Great People • Professional Services
Great People: 3-Phase GTM Build from Strategy to Live Outbound
Great People came to Elemra with a CRM built on instinct and outreach that lived in spreadsheets. We replaced it with a purpose-built HubSpot foundation, sourced 585 verified MENA contacts, and operationalised four outbound channels — laying the full GTM infrastructure for a live multi-vertical campaign.
Great People • Professional Services
Great People came to Elemra with a CRM built on instinct and outreach that lived in spreadsheets. We replaced it with a purpose-built HubSpot foundation, sourced 585 verified MENA contacts, and operationalised four outbound channels — laying the full GTM infrastructure for a live multi-vertical campaign.
About Great People
Professional Services
GreatPeople is a SaaS that unifies Customer Experience, Online Reputation, and People Ops. It turns the voice of the customer into better people, better CX, and better reputation by transforming everyday behaviour into measurable CX and reputation impact.
Visit Great People1,000 leads, 26 custom properties, and no system anyone was actually using
Great People had roughly 1,000 leads spread across team Google Sheets. Around 400–500 had been contacted manually, fewer than 50 had responded or booked meetings. HubSpot existed but had been self-configured: a nine-stage Founder ABM pipeline built ad hoc, 26 partially-populated custom properties, and 1,857 contacts archived from an earlier unstructured import.
When Elemra stress-tested the existing bought-list data, only 6% of email addresses were SMTP-confirmed deliverable. There was no channel strategy, no shared pipeline, and no visibility — each team member was running outreach their own way. The CRM was not a source of truth; it was a historical artifact.
The brief was not to patch the existing setup. It was to build the kind of GTM foundation Great People could actually scale from — with clean data, a defensible CRM architecture, and a multi-channel motion that didn't depend on a single person knowing where things were.
What we built
Phase 1 started with first principles, not tooling. Before touching the CRM, Elemra ran A/B tests across four sourcing platforms — Apollo, Clay, Lusha, and Apify/LinkedIn — to establish what was actually reachable in MENA. Apollo was ruled out for UAE entirely based on data, not convention. The tool stack recommendation followed the evidence.
Phase 2 built the HubSpot foundation. The existing pipeline was replaced, not patched. A clean data model was specced, signed off by the client via annotated PDF comments, then built via scripted API calls with full before/after snapshots. Phase 3 (in progress) sequences three verticals in Smartlead, warms sending domains, and fires the live campaign pilot with a self-serve operating playbook on handoff.
- 15 purpose-built gp_* custom properties replacing 26 ad-hoc fields — specced, signed off, then scripted
- Clean six-stage V1 Outbound pipeline with stage-gate rules enforcing data quality at each transition
- Four activity-logging templates (cold call, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, warm intro) and lifecycle automation across all channels
- 585 UAE CX contacts sourced via Apify at $0.003/email with 62% verified deliverability — replacing the 6% GulfLeads baseline
- Three Smartlead vertical sequences (Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail) — segmented motions, not blast lists
Tools We Integrated
1,000 leads, 26 custom properties, and no system anyone was actually using
Great People had roughly 1,000 leads spread across team Google Sheets. Around 400–500 had been contacted manually, fewer than 50 had responded or booked meetings. HubSpot existed but had been self-configured: a nine-stage Founder ABM pipeline built ad hoc, 26 partially-populated custom properties, and 1,857 contacts archived from an earlier unstructured import.
When Elemra stress-tested the existing bought-list data, only 6% of email addresses were SMTP-confirmed deliverable. There was no channel strategy, no shared pipeline, and no visibility — each team member was running outreach their own way. The CRM was not a source of truth; it was a historical artifact.
The brief was not to patch the existing setup. It was to build the kind of GTM foundation Great People could actually scale from — with clean data, a defensible CRM architecture, and a multi-channel motion that didn't depend on a single person knowing where things were.
What we built
Phase 1 started with first principles, not tooling. Before touching the CRM, Elemra ran A/B tests across four sourcing platforms — Apollo, Clay, Lusha, and Apify/LinkedIn — to establish what was actually reachable in MENA. Apollo was ruled out for UAE entirely based on data, not convention. The tool stack recommendation followed the evidence.
Phase 2 built the HubSpot foundation. The existing pipeline was replaced, not patched. A clean data model was specced, signed off by the client via annotated PDF comments, then built via scripted API calls with full before/after snapshots. Phase 3 (in progress) sequences three verticals in Smartlead, warms sending domains, and fires the live campaign pilot with a self-serve operating playbook on handoff.
- 15 purpose-built gp_* custom properties replacing 26 ad-hoc fields — specced, signed off, then scripted
- Clean six-stage V1 Outbound pipeline with stage-gate rules enforcing data quality at each transition
- Four activity-logging templates (cold call, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, warm intro) and lifecycle automation across all channels
- 585 UAE CX contacts sourced via Apify at $0.003/email with 62% verified deliverability — replacing the 6% GulfLeads baseline
- Three Smartlead vertical sequences (Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail) — segmented motions, not blast lists
Tools We Integrated
Results
The most important outcome isn't a single metric — it's that Great People now has a CRM they can actually use. Contacts are segmented, stages have gates, lifecycle moves automatically, and every outreach channel logs to the same record. The 1,857 archived contacts are preserved for a V2 re-engagement campaign once the V1 motion is proven.
On the data side: a 6% deliverability rate on the existing list became a 62% rate on fresh-sourced contacts — at $0.003 per verified email. With three vertical sequences loaded into Smartlead and sending infrastructure warmed, the campaign is ready to fire. Reporting and a self-serve operating playbook will land at handoff.
Pipeline stages, structured
From a 9-stage ad-hoc Founder ABM pipeline to a clean V1 outbound motion: Contacted → Engaged → Demo Booked → Pilot → Closed.
Channels operationalised
Cold call, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, warm intro — every touchpoint logged in HubSpot with reusable activity templates.
Vertical sequences in scope
Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail — segmented Smartlead motions, not blast lists.
Results
The most important outcome isn't a single metric — it's that Great People now has a CRM they can actually use. Contacts are segmented, stages have gates, lifecycle moves automatically, and every outreach channel logs to the same record. The 1,857 archived contacts are preserved for a V2 re-engagement campaign once the V1 motion is proven.
On the data side: a 6% deliverability rate on the existing list became a 62% rate on fresh-sourced contacts — at $0.003 per verified email. With three vertical sequences loaded into Smartlead and sending infrastructure warmed, the campaign is ready to fire. Reporting and a self-serve operating playbook will land at handoff.
Pipeline stages, structured
From a 9-stage ad-hoc Founder ABM pipeline to a clean V1 outbound motion: Contacted → Engaged → Demo Booked → Pilot → Closed.
Channels operationalised
Cold call, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, warm intro — every touchpoint logged in HubSpot with reusable activity templates.
Vertical sequences in scope
Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail — segmented Smartlead motions, not blast lists.