accounts, and custom fields give the office room to organize more than a homeowner’s name and one service address.

For example, you can designate the tenant as the job contact, then choose the owner for an estimate and the property manager for an invoice in the Email To field. Automated job messages follow the designated job contact.

The important catch is that Bill to Parent saves the billing party, with overrides on individual documents. It doesn’t save separate email-routing rules. The office still needs to select the correct document recipients before sending.

Custom fields can hold account references or property instructions, with visibility controlled by staff role. Mentions in job and estimate comments also support team communication. Pricing is a custom quote based on seats and configured products, and the flexibility works best when the office agrees on how to organize the records.

Housecall Pro

Housecall Pro has a more prescribed residential setup. With parent/child billing, a tenant saved as a sub-customer receives visit-status updates, while estimates, invoices, and receipts go to the billing parent by default. That can be convenient when the parent is also the person approving the work. If the owner is different from the billing parent, the office still needs to add the owner to the estimate email.

The linked tasks were useful for follow-up. From an estimate, you could create a task, assign it to a teammate, and mark it complete. That gives an outstanding call or return-visit follow-up a named owner instead of leaving it in a note that someone has to remember to check.

Jobber

Jobber is a good starting point for solo plumbers and smaller teams that want clients, properties, and previous work kept in a fairly simple structure. A landlord can remain the client while each rental house has its own property record.

Additional contacts can identify a tenant or the office administrator handling billing. However, marking someone as a billing contact adds their email alongside the main client’s email when sending quotes or invoices. It doesn’t replace the main recipient.

There’s also an access detail worth checking: additional client contacts get access to that client’s Client Hub. Adding a person for communication is therefore also an access decision. Custom fields are available on select plans, and pricing depends on the plan, team size, and billing commitment.

ServiceTitan

ServiceTitan makes the most sense when a larger plumbing company needs the paying account and physical service locations separated formally. A property management company can be the customer, with each building stored as a service location. A water-heater repair then belongs to the relevant building, while the customer record represents the billing relationship. Location-level installed-equipment records add context when someone returns to work on the same heater or pump.

The trade-off is administration. Records, permissions, and office procedures need consistent setup. A small shop mainly serving homeowners at a single address may have little use for that added structure. Pricing is quoted per technician, with the package and additional products determining the configured cost.

BuildOps

BuildOps is the stronger commercial option when customer relationships extend across properties, contacts, installed assets, and continuing service work. The property context stays connected when a service visit leads to a repair or replacement opportunity.

Its CRM+ module uses the same customer, property, and asset data as the operating platform. That keeps the building contact and service context available when following up on something like a pump replacement.

CRM+ is an add-on, so include it when pricing the relationship and opportunity tools. Pricing depends on crew size, trades, modules, and integrations. I’d look at it for a commercial plumbing operation rather than a residential owner mainly handling straightforward service calls.

QuoteIQ

QuoteIQ offers additional contacts on every plan, with a shared recipient picker for jobs, estimates, and invoices. An auto-add setting can attach a saved contact to new documents and jobs, which is useful when the same manager needs to stay involved.

Contacts, tasks, and sales opportunities have different plan requirements. Reminders & Tasks starts on Beginner, while deals and pipelines require Elite or Max. A follow-up task can have an assignee and reminder, so check the tier against the actual work your office needs to manage.

Equipment history is a separate limitation. Detailed heater or pump records rely on notes and forms, so a company organizing ongoing equipment service has different needs from one mainly organizing callbacks. Pricing is published by plan, with included user allowances and charges for extra users.

FieldEdge

FieldEdge suits established plumbing teams that want customer history connected to call booking, dispatch, equipment, and QuickBooks. Customer history and management are available across Select, Premier, and Elite, so basic record access isn’t limited to the highest tier. The package differences show up elsewhere. Select includes two mobile licenses, Premier four, and Elite six. The Consumer Management Portal is included with Elite and costs extra on lower plans.

I’d count the technicians who need mobile access and price the portal separately before comparing quotes. FieldEdge uses custom pricing, so the tier, mobile requirements, and additional products all affect the total.

I put the full comparison on my website if you want the detailed contact workflows, recipient rules, and plan differences.

I'm curious, I work in sales in the hospitality world. I would say 89% of my communication comes through email. If you work in sales or any sort of project management role. What is the breakdown one your day to day communication volume?

I'm working on a CRM/outreach product for small teams, and this is a step I'm trying to get right. This is research for the build, not a request for software recommendations.

Someone replies 'sounds interesting, send me some details.' You send the information. Now there's a positive reply in the inbox, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's a real opportunity yet.

What do you actually record at that point? Do you create a deal immediately, keep it as a conversation with a next task, or wait until you've confirmed something specific?

I'm especially interested in teams where the person handling the reply isn't always the person who follows up. What has to be written down so the next person can pick it up without rereading the entire thread? And what tends to get missed?

A recent example would help, with names and private details left out. I'd rather hear what you really do on a busy day than the ideal process in a CRM training guide.

CRM cleanup usually becomes a priority only when reports start showing inconsistent numbers, duplicates pile up, or outdated records affect campaigns. How can I maintain data quality throughout the year?

Do you rely on regular checks, automation, or quarterly cleanup projects? Who owns it in your team?

I've designed software to protect you from dialing or texting people outside of the tcpa calling hours. I'm really trying to show some comparisons between it and any other programs or crms that have similar features. Usually that's a dialer. If any of you are curious and willing to try the experiment, then the tests are simple:

Make a test lead and use a dummy phone number like (areacode) 555 0157. That range of numbers are not given to real people so they can be used in movies etc.... The area code you choose shouldn't matter since the service should go by state/zip with people moving around.

Set the state for RI zip code 02901 and try to call it after 6 pm EST. Your system should block you.

Set the state for FL zip code 32003 during the day and try to call it 4 times. It should block you on the 4th try.

Set the state for AL zip code 35004 and try to call it on Sunday. Your system should block you.

If any one of those goes through, then your system isn't blocking correctly. If all of them go through, then your system probably doesn't block calls based on state rules at all. 23 states are more restrictive than the federal guidelines. If you can call or text earlier than 8 am or later than 9 pm, then your system doesn't block Federal law either.

Please post the results here or send me a DM. I'll give you a free subscription to my software for a year for testing, but I don't need too many people to test each one so first come first served.

I'm throwing this out there as my team uses GHL but I hate the CRM and its clunky to use.

So I went down the path of using API's from it to custom build a layer that allows me to send notes back to GHL, search, and create daily call lists so much faster than GHL.

All of this was done with Claude Code.

If you're CRM has API's just build something custom that is tailored to your workflow and setup.

I am frustrated with every CRM marketing to me that they will save me time and increase productivity but as soon as I sign up I have to relearn their whole system and create workflows by their rules. What CRM frustrations do you have?

I can't be the only one who is fed up. Am I crazy?

Bill McDermott was pretty blunt on ServiceNow's results call. His pitch is that the old CRM was built for sales teams, and that service is where the customer relationship actually lives. He's openly talking about rip and replace, and says deployment times are now 30 or 60 days for a serious company at serious scale.

There are some numbers behind it. CRM showed up in 13 of ServiceNow's top 20 deals last quarter and CRM AI net new ACV tripled. HPE signed up for its Cloud and AI support services, and Stagwell is consolidating four legacy service desks across more than 70 agencies.

I'm sceptical of the 30 day bit. Data migration and integrations are what kill CRM projects, not the software.

Has anyone here moved service off Salesforce or Dynamics onto ServiceNow? How long did it really take?

So many CRMs list Google Calendar as a supported integration. But “integrates with Google Calendar” can actually mean very different things in practice.

For some tools, it means that events added to Google Calendar show up in the CRM. For others, it means that changes sync in both directions. And the difference between these only really surfaces the first time a rep moves a meeting in one of the apps, and the update doesn’t happen in the other app. It still shows the old meeting time.

Teams often evaluate the integration by whether it connects at all, rather than how the tools communicate changes between each other. But connecting is the easy part. The rest is where the real test is.

Consider, for instance, if a meeting is rescheduled, an invitation is declined, someone cancels at the last minute, or a rep edits the meeting details from their phone instead of at their desk. The test then is whether the other system finds out quickly and whether it attaches the change to the correct contact record.

What tends to happen when it doesn't is that reps start losing trust in one of the two tools. Typically, they’ll continue to check the calendar for the real schedule and treat the CRM as something they update later, if at all. When that habit sets in, the data in the CRM falls behind, and nobody can say exactly when it all began to fall apart.

So, if you're evaluating CRMs for a team on Google Workspace, what's the one thing you'd test before you call the Calendar integration good enough? And has anyone been burned by one that looked fine in the demo?

Launching Make My Shop: An Open-Source Telegram E-Commerce & CRM Platform
I’m excited to share Make My Shop — an open-source Telegram e-commerce platform and lightweight CRM designed to launch fully functional online stores directly within Telegram in minutes.
While Telegram is becoming a primary sales channel for many businesses, managing orders, catalogs, and customer communication manually often creates unnecessary friction. Make My Shop solves this by providing a complete automated storefront out of the box.
Core Capabilities
Product Catalog & Search: Category-based navigation, real-time product search, rich media cards, and direct manager communication routing.
Interactive Shopping Cart: Live cart item counter, structured multi-step checkout, shipping address capture, and automated order total calculation.
Payment Verification: Streamlined customer receipt uploading (photo/text) paired with real-time admin payment confirmation workflows.
Embedded Order Chat: Isolated 1-on-1 messaging thread embedded directly within each order detail card for seamless customer-manager clarification.
Merchant Control Panel: Complete CRUD interface for product catalog management, order status tracking, and instant new order event notifications.
Native Localization: On-the-fly, edit-in-place interface switching across English, Spanish, and Russian.
Technical Architecture
Backend & Framework: Python 3.12, aiogram 3.x, Pydantic v2
Persistence & Database: Async SQLAlchemy 2.0 (PostgreSQL / SQLite), Alembic schema migrations
Execution Model: Fully non-blocking background task execution (asyncio), structured service layer, and comprehensive integration testing.
The project is completely open-source, lightweight, and ready for self-hosting.

I recently learned that some agencies work directly inside their clients’ CRMs, and it got me wondering how data confidentiality works in practice. You’re basically handling customer information, sales records, and other business data that don’t belong to you.
For those who do this, what safeguards do you typically have in place? Do clients set specific rules around access, data handling, governance and confidentiality, or is it mostly handled informally, especially with smaller businesses? What scale of businesses even do this mostly?

Sometimes switching is the right call. Some tools really do fit how modern teams work better. But the most common mistake I see is migrating the same messy structure into a new tool and getting the same result.

A migration is a great opportunity to fix how your CRM is set up. These are some of the issues I see most that stop AI and automations from working consistently:

1. One pipeline for everything or one too many pipelines when a custom field for filtering would suffice.
2. Free-text fields that lead to inconsistent data that is hard to build automations around and surface reports.
3. Duplicate records.
4. The important stuff is in notes so it's impossible for an automation to act on it.

AI can help with messy data if you ask it to, but if you want to build automations that run without you and actually work consistently you need a strong foundation in place.

Whether you’re staying put or moving, fixing these makes your AI tools, automations and reports noticeably more useful. If you’re migrating, it’s much easier to do it on the way over than after.m

Link to a free session if you want to go deeper on any of this.

Anyone here switched CRMs and found the same problems followed them?

Hey everyone,

I’ve worked as a copywriter and content marketer for a few years. With AI changing so much on the writing side, I’m trying to move toward the more digital, technical side of marketing.

I was already writing a lot of emails back then, and I’d also done HubSpot’s free certifications, so lifecycle marketing felt like a natural fit. Over the last three months I freelanced in Mailchimp (the project is finished now), and I built my own automations in Brevo for a personal project.

Now I’m trying to figure out what to do next to become a stronger candidate for jobs, and honestly I feel a bit lost:

• What kind of roles should I be aiming for at this stage (e.g. email marketing specialist, CRM executive, lifecycle associate, marketing automation), and which ones have more opportunities right now?
• Should I go deeper into email marketing specifically, or broaden into CRM in general, like learning other CRM platforms?
• What skills or experience actually make someone stand out when hiring for lifecycle/CRM roles?
• Are there any guides, courses or certifications you’d recommend?

I’ve also put together a portfolio of what I’ve done so far and would love feedback on it. Happy to share the link in the comments if that’s allowed here.

Would really appreciate any advice from people who’ve made a similar move or who hire for these roles.

Thanks!

I handle sales at a small B2B software company, and we're trying to get a better handle on our pilot process before it gets too messy. We sell reporting software, and prospects usually want to test it with their own data before committing. The tricky part is that it's not really a self-serve trial. Someone from our team often has to help with the import, get the first report working, and follow up when they run into issues.

We're tracking deals in our CRM, but it's hard to get a clear picture of how much time we're spending on pilots and which ones actually turn into customers. Some leads move through setup quickly, others go quiet halfway through, and sometimes we only realize how much work went into a pilot when we're looking back at the deal.

I'm considering setting up a more structured process to track each pilot's stage, setup tasks, blockers, and outcome. We might also start charging for pilots that require a lot of hands-on work, but I'd want to understand our conversion rates first.

For those running B2B sales through a CRM, how do you track pilots from the initial request through setup and conversion without creating a ton of admin?

Reach out if you want a custom built CRM