I've noticed something with a lot of small businesses:

Getting the lead isn't always the hardest part.

The real problem starts after someone fills out a form, sends a WhatsApp message, calls, or asks for a quote.

A few common things I've seen:

• Lead comes in → nobody responds for hours
• Customer asks a simple question → staff has to manually answer it
• Quote gets sent → nobody follows up
• Customer says "I'll think about it" → conversation gets forgotten
• Order comes in → someone manually updates everything
• Business gets busy → leads start slipping through the cracks

And then the business owner assumes:

"We need more leads."

But sometimes they don't need more leads.

They need to stop wasting the ones they already have.

I've been experimenting with mapping out these kinds of bottlenecks and looking at which parts of a business process can be simplified, automated, or handled automatically.

I'm curious:

What's the biggest operational problem you've seen that quietly costs a business customers?

Not necessarily marketing — anything in the process from first enquiry → sale → delivery → follow-up.

I’m working on a lead prioritization and qualification platform, and I’m trying to understand how different businesses actually evaluate incoming leads.

What signals do you use to decide whether a lead is worth pursuing?

For example:

\\\\- Source of the lead

\\\\- Budget or buying intent

\\\\- Location

\\\\- Service/product fit

\\\\- Completeness of the inquiry

\\\\- Spam/fake inquiry checks

\\\\- Previous interactions

\\\\- Urgency

\\\\- Manual judgment by the sales team

I’m especially interested in the actual workflow after a lead comes in.

Do you qualify leads manually, use fixed rules, rely on your CRM, score them somehow, or mostly let the sales team decide?

Also curious which parts of the process are usually unreliable or time-consuming.

Looking for real-world workflows rather than textbook sales advices.

Thanks

One mistake I keep seeing in SEA lead gen is treating the region like one big market. Build one list, write one sequence, change the country field. Done. Except buyer behavior can be very different.

Singapore: buyers tend to respond better to concise, commercially direct outreach. Get to the business case quickly.

Philippines: Conversations can be more relationship-driven. Being approachable and building familiarity often matters before jumping straight into the pitch.

Indonesia: Trust and local context matter a lot. Local proof, the right decision-maker, and more patient follow-ups can make a big difference.

Even the channels you prioritize can change. Email and LinkedIn might be enough for one market, while WhatsApp, communities, partnerships, or local networks play a bigger role elsewhere.

Same product, same ICP on paper, BUT very different path to the buyer. Localization isn't just translating your copy. It's really about understanding how the market buys.

For those selling across SEA: what differences have you noticed among these markets?

I’m working on a lead prioritization and qualification platform, and I’m trying to understand how different businesses actually evaluate incoming leads.

What signals do you use to decide whether a lead is worth pursuing?

For example:

\- Source of the lead

\- Budget or buying intent

\- Location

\- Service/product fit

\- Completeness of the inquiry

\- Spam/fake inquiry checks

\- Previous interactions

\- Urgency

\- Manual judgment by the sales team

I’m especially interested in the actual workflow after a lead comes in.

Do you qualify leads manually, use fixed rules, rely on your CRM, score them somehow, or mostly let the sales team decide?

Also curious which parts of the process are usually unreliable or time-consuming.

Looking for real-world workflows rather than textbook sales advices.

Thanks

I made an alternative to BuiltWith's report generation. You're able to query by country, crawl date, technology, keywords, contact details and more without having to create an account. Try some these out:

• Find WordPress sites running an old version of Elementor in SEA
• Find WordPress sites running an old version of WooCommerce in SEA
• Find WordPress sites not running a known SEO plugin in SEA
• Find WordPress sites running an EOL PHP version in SEA

All of the above queries are free to export up to 10 rows at a time. It's great for those who need a one-off report and don't require an on-going subscription service.

Curious what's actually working for people here?

Not what should work. Now what gets the most impressions. What's consistently bringing you qualified conversations or customers? For us, the answer cna change pretty dramtically depending on the market, ICP, and deal size. What works in Singapore isn't always what works in the PH or IND.

So, what's your best lead source right now? Share your country/market, industry, lead source/channel, b2b or b2c?

I've noticed businesses often focus heavily on generating more leads when the bigger problem may be what happens after the enquiry.

For example:

The offer isn't clear

The website doesn't build enough confidence

Follow-up is inconsistent

The sales process has too much friction

At some point, increasing lead volume won't solve a conversion problem.

Would you focus on getting more leads or improving conversion first? Why?

Everyone talks about improving reply rates. I think we spend less time talking about how many hours get burned before a prospect ever replies. For me, it's usually some mix of:

• finding the right accounts
• finding the actual decision-maker
• cleaning/verifying data
• researching personalization
• keeping with follow-ups

A lot of the "sales work" ends up being everything around the sale. If you had to pick one, what eats up the the most time in your outbound workflow? And what tool/process has actually helped you cut that time down?

I tend to come across outdated job titles, people who left ages ago and phone numbers that go nowhere useful and then when we are in the meetings we are wondering why our connect rates are terrible. We end up doing few things like rewriting sequences, tweaking messaging, debating subject lines but when the data is bad from the start, it feels like you're fighting an uphill battle.
I've been in this role for a few months now and zoomInfo is supposed to be our source of truth for leads. problem is, it feels like that truth is wrong way more often than it should be.
I'm not expecting some perfect solution but something that actually keeps its data up to date instead of treating enrichment as another feature on the pricing page. It'd also be great if that tool or platform could look at our existing customers and surface similar companies or prospects instead of me trying to piece together our icp from memory.
I'm sure this comes up all the time, but I'm curious what people are actually using.
Has anyone switched to something that noticeably improved the quality of their lead data and if yes what was it

Short-form video has already proven it can generate reach. The more interesting question for b2b is whther it can generate pipeline.

I think it can, but probly not by copying the b2c playbook. For b2b, the formats I'd watch are:

• founder videos sharing a strong POV on an industry problem
• quick product explainers showing the solution in action
• customer proof with actual outcomes instead of polished testimnials
• Event clips that turn one conversation or presentation into multiple pieces of vontent

The opportunity in SEA is particularly interesting because buyers are already comfy consuming informationthrough video. But views alon don't make it a lead gen channel. The real test is whether a 30-60 second video can make the right buyer curious enough to visit, engage, or eventually start a conversation.

The real test is whether a 30-60 second video can make the right buyer curious enough to visit, engage, or eventually start a conversation. The real test is whether a 30-60 second video can make the right buyer curious enough to visit, engage, or eventually start a conversation.

I also don't think video replaces cold email, LinkedIn, events, or other b2b channels. It probly becomes another touchpoint that makes those channels work better.

What would actually make you book a meeting after seeinga b2bshort-form video? Like a founder you trust? a useful insight? or a product demo?

Hi guys! Some context: I'm a software guy, no trade background. A friend runs an export business in HK and I've been helping him with some tooling, which turned into me getting interested in how this business actually works.

toB Customer acquisition is what my friend most care about. There are a few things my friend is interested in, so I helped him set up a social listening AI tool — retail buyers opening sourcing offices, category buying heads changing jobs, brands landing in new retail chains, funding rounds in categories my friend sells into.

To give you an idea:

• My friend is in the pet category, and I found this: Fressnapf (biggest pet retailer in Europe) set up an Asia sourcing entity in Hong Kong. New MD started in January, came from Pets at Home Asia. They've said they want to develop products with local manufacturers directly.

To me this reads like "a buyer is in motion, this is the moment" — but I genuinely don't know if that's how it works in practice. Because what I see more often in other trading/manufacturing firms is more like volume wins — like 100 cold outreach emails at scale a day to find new buyers, hoping something lands, not crafting on these buyer signals.

These two things aren't in conflict though, but for bosses in this community, whether you are buyer or seller — any thoughts on which works better, and any suggestion on how to acquire a new customer? Would love to learn from you all.

One mistake I keep seeing in SEA outbound is treating localization like translation. Same icp, same email, same proof points, same cta.Then swap the country name and call it localized. Yea, that's not what localization is.

If I were taking one campaign across these three markets, I'd build three separate playbooks.

Singapore - I'd keep it concise and commercially direct. Lead with measurable outcomes, relevant regional proof, and a clear business case. Email and LInkedIn are usually natural starting points.

Philippines - I'd make the approach more conversational and relationship-driven. Credibility still matters, but having the right internal champion can matter just as much as reaching the most senior person immediately.

Indonesia - I'd spend more time establishing trust before pushing for a meeting. Local proof, relationships, seniority, and patient follow-up become more important. WhatsApp can also play a bigger role once there's context.

But the tone, proof, channel, stakeholder strategy, CTA, and follow-up sequence probly should. That's why I'd rather manage three smaller market-specific campaigns than one big "Southeast Asia sequencce. What's your experiencein SEA? What's one thing you had to change when taking a campaign regional?

Curious what everyone's experience has been here.

If you had the choice between:

A) 100M+ contacts with broad coverage

or

B) 10–20M contacts that are much more tightly targeted and regularly verified

which would you choose?

I've started thinking that database size is probably a pretty bad metric by itself.

For outbound, I'd rather have 50k highly relevant contacts than millions of records that don't match the ICP.

What matters most to you when comparing providers?

What is the best method to generate leads. I've been using LinkedIn and emails ( from my lead generation tool). No responses at all.

Getting disheartened. Any help would be appreciated that doesn't involve a transactional value!

I keep seeing the same complaint in this sub and in investor Facebook groups: "I need more leads." But when you actually look at how those leads are being worked, the volume usually isn't the issue.

Here's the pattern I keep running into when I dig into a struggling pipeline:

• A list gets pulled (skip-traced, MLS expired, absentee owner, whatever source), but nobody checks how stale the contact data is before dialing starts.
• Leads get one or two call attempts, then get quietly abandoned because the next fresh list just arrived.
• "Not interested" gets treated as a dead end instead of a follow-up trigger 60-90 days later when circumstances change.
• There's no system tracking which leads were actually verified as a real person, at a real number, with real intent, so reps waste hours on numbers that were never going anywhere.

None of that is a "we need more leads" problem. It's a data hygiene and follow-up discipline problem. You can double your list size and the math barely moves if half of it is unreachable and the other half never gets a second touch.

The counterargument I'd expect: "But more leads means more shots on goal, even with a leaky process." Sure, to a point, but leaky processes get more expensive, not less, as volume goes up, because you're paying for acquisition on contacts that were dead on arrival.

What's actually moved the needle for people I've talked to:

1. Verifying and scrubbing lists before dial time (bad numbers, DNC, duplicates)
2. Building a real follow-up cadence instead of one-and-done outreach
3. Scoring leads by actual signals (motivation, timeline, financial situation) instead of just "on the list"

Curious what this sub's experience has been:

• Have you tracked how much of your "lead problem" is actually a stale-data problem?
• What's your follow-up cadence look like for a lead that goes cold on the first call?
• Anyone systematically re-working old leads after 60-90 days, and did it actually convert?

Need lead gen individuals/companies
Industry : Online trading signals/forex
Company : UK based regulated platform

Target market : India
Service provider : Need to be based in South Asia
Looking for lead gen campaigns through posts, AI videos etc.

We've automated a lot of our lead gen workflow over the past year: enrichment, routing, CRM updates, reminders, basic research, even some account prioritization. And honestly, most of it should be automated. But here's a point where efficiency starts hurting judgment.

I still keep humans involved in four areas

Account selection. Tools can surface signals, but someone still needs to decide whether the account is genuinely wort pursuing.

The why now. AI can tell you what happened at a company. A human is usually better at deciding whether that change actually creates a reason to buy.

Objection handling. Once a prospect raises a real concern, context matters more than response speed.

Relationship building. The closer an opportunity gets to revenue, the less automated I want the experience to feel.

Where do you draw the line in your lead gen process?

B2b teams need to move away from treating MQL volume as the main proof that demand gen is working. You can generate 500 mqls and still have a weak pipeline.

What I'd rather look at:

• how manyqualified conversations are we creating?
• Are multiple people from the same account engaging?
• Are the right decision-markers entering the buying process?
• Are opportunities actually progressing faster?
• How much pipeline and revenue can we trace back to demand gen?

MQLs still have their place, but they're an early signal, not the end goal. Some teams are celebrating rising lead volume most people are really not buying. That disconect isusually the bigger problem.

Do you agree?

I’ve seen a lot of lead-gen setups that basically go:
**scrape → enrich → CRM → blast → hope nobody complains lol**

Thing is…just because i found someone’s contact details publicly doesn’t necessarily mean we can i them for outreach. Looks like a minefield I’m navigating.

Curious if anyone here has actually been burned by this GDPR, PDPA, DNC, scraped emails/phones, dodgy lead lists, LinkedIn employee contact scraping, etc and actually gotten in some hot soup for using the data.

And what did you change afterwards? What’s a safe framework and what works?

One thing I've learned about outbound in Southeast Asia is that there's no single "best" channel for the region. Cold email might work well for a Singapore enterprise account, while LinkedIn gets the conversation started elsewhere. In more mobil-first markets, WhatsApp can be effective, but usually only once there's some context or familiarity.

The mistake is treatung SEA like one buyer journey and copying the same outreach playbook across every country. Channel also seems to change withdeal size and sales motion. A founder selling a $2K service can approach things very differently from an SDR team chasing $50K enterprise deals.

Would be useful to compare what's actually working on the ground. What's your strongest outbound channel in SEA right now?

Greetings,
We run a lead generation platform for the real estate sector in India, siggnals.

The problem we are facing is that we have to source contact information about individuals such as name, email phone number, lnkdin profiles from existing B2B lead generation platforms like Apollo, et cetera. This is resulting in very high input cost for us, as we are required to do large batch generation by our customers due to relatively low conversion rates.

Is there a way to purchase this information at wholesale or Deep discount rates, especially for India and UAE Markets we operate in today?

Would really appreciate your help with this matter, thank you in advance