When Shira Simmonds scaled her lead generation agency from 100 team members down to just 25 while increasing output, she wasn’t following a playbook—she was writing one. As founder of SmartReach.AI, Shira discovered what most SaaS founders miss: AI doesn’t replace human connection in outbound; it amplifies it.
In this episode, she reveals why hyper-personalization alone failed, how intent signals transformed her conversion rates by 5x, and why she refuses to build another faceless AI tool in an industry drowning in them.
Talking points include:
- Why reducing her team by 75% actually solved her biggest scaling problem.
- The “aha moment” that turned 2-3 booked calls into 10-15 per campaign.
- Why ICP targeting isn’t enough, and what signals actually predict purchase readiness.
The $100K Lesson: When Hyper-Personalization Wasn’t Enough
Shira invested heavily in building AI-powered hyper-personalization for multi-channel outreach, training the system on 25 million historical messages from her agency. This resulted in a lift in performance, but not the breakthrough she expected.
“We just invested all of this… it’s working really well, but—” The frustration was real. The missing piece was intent signals. It’s not enough to know who your ideal customer is; you need to know if they’re actually in-market right now.
By layering behavioral triggers—funding announcements, hiring signals, event attendance, and competitor following—on top of personalized messaging, Shira’s campaigns went from booking 2-3 calls to 10-15. The data doesn’t lie: timing beats personalization every time.
Apollo’s 70% Data Problem
When you’re paying for lead data where only 30% is actually valid, you’re not running campaigns—you’re burning budget. Shira’s team tested everything: Apollo, RocketReach, Prospeo, ZoomInfo, and Lusha.
With millions of internal data sets to validate against, they could see which providers consistently delivered. RocketReach won for data quality, but here’s the twist: Apollo found more leads, even if they weren’t all perfect. The solution is now SmartReach.AI integrates multiple data sources, letting users cherry-pick based on their specific needs rather than forcing a one-size-fits-all approach.
This kind of pragmatic testing—backed by real agency experience, not marketing claims—is what separates tools built by operators from tools built by opportunists.
Why She Keeps Humans in Her AI Company
In an industry racing toward full automation, Shira made a contrarian bet: keep human support at the core. After experiencing Apollo’s five-day response time when her account was hacked, she committed to building what she wished existed.
Her customer success team came from her agency background—trained on actual client relationships, not just ticket resolution.
SmartReach.AI offers live chat when online and dedicated account managers for full-service clients. “We’re losing it in 2025, especially in SaaS tools,” she says. The irony is that her AI-powered lead generation platform succeeds because it refuses to fully automate the customer experience.
When CEOs of integrated tools (HeyReach, Ocean, Reply.io) are accessible via Slack for troubleshooting, that’s not just good relationships—that’s a competitive advantage.
Listen to find out more about:
- The cookie challenge that’s blocking LinkedIn follower scraping (and how she’s solving it).
- Why combining human-written messaging with AI learning creates better results than pure AI generation.
- How SmartReach.AI’s three-tier pricing addresses startups, scale-ups, and legacy enterprise needs differently.
Key segments of this podcast and where you can tune in to go direct:
[00:02:20] The agency pain point that became a SaaS opportunity—scaling from 100 to 25 team members
[00:07:55] Why LinkedIn scraping requires cookies (and the authentication headaches nobody talks about)
[00:11:00] The two-part breakthrough: personalization + intent signals = 5x conversion increase
[00:17:40] How personal relationships with integration partners (Ocean, HeyReach, Reply.io) create platform advantages
Ready to Transform Your Outbound Strategy?
Shira’s journey from agency owner to SaaS founder offers a masterclass in solving real problems with hybrid AI-human solutions. This isn’t theory, it’s battle-tested strategy from someone who’s sent 25 million messages and learned what actually converts.
Want to see how combining intent signals with hyper-personalization can turn your lead generation from guesswork into a predictable revenue engine?
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Author
Adaline Lefe Mary John
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