Real talk: I used to pay for ZoomInfo, Apollo, and a couple of other lead databases. Combined cost was pushing $400/month. Then I realized that for local business leads specifically, Google Maps has everything I need — and you can pull it all out with the right tool. Here's what Google Maps gives you for free (publicly available data): - Business name - Phone number - Website - Full address - Star rating + review count - Business hours - Business category That's literally the same data I was paying Apollo for. The difference is Google Maps is updated constantly by the businesses themselves, so the data is often more accurate than third-party databases. The tool I use to extract it: Coreclaw Google Maps Scraper. Takes about 5 minutes to pull a full city's worth of businesses in any niche. My current workflow: 1. Scrape a niche + city combo (e.g., "personal injury lawyers in Houston") 2. Export to CSV 3. Filter out businesses with websites that look modern and well-maintained (they probably already have good marketing help) 4. Focus outreach on businesses with: no website, or a website that looks like it was built in 2010, or fewer than 10 reviews 5. These are the easiest conversations — they already know they have a problem I've completely replaced my paid lead database subscriptions for local outreach. The only thing I still use Apollo for is SaaS/tech company prospecting where Google Maps doesn't have coverage.