XBOW built its own prospecting and enrichment flow, powered by Clay CLI

Building a reliable data foundation so the GTM team can build safely

As XBOW approached its legacy data provider’s renewal, Bruno was looking for better data and the flexibility to build prospecting directly into XBOW’s platform. Without that access, he expected to stitch together another provider’s API and a separate automation workflow. 

Bruno builds in code and had never worked in Clay’s interface, so he needed an option that fit how he already works. Clay Agent Plugin gave him access to Clay’s enrichment data and workflows directly from XBOW’s internal platform, and Clay’s CLI let him work with Clay’s data and functions in the same development process as the rest of his code.

Instead of writing, patching, and maintaining another layer of integration code, XBOW could build on Clay as a foundation inside the infrastructure it already runs.

That foundation includes Clay’s 250+ data and integration partners. Those connections are prebuilt and kept current, reducing the work of maintaining API connections and managing provider rate limits. Clay also provides capabilities for GTM data models, enrichment waterfalls, and access permissions, giving builders established controls to work with.

XBOW replaced their legacy data provider with an in-house prospecting and enrichment experience powered by Clay CLI. Mike Lawson and Justin Sanchez, from Bruno's team, built their own enrichment interface and account prioritization tools, using Clay to power the underlying find and enrichment capabilities.

“When Clay releases new capabilities, our system is set up so that we can adopt those quickly too,” says Bruno.

"Clay gives us observability into what's going on under the hood to make sure everything is working as it should."

The switch to Clay allowed XBOW to consolidate disparate GTM tools, improve data quality, and build their own custom experience without maintaining the underlying infrastructure.

Simplifying prospecting so reps can find and enrich contacts without manual work

With Clay supplying the data, Bruno’s next challenge was making it easy for sellers to use. In his assessment, Clay offered better data quality. The challenge was making it available in a form reps could use easily.

Bruno’s team studied what the strongest sellers did in the previous tool and built that logic into a natural-language interface, making their approach available to everyone.

“We observed what the best sellers are doing and created logic in the backend. Now you don't need to know how to use Clay to be a power user.”

New sellers who are fresh to XBOW, without many years of experience in the field or large networks, are creating pipeline at a rate similar to experienced sellers.

A rep describes the people they want to find. The platform translates that request into a search against Clay’s GTM database using criteria such as title and seniority, then calls enrichment functions to return work emails, job titles, and company information.

The workflow has increased the number of relevant, usable contacts available to each rep by 30%, helping sellers reach more of the right people.

XBOW also built two versions of its own browser extension. While viewing a LinkedIn profile, a seller can run a pre-qualification check that brings together what XBOW already knows internally with external research. The seller then decides whether to enrich the contact. Clicking “Send to Salesforce” calls Clay to perform the enrichment as part of that workflow.

The workflow now has 100% adoption and 90% month-over-month retention rate among XBOW’s sales reps, with members of marketing and the broader GTM organization using the tool daily. Clay supplies the search and enrichment behind the experience, without requiring sellers to learn another tool.

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Building rep tools that accelerate sales cycles

With the infrastructure in place, XBOW’s team can turn connected data into tools that help sellers act faster. Reps can prioritize accounts, prepare for meetings, and identify the right stakeholders without searching across systems.

Account-scoring workflows use Clay data combined with other providers to identify priority accounts and deliver each rep’s top three in Slack. Reps can also ask why an account ranks highly and get the reasoning behind the recommendation.

Other tools help sellers reconstruct inherited opportunities, summarize calls, and identify who else should join the conversation. A seller can open an opportunity and get a written assessment drawing on connected systems, giving them context before they ask colleagues for an update.

The platform also supports work with existing customers. XBOW brings together product usage and conversation history to help teams assess expansion readiness and renewal risk. When an account needs additional stakeholder engagement, the team uses Clay to identify more people to bring into the conversation.

Together, these workflows help sellers spend less time gathering context and more time deciding on strategy. Reps who use the platform have a close-won rate 5–6% higher than those who don’t. In Q3, 32 of the 36 sellers who closed deals used the platform.