Sales and leads
Find, research and follow up with leads.
What AI sales tools do
Sales and lead tools help you find the right prospects, learn about them before you reach out, and follow up so leads don't go cold. AI now handles much of the research step: pulling company details, summarizing what a prospect does and suggesting a personalized opening line.
Apollo is a B2B contact database and sales engagement platform and a common starting point for building prospect lists. Clay enriches lead lists with data from many sources plus AI research; it is powerful but pricey and complex for a tiny team.
How to choose
If you need a list of businesses and contacts to reach, start with Apollo. If you already have a list and want deep research on each lead, Clay is built for that, but check whether the cost makes sense at your volume. Many small teams also use a general AI assistant to research a handful of prospects by hand before paying for either.
For follow-up, the simplest win is often a reminder or automation that nudges you to reply to every lead within a day.
Watch out for
Follow anti-spam and privacy rules when you email people, such as CAN-SPAM in the US and GDPR in Europe. Keep messages relevant, honor unsubscribes and verify contact data before a big send.