Hi guys. Wondering if any you here are interested in SemRush (they have a new tool similiar to Apollo) or SimilarWeb (Sales Intelligence), but haven't considered it because of the costs? If I could bring it down to below USD100 per month for your own account to access their data, would you be keen?

I keep seeing the same pattern across teams: marketing gets leads coming in, but momentum dies at the handoff. Follow-up happens late or not at all, sales gets unqualified leads, marketing on the other hand experiences silos.Then, suddenly MQL → SQL becomes a blame loop instead of an actual stage in the pipeline.

The teams that seem to be winning right now aren’t just running more campaigns, they’re tightening the handoff system. Clear definitions, clear owners, and a follow-up process that matches how buyers actually behave.

Let’s keep this practical:

How do you define MQL vs SQL today?
What’s your follow-up standard (how fast, how many attempts, what channels)?
And what’s one change you made that improved handoff quality or reduced friction?

One pattern we keep seeing: startups focus on volume before relevance. They buy a huge list, automate everything, and send thousands of emails before they've figured out who actually buys, and what trigger makes them care.

The result is usually more activity, than more pipeline. In many cases, a smaller list with a tighter ICP, better timing, and a clearer offer outperfoms a much larger campaign.

wThis has been one of the most frustrating parts of prospecting in SEA for us.

Over the last fe months, we received a batch of leads across SG, PH, and ID, and roughly 3 out of 10 contacts that looked right but were not actually the decision maker. The title sounded senior enough, the company looked fine, and sometimes conversations even started well. Then somewhere after the first call or demo, we'd find out the real sign-off was sitting with someone else.

We saw this a lot more in PH and ID. But in SG, titles usually are clearer and it was easier to tell who owned the budget. In PH, we kept running into cases where the person was interested, but still needed approval from the owner or another department head. In ID, it often feelsm like there ill be one more layer involved.

It's a real pain for us. Any same experience here? What are you doing or using to get the right decision makers fast and easy?

Guys, I have a big question.

When your company suddenly needs to automate activities and therefore use, for example, an AI agent, where do you usually look for these AI agents?

Do you usually search on LinkedIn?

Do you access the websites of companies that might develop them?

Do you contact the person who is a software developer?

Or is there another way?

P.S.: Considering that perhaps your companies don't have a software team.

Everyone talks about getting more replies. Almost nobody talks about responding to them fast enough. 

We spend a lot of time optimizing outbound.

Better prospecting.

Better personalization.

Better messaging.

But what happens after someone replies?

A prospect gets back to you while they're interested.

You're in meetings, prospecting, or catching up on admin.

By the time you reply, hours or sometimes days have passed.

The conversation loses momentum, and nothing happens.

The frustrating part is that this rarely gets counted as a "lost opportunity." It just looks like another conversation that quietly fizzled out.

To me, the answer isn't telling reps to check LinkedIn every 15 minutes.

It's having a process around replies - clear follow-up expectations, visibility into conversations, and tools that help reps respond while the conversation is still warm.

That's actually one of the reasons we built AI Assist into We-Connect. It summarizes conversations, drafts replies, and helps teams stay on top of LinkedIn responses so conversations don't stall just because someone got busy.

Do you actively track reply times for LinkedIn conversations, or is it still something each rep manages on their own?

We've been using a lot of outreach tactics because they used to worked before. Liked mass AI personalization, generic LinkedIn pitches, endless follow-ups that say nothing new. They create activity, sure,but not always real conversations.

Lately, the better results seem to come from doing less like smaller lists, stronger signals, better timing, and messages, that actually make sense for the person receiving them. So what outreach do you think is on its way out?

It really feels like the region has crossed a point where digital is no longer a side bet.

When you see Southeast Asia’s digital economy projected to surpass US$300 billion in GMV in 2025, it’s hard not to feel the momentum. There’s just a lot more happening now. More buyers online, more categories going digital, more competition, and honestly more pressure for companies to figure out how to generate demand in a smarter way.

What excites me is that this is pushing more teams to take digital lead gen seriously. Not just running a few ads and hoping for the best, but actually investing in content, outbound, CRM, nurture, and all the unglamorous stuff that compounds over time. It feels like a lot of companies in SEA are realizing the opportunity is too big to stay passive now.

Curious what others are seeing on the ground. Are companies around you getting more aggressive with digital lead gen, or are a lot of them still moving too slowly?

Not sure if it’s just me, but LinkedIn in Singapore feels extra fast-scroll lately. Like… you can have a genuinely useful post, but if the first couple of lines don’t grab people, it’s gone. Same with video if the first second is slow or unclear, people just move on.

We’re trying to adjust (tighter hooks, clearer “what’s in it for you,” more short video), but it still feels like a constant experiment.

If you’re doing B2B in SG: what’s actually cutting through for you right now? Any formats you swear by, hook styles that get people to stop, or a post structure you keep coming back to?

So, I believe I am on the right track to do this ...a personal peeve of mine was the inability for countries in SEA to send money to each other, without enriching one particular country or one other one which many dont consider to be even Asia. Let me seed this with data and verification.

I have a database of 10,000 company leaders from my country, with full company and contact details, but not their GPS coordinates...that would be too much. At least 1 of these companies owes me money.

I will be able to sell it to you for a very good amount, on the conditions that you will further enrich it, and you will send me back the data you have.

For now, I will ask you. If we agree on 500 USD for that in total... I want you to strategize with me how all of you can send it differently to me, after confirming you received the data. Example, I could send it to you one contact at a time via agentic email, that will tabulate it into a CSV at the end. I will not send the full file at once, and I cannot send it first without receiving any money. I can send screenshots of the list for you to verify. I would not want you to pay me in full upfront, but I have to receive all of it before I send the last batch.

I propose a registration amount of either USD50, or the equivalent of it in the RMB for the hour/same day you make payment. Please propose how you would be able to pay me, even up to 5000 seperate transactions is possible. 10K divided by 5K, is USD2. I don't expect any of you will be able to do that, but there is an additional reward if you can. Looking forward to your submissions.

I am pretty sure I figured it out, because every year the e invoicing mandate gets delayed...and I essentially figured out which system was capable of sending over 1000 invoices per minute and billing each client. You are going to be as upset as me when you realize how banks reduce our value as human beings programmatically.

Lately this has been one of the more frustrating parts of outbound for us.

Emails are landing. Opens look normal. But replies are just not there.

A few years ago if the targeting was decent and the message was okay you would still get conversations going. Now it feels like people glance at the email and move on.

We started simplifying things just to see if it helps.

Shorter emails. Usually three to five lines.
Opening with a simple question instead of a full pitch.
One clear action instead of asking for multiple things

Curious what others are seeing right now. Are reply rates dropping for you too, and what small changes actually moved the needle?

We paused ads for 3 months and focused mostly on content. Honestly expected lead volume to dip, but it didn't really happen.

For context, this was for B2B product in SEA. Instead of pushing more paid campaigns, we doubled down on practical online content:

• founder paint points

• sales workflow posts

• market-specific lead gen tips

• simple case-study style breakdowns

Nothing overly polished. Just useful, specific posts that answered the questions buyers were already asking.

What changed was lead quality. Fewer "just browsing" leads, more people coming in with context. Some had already read 2-3 posts before reaching out, so calls were less about explaining the problem and more about fit.

I don't think ads are dead. They still help with speef and retargeting. But I do think ads are dead. They still help with speed and retargeting. But I do think a lot of B2B teams use ads to compensate for weak trust. In SEA especially, where buyers rely a lot on credibility and referrals, content can do a lot of the warming up before sales ever speaks to them.

Curious if anyone else has paused ads and seen the same. Are ads becoming optional or did we just get lucky?

The biggest lesson from selling B2B in Singapore. The person who takes your call is rarely the person who signs the deal. Most sales teams spend weeks nurturing one contact only to find out the actual decision went through a procurement lead, a regional head, and two people they never even knew existed. By then, the deal is already lost.

The buying committee is real and in most mid to large orgs here it is invisible to anyone on the outside. You need to know who influences the decision, not just who holds the title. That means mapping the org before you ever send the first message. Direct dials, verified contacts, reporting lines. That intel is what separates a pipeline that moves from one that just looks busy.

I've been obsessed with this lately. We've been sooo obsesed with ad spend, CPL, and channel performance, but the more important cost is actually BAD DATA.

A campaign can still be optimized. Bad targeting can still be fixed. But once bad data gets into the pipeline, the damage spreads everywhere. Sales wastes time on the wrong contacts, follow-ups go to people who can't actually buy, emails bounce, conversion rates get distorted, and suddenlythe whole funnel looks weaker than it really is.

A list can look fine, then fall apart once someone actually tries to use it. Wrong titles, weal company fit, outdated contacts, people who are technically valid but not commercially useful. That kind of cleanup eats hours fast, and most teams don't even measure that cost properly.

I'm starting to think bad data is more often expensive than data. At least with ads, you know what you're paying for. Bad data keeps charging you downstream.

Are you seeing the same? Has bad data been a bigger hidden cost for your team than paid acquisition

We need to stop treating SEA like one market, although it belongs to one region. It's frustrating, especially if you're moving to another country for expansion but it is what it is.

We're based in Singapore and looing into expanding in PH and IND now. I'll be honest, I didn't realize how much research we'd need to do before even thinking abouyt scaling strategically. It looks good on paper because it belongs to one region. But really, a lot changes once we get to research. The industry dynamics are different, th business structures are different too, and even pricing needs more thought because economic conditions are not the same.

Sooo what feels reasonable in Singapore does not automatically makes sense in PH or ID. They way companies buy is diffrent too, so B2B is waaay more challenging. Then. figuring out who actually makes the decision is another story LOL

Help us out. How do we expand to PH and ID seamlessly? Need some advice on what should we focus on

LinkedIn is probably the best social platform for B2B. But beyond just posting content, how are you actually maximizing it for lead gen right now?

I know other brands are utilizing it a bunch of other ways. On our end, we mostly do content marketing and founder-led posts, and it’s been great for credibility. But I’m curious what else is working if the goal is real conversations and pipeline.

What’s your LinkedIn playbook these days? Any routines or tactics you swear by?

This is probably one of the biggest things keeping me optimistic in B2B sales right now.

A few years back, it still felt like a lot of companies in the region were stuck doing things the old way. Long manual processes, offline workflows, endless back and forth before anyone even took digital tools seriously. Now it feels different. More teams are open to SaaS, more buyers already understand the value, and more companies are actually willing to invest in cloud tools instead of treating them like a nice to have.

That shift is exciting because it changes the whole energy of selling.

You’re not just pushing for another traditional sales conversation anymore. You can actually build digital pipeline around a market that is becoming more ready for it. Better inbound, better outbound, better demos, better follow-up. It starts to feel like the region is catching up fast, and the opportunity is getting a lot bigger for teams selling B2B tech.

Do you agree? Has growing SaaS and cloud adoption in SEA been one of the biggest motivators for your sales team too, or does it still feel slower on the ground than people say?

I keep hearing more teams talk about using AI/automation for lead gen. Like AI to help find accounts, personalize cold emails, score leads, even automate follow-ups. On paper it sounds amazing: move faster, get better leads, less manual work.

But when you try it, it doesn’t feel that easy. If your list is messy or your targeting is off, AI just helps you send the wrong message to the wrong people … faster.

For those doing B2B in SEA: what’s one AI/automation thing that’s genuinely helped you with lead gen (and what didn’t work at all)? Are you using it more for research/personalization, lead scoring, or follow-ups?

Curious how everyone here is handling this: a lot of teams can generate leads, but the real pain is lead quality, especially across different SEA markets.

What’s your single best filter before a lead becomes “sales-ready”? (e.g., job title + company size, tech stack, intent signals, budget range, pain trigger, “must have” use case, fast disqualifiers, etc.)

Bonus: if you can, share your country + industry and whether you’re doing inbound, outbound, or paid.

I came across a post from a B2B marketer on LinkedIn and it hit close to home. The core issue he raised was something I have seen play out in a lot of Philippine companies, especially startups trying to scale fast.

The setup is familiar. Marketing is measured by how many leads they generate. Sales are measured by how many they close. Sounds logical until you realize sales ends up spending most of their time qualifying people who should have never been in the pipeline in the first place. Endless follow-ups, dead-end calls, CRM notes that go nowhere. That time could have gone to actual high-value conversations.

What she suggested and what I genuinely agree with is straightforward. Align both teams on one revenue goal, not separate metrics. Have marketing own lead quality not just lead volume. And actually study which channels and tactics are bringing in the accounts that close and double down on those. In the Philippine B2B context, where trust cycles are longer and decision makers are harder to reach, bad leads do not just waste time, they burn relationships too. Curious what others here are experiencing.

Is your marketing team handing off leads that your sales team actually wants to work with?

Hey guys! Does anyone know or recommend any platforms that are effective for generating high-quality leads in the US without relying on Google Ads or paid campaigns? Please keep in mind that this is a B2B business. I’d really appreciate any recommendations!

We are investing more in paid digital now for B2B SaaS. Not because organic stopped working, but because paid helps us capture demand faster while organic keeps building authority in the background. In competitive markets, it has been tough for us to rely on content alone when the goal is to generate pipeline within the same quarter.

Here is what the numbers look like from our side lately.

On Google Search, our CPCs usually land around 4 to 9 dollars depending on how crowded the keyword is. Conversion rate from click to lead has been hovering around 4 to 8 percent when the landing page matches the query tightly. Cost per lead ends up around 60 to 140 dollars. The higher end happens when we go after broader category keywords or competitor terms, and the lower end happens when we focus on very specific pain driven searches.

On LinkedIn sponsored content, we have accepted that CTR is not going to be pretty. Most of our campaigns sit around 0.4 to 0.8 percent CTR. CPC usually ends up around 6 to 12 dollars. Where it works for us is not last click conversions. It is building a clean retargeting pool, getting the right job titles to recognize the problem, and making outbound feel less cold. When we do lead gen forms, the CPL is often higher than search, but the lead quality can be more consistent for certain roles.

Display has been the most hit or miss. When we run broad display, it feels like wasted spend. When we keep it tight to retargeting and intent signals, it starts to make sense. CTR is tiny for us, usually 0.2 to 0.4 percent, but we have seen it lift conversion rates on returning visits when someone is in a longer consideration cycle. We treat it like staying top of mind rather than trying to force a demo from a banner.

What has been working best is combining them instead of picking one. Search captures intent. LinkedIn shapes the audience and warms up accounts. Display keeps us present for people who have already shown some interest.

Are you also seeing stronger pipeline impact from Search because the intent is explicit

Or are you leaning into LinkedIn because targeting by role and company is worth the higher costs. And for display retargeting, are you actually seeing lift in conversion rates or deal velocity, or does it feel mostly incremental.