Neeraj Shekhawat
Built, not sent yetClay OOF Cohort 3

Clay outbound for a market with no data

Most outbound playbooks assume the buyer has a LinkedIn page, a website and a work email. Small HVAC companies usually do not. This is the Clay system I built to find and research them anyway, and what broke along the way.

MarketResidential HVAC, Dallas-Fort WorthBuyerOwner-operators, 3 to 10 trucksBuilt inClay's Outbound Orchestration Foundations
Watch the walkthroughOpens on Loom
Walkthrough: the filter, the research agent, the email waterfall, the copy and the sequenceOpen on Loom

The problem

The target was residential HVAC owner-operators with no in-house marketer. They are real businesses with real budgets, but they barely exist in B2B data. LinkedIn has no HVAC industry code, owners rarely list themselves, and most use Gmail or an info@ address.

That makes this a good test of GTM engineering. When the standard data is missing, the system has to find signal somewhere else and refuse to make things up.

What I built

  1. Filter
    Keyword filter instead of an industry codeCompany names had to contain HVAC, Heating, Air, Cooling, Mechanical, Comfort, AC or Furnace. That took 278 companies down to 136. A few still slip through, like a marketing agency with HVAC in its name, so every list gets a human review.
  2. Signal
    A reason to reach out nowJob posts in the last 90 days for technicians, installers or dispatchers. Only a few companies were hiring, so hiring became a bonus reason, not a filter.
  3. Research
    A Claygent that reads the Google Business ProfileRating, review count, whether they have the Google Guaranteed badge, and which field software they use. It returns JSON only, and "unknown" is an allowed answer.
  4. Email
    Cheapest-first email waterfallProviders tried in order, cheapest first (Icypeas, then Enrow), so no credits go on a lookup another provider already answered.
  5. Copy
    A copywriting Claygent that only uses verified fieldsAnything unknown counts as missing. Strict thresholds for each opening line, never pitch Local Services Ads to a company that already has the badge, and state facts plainly instead of complimenting.
  6. Send
    A 3-step sequence in Clay SequencerA first email and two follow-ups that ask for a one-word reply, with no meeting request. Green on Clay's spam check. Every email gets reviewed before it goes out.

What broke and what I changed

First versionThe research agent returned free text and invented review ratings.

FixJSON only, "unknown" allowed, and a "do not guess" rule. A blank now means blank.

First versionThe waterfall found verified work emails for only 4 people across 136 companies.

FixCalls come first for this market. Email is the smaller channel, and the next version finds owners from their own websites.

First versionHiring as a filter would have left almost nobody.

FixHiring is a bonus reason to reach out, used when it exists.

Where it stands

The sequence is still a draft, so there are no reply numbers yet, and I will not invent any. My cohort coach used the copywriting Claygent from this build as the class example in a live session.

Next is a live pilot from a separate, warmed sending domain, with the list rebuilt from Google Maps data and owner names pulled from each company's own website.

The trade-off

Keyword filtering is fast and cheap but leaky, so a person still reviews every list. And in a market this thin, the system's main job is to be honest about what it does not know.

Hiring for GTM engineering or RevOps? Need a revenue system built?

Email is fastest. I work evenings India time, which overlaps the US morning.

Get in touchLinkedIn