John Barrows

JB Sales

I don’t waste time on sales training that never gets used. I help sales teams and individual reps improve where it counts. They develop real sales skills, follow a clear sales process, and close more business. My sales training is blunt, practical, and proven because sales is about results, not fluff.

I have worked in the trenches as a sales trainer with teams at companies like LinkedIn and Salesforce, helping them sharpen how they sell. I know what does not work. Scripts, gimmicks, and long-winded pitches. I teach what does. Simple, repeatable steps. Real conversations that move deals forward. Sales skills your team can use right away.

The sales training programs I deliver are built around your reality, your buyers, your team, and your pipeline. No gimmicks. No jargon. Just tested strategies that keep deals moving and help people buy from people.

If you are looking for a sales trainer who tells it like it is and a sales training program that actually improves how your team sells, let’s connect. I will show you how to build sales skills and a sales process that actually works.

GTMfund

Most funds just write checks. I roll up my sleeves. As a Limited Partner at GTMfund, I work directly with SaaS founders to help them build go-to-market strategies that actually work. I bring years of experience running sales training programs and building repeatable revenue systems that teams can execute with confidence.

I coach founders on designing the right sales training for their teams, creating playbooks, and delivering sales courses that strengthen sales skills across the board. I act as a sales trainer, a sales coach, and a trusted advisor, helping them simplify the sales process, hire effectively, and build the kind of sales training programs and coaching frameworks that scale.

At GTMfund, we back companies that care about selling the right way from day one. No hacks. No shortcuts. Just consistent pipeline, strong buyer relationships, and internal clarity. I stay engaged through quarterly syncs, deal flow reviews, and community panels, making sure founders have the sales training courses, systems, and support they need to grow the right way.

This role keeps me close to the front lines of how modern SaaS companies scale and gives me a way to give back by helping the next generation of founders build the skills, processes, and programs that actually deliver results.

Limited Partner

Sales Community

This is not another networking group full of theory and noise. Sales Community is where GTM operators, sales reps, and leaders come together to focus on what works and what to avoid. As an Advisory Board Member, I help keep the conversation grounded in execution, ethical selling, and enablement programs that actually deliver.

I bring my perspective as a sales trainer and sales coach to help members simplify the sales process, strengthen their sales skills, and build sales training programs that produce measurable results. We tackle hard topics including buyer trends, pipeline pressure, leadership burnout, and bloated tech stacks. I make sure the discussion always cuts through the noise and leads to actionable strategies that teams can apply immediately.

I contribute to events, roundtables, and panels on outbound strategy, coaching cadence, and SaaS sales leadership. My work helps members design impactful sales courses, scale sales training programs, and build coaching systems that improve team performance and confidence.

Serving here allows me to give back to a community of high-integrity sales professionals by helping them sharpen their sales skills, master the sales process, and lead their teams with clarity and results.

Advisory Board Member

The Jack Welch Management Institute

I worked directly with Jack and Suzy Welch to help launch the Jack Welch Management Institute MBA program. They brought me in to build the go-to-market plan and enrollment sales strategy from scratch. This was a blank slate. My role was to establish a sales training program, develop the sales process, and coach the admissions team to produce measurable pipeline.

I embedded with the internal team as a sales trainer and sales coach. I designed the first sales training courses and created a sales manual that became the backbone of their admissions playbook. We focused on strengthening sales skills, building confidence in the sales process, and testing outbound messaging that connected with ambitious working professionals.

I supported event strategy and enterprise partnerships to help move intent-based leads through a higher-consideration education sale. We applied narrative-based selling, buyer mindset frameworks, and credibility sequencing to keep the approach authentic and effective.

This project laid the foundation for JWMI’s growth model. Even in a short time, it proved how the right sales training courses, coaching, and process clarity can transform a team. To this day, I still draw on what we built here whenever I think about positioning and persuasion in high-trust verticals like education and leadership development.

VP of Global Market Development (Consultant)

Basho Technologies

As Director of Sales & Training at Basho Technologies, I delivered enterprise-level sales training programs and brought new business into the firm by helping Fortune 1000 sales teams execute with discipline and earn trust faster. My mandate was clear: scale Basho’s methodology into global organizations and prove its impact where it mattered most.

I worked as both a sales trainer and sales coach, embedding with sales teams across technology, pharmaceuticals, and financial services. I led sales training courses designed to strengthen sales skills, simplify the sales process, and build confidence for high-stakes boardroom conversations. We drove measurable improvements in qualification rigor, pipeline forecasting, and buyer engagement by giving teams a clear, actionable playbook.

Internally, I developed curriculum and refined our sales training programs based on field feedback and client results. I collaborated with leadership to test outbound strategies, improve coaching cadence, and enhance sales training courses so they reflected what actually resonated with senior buyers.

This role proved to me that repeatable success comes from clarity, coaching, and execution — not theory. The frameworks I helped deliver at Basho still drive results today, shaping how I design sales training programs, lead sales courses, and coach teams to outperform expectations in any market.

Director of Sales & Training

Thrive Networks

I joined Thrive Networks as employee number five and helped grow it from a scrappy startup to an 85-person company that Staples acquired. As Vice President of Sales & Marketing, I owned all revenue. I carried a quota, built the sales team, and developed partner channels while turning our services into a recurring revenue engine.

I built sales training programs from scratch to strengthen sales skills and teach reps how to simplify the sales process. I worked hands-on as a sales trainer and sales coach, running sales training courses for new hires and embedding coaching into our daily rhythm. My focus was making sure the team could actually execute — not just talk about it.

We grew revenue every year through direct sales, referral programs, and smart vertical plays. I aligned sales and marketing, launched campaigns that worked, and refined our message until it stuck. I made sure delivery always matched our promise and that our sales process stayed tight even as we scaled.

Thrive was named one of Boston’s fastest-growing companies and best places to work multiple years in a row. That didn’t happen by accident. We stayed gritty, trained our people right, and kept our edge by listening to customers and outworking the competition.

Vice President of Sales & Marketing

Xerox

At Xerox I sold tailored document solutions to state and local government clients. This was a crash course in complex sales cycles, procurement rules, and RFP execution. It was also where I learned how to navigate the politics and processes inside large institutions.

My focus was understanding workflows and identifying where print, scanning, and digitization tools could reduce costs and increase efficiency. I had to sell outcomes, not features. I partnered with procurement, IT, and compliance teams to get deals across the line.

It taught me patience, planning, and how to manage long sales cycles with multiple decision-makers. It was not glamorous, but it built the foundation for how I handle enterprise sales today. If you can win in government, you can win anywhere.

Sales Executive

DEWALT

I cut my teeth at DeWalt running live demos and driving sales in big-box stores like Home Depot. I built and led the first event marketing team in Boston, making sure customers saw, touched, and bought our products on the spot. It was fast-paced, gritty, and all about showing up ready to win.

I designed campaigns that moved market share and trained reps to run demos that actually worked. I wrote quick sales training programs, acted as a sales trainer and sales coach, and ran sales training courses on the floor to sharpen sales skills and tighten the sales process. Every shift was about execution.

That hustle got me promoted into the Black & Decker sales team where I managed the third-largest territory in the country. The stakes were higher, and the stage was bigger. I kept the same mindset and continued to build sales training programs, lead sales courses, and coach reps to deliver under pressure.

Those early lessons stuck. Hustle. Consistency. Face-to-face execution. Even now, I use what I learned at DeWalt to design sales training programs, lead sales courses, and coach teams that perform when it counts.

Sales/Event Marketing Specialist

Elevating The People & Profession of Sales

I have been in sales for over 25 years. I have made 400 cold calls a week, led a startup to acquisition, and trained some of the best-performing teams at Salesforce, LinkedIn, Amazon, and Okta. Through JB Sales I teach practical sales execution rooted in real-world experience.

My work focuses on performance. I deliver live workshops, on-demand training, and coaching to help reps fill pipeline, close deals, and build buyer trust. I created Filling the Funnel and Driving to Close for reps and managers who want systems that convert.

I work with SaaS companies, agencies, and professional services teams that want to scale ethically and efficiently. My podcast Make It Happen Mondays has over 100,000 listeners and brings weekly strategy and tactics for sales pros looking to level up fast.

I speak on stage, coach in the trenches, and push for better execution across the board. Topics I cover include outbound frameworks, sales leadership, pipeline velocity, and GTM enablement in an AI-driven environment. I also share openly about mindset, mental health, and managing pressure in this career.

I live in Boston but work globally. I am here to raise the bar for sales and help professionals build careers they are proud of. If that mission speaks to you, let's connect.

My "Why" is to elevate the people and profession of Sales by sharing my earned experience with anyone willing to put in the work so they can achieve whatever level of freedom and success they want in life.

I've delivered my two Signature training programs (Filling the Funnel and Driving to Close) to thousands of Sales professionals at some of the fastest growing companies in the world like Salesforce, Linkedin, Amazon, Okta, Salesloft and many others. 

My membership provides individuals and teams with live monthly training (delivered by me) along with workshops, AMAs and an OnDemand library filled with actionable tips.

None of us have all the answers and things are moving too fast right now for any of us to try and figure it all out on our own.  We need to get back to fundamentals while learning how to evolve and where to add value in this new world of AI. 

If you're willing to put in the work and want to elevate yourself, along with this profession, come join me on this ride.

Sales Trainer & Coach | Building Sales Skills & Sales Process | Sales Training Courses & Programs That Deliver

“Why have we made it this hard?"
"Why have we not thought about the buyer and put them at the center of the experience?”

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Predictable Revenue (segmentation of roles) WAS great for us as companies to scale our sales teams  but it was NEVER a customer centric way of selling?

This is what I dove into with 🎺 Rory Sadler on this week's episode of the Make it Happen Monday podcast. 

Buyers have all the power now. The sales process? Full of friction, too many handoffs, repeated and/or irrelevant questions and almost no personalization.

And guess what’s killing deals? Indecision. 

Not price. Not competition. Just an overwhelmed buyer who doesn’t have time to figure out your product or how to sell it internally.

Here’s what’s shifting fast:
 • The old playbook (predictable revenue, handoffs, stages) is crumbling.
 • Buyers want answers now, not a meeting in two weeks.
 • Sales reps need to bring value every single interaction.
 • Mutual action plans and buyer enablement aren’t “nice to have.” They’re deal savers.
 • Reps who don’t prep, personalize, and guide the buyer? You’re irrelevant.

It’s not about what you sell anymore. It’s how you sell. The experience is the differentiator.

This conversation with Rory breaks down how sales needs to evolve and how reps can step up and win by making the process feel easy, personalized, and valuable.

Are you selling like it’s 2025 or still running the 2010 playbook?

Tell me you don’t travel a lot without telling me you travel a lot. 

I’ll start…

How do you deal with a client who tries to entice you with the promise of future business (non-contractual) in return for a discount on the initial engagement?

You know the ones. 

During the negotiation for the initial deal they ask for a discount and tell you "if this goes well, we'll definitely do more with you in the future."

I can maybe count on one hand in my career the amount of times that has panned out.

I have my thoughts and approaches on how I deal with this but I'm curious what you all think and how you deal with this.

Timing is everything when it comes to effective prospecting. 

In more ways than one.
  
I used to spend 30 minutes prospecting each lead:  
  -  Find the right contact  
  -  Research their business  
  -  Look for a trigger  
  -  Write a custom email  
   
That’s all changed.  
   
With the new Sales Assistant from LinkedIn for Sales, I now do all of that in under 5 minutes.  
   
Here’s how it works:  

✅ You tell it what you sell and the accounts you care about 
✅ It builds a persona based on your ICP and starts surfacing leads at those accounts highlighting the ones most likely to convert 
✅ For each lead, it explains why they were selected 
✅ It maps the warmest path in, using your network 
✅ Then it helps you draft a first email you can use for an inmail or email 
   
With LinkedIn's Sales Assistant, you’re no longer guessing. You’re not digging through filters or sifting through accounts and leads to figure out if they’re a good fit.  
   
Sales Assistant serves the right leads, with context, timing, and a plan.  
   
It turns prospecting from a crawl to a sprint.  
   
If you're still doing it the old way, you're burning time you can't get back.  
   
If you want to try it you can join the waitlist here: https://lnkd.in/eZH46J2U   
   
How long does your prospecting process usually take per lead when doing high quality, personalized outreach? 
 
#ad #LinkedInPartner #SalesAssistant

Objection handling "techniques"? 

Give me a break. What are we in Sales 1985 all over again?

That's what I thought when I went to a training earlier in my career on these two topics. 

I went in with an open(ish) mind and with the mentality I always do when I go to training which is - what's one or two things I can take from this that will help me improve.

I had always "handled objections" earlier in my career but it was almost always reactive and based on my gut feeling. 

I had no approach, no strategy.

As the trainer, and now mentor, Jeff Hoffman went through the training and labeled the different techniques I started to recognize some of them and realize how I had been using them without even knowing it. 

Then it dawned on me that understanding the actual techniques would allow me to leverage them far more strategically and proactively.

My approach to objection handling flipped from being reactive to proactive and my results went to the next level. 

That's why I still train them as part of my Driving to Close program and will be running a free workshop sponsored by Otter.ai on Thursday, November 20th at 12:00pm EST.

If you want to be far more strategic and proactive with how you handle your objections you're not going to want to miss this one. 

https://lnkd.in/eBz6jfXZ

Demos suck, there I said it.
 
But they're one of the MOST important aspects of the sales process for your buyers. 
 
According to Gartner, interactive product demos are the most useful resource for B2B SaaS prospects. 
 
Where demos fail? 
 
Reps asking basic qualification questions and then jumping into their canned demo, going through every slide, pausing intermittently to say something meaningless like "does that make sense" and end by asking "do you have any questions."
 
No engagement, no customization, no value.
 
Let's be clear - NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE ENTIRE DEMO!!!
 
They only care about the part that is most relevant to them.
 
That's why I believe in the "Sell to the 20%" philosophy.
 
Think about any product you own or service you use. I almost guarantee you only use about 20% of whatever that product or service is (Your car, clothes, Excel, LinkedIn, Salesforce, etc.)
 
Because everyone only uses 20% of what they buy, that's how I believe people buy.
 
They only care about the things that are most relevant to them and their priorities.
 
That's what we need to focus on with our presentations if we want to differentiate our solutions and uncover/drive urgency.
 
That's why I've partnered with Consensus.
 
They help buyers figure out their own 20% before they even talk to you.
 
Every time a stakeholder hits the demo, Consensus personalizes what they see based on their role and priorities.
 
It’s like pre-discovery for everyone in the buying committee.
 
So instead of throwing everything at them, you deliver what they care about most automatically.
 
If you’re trying to break through the noise and shorten deal cycles, go check them out.
 
#MakeitHappen #Sponsor

Everyone talks about finding and using "trigger events" to personalize their prospecting efforts but does anyone really understand the "why" behind the trigger event?

Most don't. 

For instance, an M&A is a trigger event that many reps use but most of them have never been through an M&A in a leadership role and have no idea the phases businesses go through and what they need at each step. 

That's why their messaging falls flat. 

They don't have the business acumen to make the real/right connection. 

That's why I tell anyone who is looking to improve their sales results to improve their business acumen over any technique or tip I could ever teach them. 
I sat down to discuss this and a lot more with Lorenzo Bizzi on this week's episode of the Make it Happen Monday podcast. 

Lorenzo is an author, professor, and real-world business strategist who grew up in Italy, studied business at Bocconi University in Milan, and fell in love with blending theory and practice. 

He's now based on based in Los Angeles and teaches strategy at Cal State and trains CEOs across industries.

This conversation goes deep on one major idea: Sales is applied strategy.

Most reps are taught tactics, scripts, subject lines, cadences, etc but they miss the big picture: how business works. 

And without business acumen, tactics fall flat. Lorenzo argues that if you want to be taken seriously, you don’t just need to sound credible. You need to be credible.

95% of AI initiatives fail.

That stat comes from MIT research. And most people assume it’s because the AI isn’t good enough yet.

I used to think AI would fix the bad data problem. That it could come in, clean up the mess, and make sense of it all.

But the reality? It’s more “garbage in, garbage out” than ever.

I’ve seen companies pour resources into AI tools, only to watch them flop. Not because the tech was wrong. But because the foundation was cracked with bad inputs, disconnected systems, and no governance.

ZoomInfo’s new AI Readiness Assessment cuts through that noise.

It’s a 2-minute tool built on MIT research and real customer patterns. It shows whether your GTM team is ready to actually use AI or if you need to fix your fundamentals first.

Here’s what it reveals:

• Where your data strategy is holding you back
• How your org stacks up on readiness, from Foundation to Leader
• What to fix before you waste another dollar chasing “AI transformation”

If your team is pushing AI without checking the engine underneath, this is your wake-up call.

Take the AI Readiness Assessment now: 

https://lnkd.in/eBnqMiRZ

🦾Eric Nowoslawski

Growth Engine X

Founder

Clay

Certified Expert

Smartlead

Instantly.ai

REITIUM

Advisor

Gated

Advisor to an exciting Startup called Gated. Gated challenges unknown senders to donate to charity in order to reach you - so everything in your inbox is worth your attention.

It's like a postage stamp for email. 

As a huge email sender, I'm most excited for the ability of our messages to cut through the noise, prove to our prospects that we are being intentional and we want to solve their problems, instead of relying on fancy copywriting and sending 10s of thousands of emails.

Gateway Regional Chamber of Commerce

Vice President

Help Chamber Members grow their business
Facilitated Connecting Members through observed Synergies
Public Policy Research and Advocacy
Negotiate discounts on behalf of the Chamber
Engaged with Local Municipalities in Economic Development and Business Policy

The Gateway Regional Chamber of Commerce is the largest business association in the New York Metropolitan Area with about 1,200 members. We hold approximately 150 events per year from large 600-person dinners to small 10-person breakfasts, and everything in between, with a great emphasis on networking and business promotion.

The Gateway Chamber has a long history dating back to 1911 when it was founded as the Elizabeth Chamber of Commerce by John D. Rockefeller and other New Jersey industrialists.

Today, the Gateway Chamber serves as an umbrella organization for a number of regional and local chambers and networking groups including: the Union County Chamber of Commerce; the Central Jersey Chamber of Commerce; the Route 22 Chamber of Commerce; the Kenilworth Chamber of Commerce; the Roselle Park Chamber of Commerce; the Clark Chamber of Commerce; the Linden Chamber of Commerce, the Somerset Hills Business Network; the Black Business Alliance; the Gateway Warehouse Association; the Gateway Hospitality Alliance; and The Irish Business Association. When you join the Gateway Chamber you automatically become a member of ALL these groups at no additional cost.

The Gateway Chamber is a strong advocate for its members. It works at the federal, state and local levels on both legislative and regulatory issues.

We consider it to be core to our mission to help our members grow their businesses, and as a result our retention rate has averaged 95% over the last five years. 

Members of the Gateway Chamber run the gamut from large corporations like Merck, Comcast, Verizon and Continental Airlines, to small and medium-sized business, to a very active home-based business group.

Director of Special Projects

CCFGiving

Operations Associate

Eastern National Academy

Instructed, refined, and improved skills for gymnasts of all levels
• Earned a 100% retention rate for all Recreational classes 3 months after starting
• Created Ninja Warrior Program that retained 180% of students over 9 months
• Manage employees and planning for Birthday parties and special events

Men's Gymnastics Coach

I am a direct response outbound lead generation expert. And by that jumble of words, I mean that I leverage cold email to build predictable revenue pipelines for my clients. 

I leverage over 20 databases to merge Firmographic, Technographic, and Persona data to build highly targeted playbooks with my clients. 

I believe we need to arm sales teams with the knowledge of their total Target Addressable Market and teach them how to score that Market for which companies have the most pain and need their solution. 

The best way to do this is to look at public indicators such as open jobs data, employee growth/attrition, social media growth, web traffic, new product launches, employee sentiment, individual employee tech investment, company tech stacks, etc.

With this data, not only are you only messaging with people that you know have a problem that you can solve, you also are armed  with powerful messaging that cuts through the noise. 

I teach sales teams to embrace technology and multiply what is possible per employee.

Instantly.ai just released something I've even gone as far to build for myself. But it's way more powerful because of their scale.

They just released their upgraded email verification enrichment for catch all/risky email addresses. 

This is huge for a company like them to be doing because they are using their scale to be able to verify the email addresses with real sending instead of an SMTP check or other methods of catch all verification. 

Now users will be able to check if anyone else on the platform has sent an email to the email address you uploaded and see if it went through successfully in the past. 

Allowing you to contact people that usually don't get as many emails because platforms have a tough time with catch all verification. 

We tried to build this based on our own sending data too but it just didn't have the scale necessary to be useful. With the amount of emails Instantly sends on a daily basis, it's incredibly valuable data for those serious about keeping their bounce rates down. 

I don't think this was publicly announced either but I've noticed that if you upload a lead list, they are automatically taking out leads that have a history of bouncing 100% of the time and I haven't even been charged for that. 

Very interesting development for them to keep pushing features for the cold email community.

Founder Growth Engine X | Clay Enterprise Partner

I've been completely wrong about AI prompting, and it's cost me thousands of dollars and it might be costing you money too. 

For months, I've been telling my team (and all of you) to structure prompts like this:

1. Tell the AI what you want it to do
2. Give it the data to analyze and reference
3. Provide examples of good outputs

I didn't realize that this approach wastes tokens. Especially when you're running outbound campaigns at scale.

I know this may seem obvious to technical people out there but I didn't even consider making a change. 

I had a call with my enterprise rep from OpenAI last week and they asked me why I wasn't using cached inputs based on my use case. 

I didn't even consider it because we use the Clay OpenAI integration.

Cached inputs save 50% on input tokens for GPT-4o mini, and 90% on GPT-4 when the input stays the same.

For those of us using AI for outbound messaging, this is exactly what we're doing. Running the same prompt structure over and over with different prospect data.

But the prompt needs to stay the same for as long as possible for the inputs to cache.

My old approach was mixing up the prompt by putting variable data (company descriptions, prospect info) in the middle.

The correct way:

Put everything that changes at the very bottom of your prompt.

Keep the instructions, examples, and framework identical at the top.

Only vary the prospect-specific data at the end.

I met with Jeff Barg on the Clay team directly about this and you shouldn't have to change all your integrations. The prompt will cache automatically with how they have the integration set up. 

This might seem obvious to technical people, but this is the ignorance debt you pay when you're not technical.

I'm sorry I made the wrong suggestion for so long.

If you're running AI-powered outbound campaigns and not using cached inputs correctly, you're burning money.

Here's everything I built with Cursor over Thanksgiving weekend. Some things were done in one prompt, some things took me a whole day. 

1. Automated our entire company/contact workflow
One form → Companies to Supabase → Contacts on-demand → Campaign auto-refill at 2am

2. Overhauled analytics

We already had pretty good analytics, but everything would run at midnight, and I wouldn't get snapshots during the day. So, I built this. 

- Snapshots of sending at 12pm, 3pm, 6pm EST
- Warnings if anything looks wrong
- Faster action on issues

3. Built our own email lookup API

One endpoint: first name + last name + domain
Checks our database cache first
Then LeadMagic → Prospeo.io → MillionVerifier guess → No duplicate paying for emails

4. Souped up our Google Maps scraper
- Now finds contacts mid-scrape
- Maps + contact data in one run

5. Automated campaign setup
- Settings done automatically
- Reads copywriting
- Suggests how to structure the Clay table

6. Batch API + cached inputs for scoring
- 50% off a request so we can make the prompts longer with more detail.
- 90% off GPT-5 token costs when you use a cached input on top of the batch API discount. 
- Company scoring at scale

7.  AI Lead Categorization 

- Uses the Smartlead API to pull all unassigned category leads. 
- We use the same prompt with GPT-5 Nano, GPT-40 Mini, and GPT-4.1 Nano. As long as they all agree on what category it automatically uploads the category. 

And now we only have to manually categorize what it doesn't agree on. This was a way harder issue than I thought, which is why I kind of hammered it with the three APIs, and we only have to filter 30-50 replies a day manually.

8. Bulk Contact Enrichment Flow for our biggest senders. 

We have 6 customers sending 50k+ emails per day (1 sending 120k emails per day) that just need a ton of data. 

I'm right this second processing 14M leads to be enriched, qualified, and distributed to the right campaigns. 

Can't wait to see what I can get done this week in Cursor.

Made this video explaining how you can use Cursor to scrape Google Maps and stop messing with custom coding it yourself. Here's the overall guideline to get this done below. 

Why Scrape Google Maps?

LinkedIn isn’t enough: Some businesses, especially local ones, lack a LinkedIn presence.

Google Maps is universal: Almost every legitimate business is listed here.

This method is ideal for local businesses or industries with limited LinkedIn activity.

Tools You'll Need:
Cursor: An AI-powered coding assistant and development environment.

Google Maps Extractor API:
RapidAPI version: Affordable and reliable.
Serper.dev, Outscraper, or similar APIs are also compatible.

CSV of ZIP codes or locations: Optional, but useful for targeted searching.

Clay or CRM: For storing and using your scraped data in email workflows.

Step-by-Step Instructions
1. Get Your API Access Set Up
Visit RapidAPI.com's Google Maps Extractor page (or your preferred API provider).

Subscribe to a suitable plan (e.g., $100/mo for 500,000 requests).

Copy your API key from the provider.

Note: One API request = 1 Google Maps page of results.

2. Open Cursor and Start a Project

Launch Cursor and create a new workspace.
Use natural language prompts like:
"Help me set up a workflow to search Google Maps for businesses in a CSV of ZIP codes. Use the RapidAPI Google Maps Extractor endpoint."
Cursor will write the necessary code for you (this might be Python, JavaScript, etc.).

3. Teach Cursor the API Endpoint
In Cursor, paste in the API documentation from RapidAPI (e.g., the search or locate endpoint).

Show it the input parameters and expected response format.

This improves Cursor’s ability to generate valid code.

4. Build Your Scraping Workflow
Provide prompts like:
"Loop through this list of ZIP codes, perform a Google Maps search for 'restaurants', and save the business name, address, category, and phone number to a CSV."

Modify as needed: e.g., "Go 3–5 pages deep" or "also fetch review data".

Let Cursor adjust the code and test locally within the tool.

5. Once you’ve scraped your data:

Export it into a clean CSV.
Import it into Clay to find owner email and contact information.

Here's how we custom coded a process to make sure all of our cold email campaigns are full of leads and get warnings when they aren't.

For years, it was the same manual process: download CSVs, upload into Clay, repeat.

So we built a system using Cursor, Supabase, Clay, and Railway.

Here are the inputs:

- Campaign ID
- Link to TAM list
- Webhook to Clay

Supabase stores:
- Campaign record
- Job record
- Scraped contacts

Cursor handles the scraping:
- Scrapes all contacts from the provided link
- Stores them in Supabase

The nightly worker (runs on Railway at 2AM ET):

Checks all campaigns + jobs.

Decides how many leads to send to Clay webhook.

Batch size options: 500 / 5,000 / 50,000 per day. really anything that you want

Tracks whether each contact was processed or used before.

Clay staging → processing:

Staging in Clay ensures the contact has never been used for that client.

Approved contacts move to the processing table (cleaning + enrichment).

Auto-delete on the Clay table keeps the system running autonomously.

Smartlead:

Leads flow into active campaigns automatically.

The alerts:

Supabase sends a Slack message when all contacts are processed: "All contacts processed" warning.

This tells us it's time to add more leads or the campaign will run dry.

Optionally for you, we use ClickUp analytics to verify leads are being added.

The outcome: we never have to manually upload CSVs again, and we get proactive warnings before campaigns run out of leads.

How are you currently managing lead intake for your cold email campaigns?

I was just thinking about how far we have come since AI. Here's a list of data points that used to be cutting edge and are now so easy with AI. 

When I first started my agency, one of the things we were asked to do was score a company for any signs of GDPR or SOC II compliance. That used to be a crap ton of google search operators (that each cost .01 per call). 

Now you can use a website markdown like Firecrawl to get what you need and score it with AI.

I had another customer that wanted to know 

1) if a company offered phone support and if so
2) what times were they available. 

Again, a google search nightmare and running tons of if/then formulas to parse out the times that they were available on the phone. 

Now you can easily just ask Claygent to get this information for you from the homepage. 

We also had someone that wanted to take a screenshot of an ecom companies sustainability page and put it in the email. 

Wow so many problems. Finding the page, taking the screenshot, saving the screenshot, finding screenshots that had pop ups and deleting them, etc. 

Now browser automation companies can take care of all that. I'd still find the page with Claygent to get down on that compute time and then have Browserbase navigate to the page, make sure there are no pop ups and then take a screenshot. 

What's possible for sales and marketing teams is just getting crazier and crazier with all the new AI tools.

taplio

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John Barrows

🦾Eric Nowoslawski

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taplio

The Battle

John Barrows

🦾Eric Nowoslawski

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}John Barrows's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreJohn Barrows's LinkedIn Performance