Jacob TuwinerI recently sat down with Christian—my co-founder and the go-to expert for client implementations—to share the story of how Sculpted started, why we initially focused on done-for-you outreach, and the challenges we faced along the way.
In our conversation, we dive into the growing pains of scaling outreach, the relentless battle with deliverability, and ultimately why we’re shifting our focus toward Clay-powered data enrichment. Our goal? To help sales teams reclaim their time and close more deals by ensuring their CRM is always packed with high-quality, actionable data.
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The Story of Sculpted’s Beginnings
I’m Jacob, the founder of Sculpted, and I started this journey to solve a very real problem from my own experience. At ServiceBell, my sales team was struggling—they were calling the wrong people because our account data was a mess.
When I discovered Clay and its ability to create super-targeted account lists, I immediately fell in love with the platform.
Early on, as word spread and demand for consulting exploded, we began offering a done-for-you outreach service.
It was simple, easy to sell, and even landed us impressive logos like Sendoso, proving that the concept worked… at least for a while.
Challenges with Outreach
While our initial foray into outreach yielded some successes, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Here are the key challenges we encountered:
The Complexity of Scaling Outreach
Running outreach isn’t just about sending emails. It involves:
- Targeting & List Building: Finding the right accounts and contacts.
- Copywriting & Campaign Setup: Crafting the perfect message and setting up sequences.
- Campaign Management: Monitoring, analyzing, and iterating based on results.
Even with a small team, juggling these moving parts across multiple clients quickly becomes overwhelming.
The Deliverability Dilemma
One of the toughest nuts to crack has been deliverability. When I first started cold emailing back in 2016, the norm was about 200 emails per day per inbox. Now, I’ve seen best practices suggesting as few as five emails per inbox—this number is trending downward fast.
Christian dug deep into every possible solution, scouring the internet and even the dark web, but deliverability remains a frustrating, unpredictable challenge. It’s like driving a car where you hear a weird noise— you try a few fixes, and for a moment, it seems resolved before the problem comes roaring back.
The High Stakes of Client Accountability
When you’re running done-for-you outreach, you’re on the hook for your client’s results—even if the root cause is a bad offer or external factors beyond your control. It’s one thing for an internal head of sales to struggle with these challenges; it’s another entirely to divide your attention and expertise among 30 different clients.
Why We Pivoted
As scaled outbound became more unpredictable and resource-intensive, we started asking ourselves: Is there a better way to deliver real value without being at the mercy of deliverability challenges and manual workload?
A report from Salesforce revealed that sales reps spend 70% of their time on manual tasks. Add to that the chronic issues of poor CRM data—duplicated records, inaccurate information, outdated contacts—and it became clear: our clients needed a more efficient, reliable solution.
Rather than continuously chasing better outreach performance with ever-diminishing returns, we decided to focus on what truly drives sales success: high-quality data in a well-maintained CRM.
What We're Doing Instead
Rather than fighting the uphill battle of outbound deliverability, we’re solving the root cause of sales inefficiency: poor CRM data.
Sculpted now offers Data Enrichment as a Service, helping revenue teams keep their CRM clean, accurate, and actionable. Here’s how we do it:
1. HubSpot Data Cleanup
Most CRMs are cluttered with outdated, duplicate, or incomplete data. We run a deep cleaning process to standardize and enrich your existing records, ensuring your sales team is working with reliable, high-quality data.
- Remove duplicates, fix inconsistencies, and clean up account hierarchies
- Light enrichment across the full database to add missing firmographics & contact details
- Identify gaps and inaccuracies to prevent bad data from polluting your pipeline
2. ICP Analysis & Deep Enrichment
We help you define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and then enrich your most valuable accounts with deep, highly targeted data.
- Custom-built Clay tables to structure and enhance your account & contact data
- Deep enrichment (e.g., intent signals, funding rounds, tech stack, and key decision-makers)
- Data-driven ICP modeling to refine targeting and improve conversion rates
3. Ongoing HubSpot Enrichment Automations
Instead of a one-time data cleanup, we create automated enrichment workflows that keep your CRM fresh.
- Set up re-enrichment schedules (e.g., refresh certain fields every 3–6 months)
- Apply custom overwrite rules to protect key fields from bad data sources
- Sync with HubSpot via our server-side automation, ensuring always up-to-date records
4. Inbound Lead Enrichment & Routing
Sales teams waste time chasing unqualified leads. We apply real-time enrichment to help you prioritize the best inbound leads and route them automatically.
- Enrich every inbound lead the moment they enter your CRM
- Score and route leads based on ICP match, firmographics, and engagement signals
- Automate the sorting process so sales can focus on high-value conversations
5. AI-Powered Deduplication (Coming Soon)
Duplicate records cause confusion, misrouted leads, and bad reporting. Our AI-driven deduplication engine intelligently merges records while preserving valuable data.
- Detect and merge duplicate company & contact records with high confidence
- Automatically protect high-priority data sources (e.g., rep-entered contact details)
- Reduce manual deduplication workload by 80%+
The Bottom Line
Your sales team should be focused on closing deals—not fixing data. We’re building the most advanced HubSpot enrichment engine, powered by Clay, to ensure your CRM is always accurate, always actionable, and always working for you.
If you’re ready to clean up your CRM and unlock smarter, more efficient sales, let’s chat. 🚀