The Problem: Limited Time Can't Be Wasted on Bad Data

Pete Lipton was brought in to help Snyk's AE team build their own pipeline. “We had 50 account executives who needed to add 4-6 hours of outbound per week. That’s not a lot of time. Every bounced email or wrong number was 5-10 minutes gone.”

The first attempt failed. “We used our existing data provider. AEs would spend an hour building lists, send 50 emails, and 20 would bounce. They’d make 30 calls and reach 2 people. After two weeks, half the team stopped prospecting.”

The math was brutal. “If an AE has 5 hours for outbound and wastes 2.5 hours on bad contacts, they’re not going to keep doing it. They’ll go back to only working inbound leads.”

The data quality issues were obvious:

• Bounce rate: 35–40%
• Connect rate on calls: 8% (office lines and old numbers)
• Time wasted per rep per week: 2–3 hours on bad data
• AE adoption after month one: 40%

The Fix: Make Every Hour Count With Verified Data

Pete switched to Prospeo. “The decision was simple. If AEs only have 4–6 hours per week, every contact needs to be real. Verified emails, direct mobiles, current job titles. No wasted touches.”

They rebuilt the prospecting motion around quality:

• Verified emails: “Open rates went from 40% to over 65%. Response rates more than tripled from 0.9% to over 3%. AEs could send 50 emails and actually get conversations started. That’s the difference between prospecting feeling productive versus pointless.”
• Direct mobile numbers: “Connect rate went from 8% to 24%. An AE making 40 calls in an hour now had 8–10 conversations instead of 3. That’s when prospecting starts generating real pipeline.”
• Access to data where they work: “AEs could find mobile numbers for LinkedIn contacts right from the profile. They could enrich existing lead lists with verified emails and mobiles in minutes. No switching between five tools or waiting on data requests.”
• The workflow became sustainable. “Monday morning, 20 minutes to enrich the week’s target list. Four hours across the week for emails and calls. By Friday, they’d had 15–20 real conversations. Before, that same time got them 4–5 conversations and a lot of frustration.”

The Results: 50 AEs, 4–6 Hours Each, Consistent Pipeline

The numbers moved in 60 days:

• Productivity: Connect rate: 8% → 24%; Bounce rate: 35–40% → under 5%; Email open rate: 40% → 65%+; Email response rate: 0.9% → 3%+ (3x improvement); Conversations per rep per week: 4–5 → 15–20; Time wasted on bad data: 2–3 hrs/week → ~20 min/week
• Adoption & pipeline: AE adoption after month two: 82% (vs 40% before); New pipeline opportunities per month: 200+; Pipeline sourced by AEs: up 180%
• Quality: Qualification rate: 52% → 74%

What’s Next

Snyk's AE prospecting motion is now part of their standard playbook. “New AEs ramp into it during onboarding. It’s not an experiment anymore, it’s how we operate.”

Pete’s expanding the approach. “We’re testing it with the customer success team for expansion opportunities. Same principle applies: limited time, needs to be productive, can’t waste touches on bad data.”

His advice to sales leaders trying to get AEs to prospect: “Don’t ask them to do it if the infrastructure isn’t there. You need data quality that makes every hour count. Otherwise you’re just adding busywork, and smart reps will ignore it. We proved the motion works with 50 AEs because the data actually connected them to real buyers. That’s the only way this scales.”