You Deserve Better: A Guide to Dumping Your Contact Data Provider

Don’t settle for a vendor that’s ‘good enough.’ Learn why 6sense is a perfect partner.

January 2, 2024 —

The 6sense Team

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 2

Part 1 — Why You Deserve Better

Chapter 3

Part 2 — Why 6sense is Marriage Material

Chapter 4

Part 3 — It’s Time to Dump Your Data Provider

Chapter 5

Part 4 — Early Days with 6sense

Chapter 6

Part 5 — Success Stories: Customers Who Left and Achieved Greatness

Chapter 7

Conclusion: Your Revenue ‘Happily Ever After’

Chapter 1

Introduction

If you’ve ever felt neglected, taken for granted, or even bullied during your relationship with a B2B contact data provider, you’re not alone. Lots of vendors are known for their whirlwind roses-and-chocolates courtships, cheerfully delivered “I do’s” … and then deliver years of deeply flawed contact data, poor communication, and disappointing revenue growth.

Is your vendor exhibiting behaviors like…

Delivering contact data that’s underwhelming or downright inaccurate?
Providing unsatisfying or unstable revenue growth?
Ghosting you when you need their support the most?
A generally unhelpful and insufferable personality with control-freak tendencies and borderline unethical business practices?

If so, it’s time to swipe left on your relationship.

There are far better partners out there. And they’ve got far better data, too. And they actually care about your business’ well-being and growth.

You deserve better, and this guide will show you why. It’ll…

Help you recognize the signs of an inflexible, inequitable vendor relationship
Show you what to look for in a better data partner, and
Provide the steps to gracefully break up with your current provider

Trust us: It’s not you, it’s them. Here’s how to free yourself from a lousy relationship.

Chapter 2

Part 1 — Why You Deserve Better

When it comes to relationships, it’s tough to know when to stay or when to go. Read on to discover the signs of a bad romance.

Communication Breakdown

In matters of the heart (and business), communication is crucial — and it’s a two-way street. But is that how it’s going with your current contact data provider?

At some point with many of these vendors, communication seems to go only one way: theirs. For instance:

They aren’t adapting to your changing data needs as annual enrichment when you renew — and even more rare keyword or Ideal Customer Profile updates are commonplace.
Their data is stagnant and out of touch with your ICP. Instead, their focus is on generating more data rather than providing relevant data. (And they don’t train you on how their data should be used, either.)
They throw intent data over the wall with no context or guidance to users who have no experience on how to use it. Now it’s up to pure luck that your sellers reach the right decision makers at the right time.

And perhaps even more important than the data itself: They’re not providing the consultative support you need to achieve your revenue goals. They could be falling short of expectations by:

Focusing on their sales and renewals over driving your success and revenue
Failing to incorporate intent data into your pre-sales motion to save time and sales effort

Plus, if a vendor is constantly cold-calling you as part of their own sales motion, are they really offering you anything more?

You deserve better.

Quiz: Is Your Data Vendor Really Listening?

Does your vendor keep up with the rapid evolution happening daily in sales and marketing data? Are they dedicated to co-innovating with you versus peddling the same old datasets? This quiz might provide food for thought.

Is your vendor a trusted advisor that supports you when you need it the most? Sadly, legacy data vendors are infamous for poor customer success ratios. You need a partner who’s with you through better and worse, richer and poorer.
How many tools do your sellers use to find and engage contacts? Vendors that don’t integrate with your existing workflows usually create confusion and extra effort. Your people need a single dashboard, with a single source of truth.
Are you getting intent data that actually reduces selling time? Low-quality, generic intent data doesn’t help sellers save time. Ideal vendors should pinpoint accounts that that actually matter — like ones exhibiting buying intent.
Do you buy contact data too early — or late — in the buying journey? In B2B sales, timing is everything … and engaging prospects at irrelevant points in their journey can do more harm than good. Perfectly timed intent signals arm your sellers with advantages that competitors won’t have.
What percentage of your outreach is still cold calling and spamming? It shouldn’t be much, if at all. But generic contacts will sink that goal. Working them consumes extra effort and kills team productivity.

Get out of this kind of relationship. If your vendor is underdelivering and can’t (or won’t) listen to your concerns, their communication problems will become your revenue problems.

By comparison, caring and competent partners help ensure your revenue success. These vendors have robust customer success teams that listen and actively address your concerns. It’s a true partnership, not a one-sided conversation.

Trust Issues

Trust is the bedrock of any relationship … but is your vendor delivering the goods? Can you believe the data you’re getting? Is the quality of your contact data sparking questions like:

Are we reaching the right people?
Do these contacts match our Ideal Customer Profile?
Are these email addresses or mobile phone numbers even valid?

If you’re regularly making second guesses, it’s time to pack your bags. Consider the multiplication effects that stem from bad data, like:

Wrong names lead to endless research trying to uncover the right contacts
Inaccurate email addresses mean collateral gets sent into the void
Incorrect titles result in pitches to the wrong roles
Out-of-date phone numbers leave voicemails unheard

This compounds wasted time across your entire revenue engine: sales, marketing, customer success, and more. These missteps contribute to the $2 trillion that’s wasted annually on inefficient, outdated B2B sales and marketing processes.

And yet your vendor keeps pushing even more questionable contacts to buy. This partner might not be the catch you thought they were.

(Did we mention you deserve better?)

Is Your Data Vendor Truly Invested in Your Revenue Success?

Or are they motivated by selling you tons of contacts? There’s a difference.

When it comes to contact data, it’s all about relevancy, accuracy, and quality — not quantity. Vendors that treat their offerings like a numbers game are motivated to sell lots of contacts, not relevant ones.

Without in-market contacts recommended and surfaced, your sales teams are forced to ingest more contacts than they need. They then spend way too much time trying to reach contacts who aren’t even part of the accounts’ buying teams.

And they’re missing real conversations with in-market buyers as a result.

They’re Too High Maintenance

You probably started your contact data vendor relationship with plenty of autonomy, flexibility, and freedom. Ah, the salad days.

Are things still that way? Or are you experiencing insidious limitations that are holding back your revenue team? A partner should never make you feel trapped with inflexible terms and prohibitively high costs.

Are you feeling:

Locked into long, punishing contracts with aggressive auto-renewals?
Lured into purchasing excess contacts you don’t need?
Little control over customizing data to your needs?
Fear of reprisal if you try to walk away?
All alone because your vendor is only in the mood when it’s time to renew?

Ethical, equitable partnerships don’t look like this.

It’s Time to Regain Control

There are other fish in the sea. The best ones strive for win-win relationships, not selfish sales practices that sideline your growth for the others’ gain.

For instance, caring partners empower you to tailor contact profiles and purchases to match your needs, ideal customers, and use cases. There are no rigid contracts or threats of clawbacks … and plenty of opportunity to work together toward a goal of shared success.

They understand that contact data is the beginning — not the entirety — of revenue success.

Chapter 3

Part 2 — Why 6sense is Marriage Material

Dumping a chump shouldn’t be a sad occasion, especially if there’s someone better waiting in the wings. 6sense is that “someone better.” Here’s why.

We Provide a Deeper Connection

Your current contact data provider might help you with top-of-mind needs — like finding names, generic titles, and contact info. But if your team wants to win in today’s crowded market, they must truly understand your buyers.

The best way to achieve that is to go deeper with a partner that offers richer contact insights. 6sense offers that, and much more.

Here’s our take: Giving your team substandard data is basically giving them no data at all. That’s why we’ve invested so heavily in delivering the industry’s most comprehensive, precise, and relevant B2B contact data.

6sense’s purpose-built AI models analyze millions of data points — across firmographics, technographics, psychographics, intent data, contact information, and more — to provide laser-focused insights your team can use to deeply personalize your sellers’ outreach … and generate more revenue.

6sense: Not Just Names and Numbers

Unlike other providers, 6sense’s platform arms you with a superior, multifaceted view of each contact. In addition to accurate contact information, we provide other crucial attributes like:

Firmographic data: Revenues, growth, locations etc.
Technographic insights: Tech stacks, software usage, devices
Psychographic data: Company blog, job openings, and social media pages
Buying team connections: Roles, responsibilities, hierarchies
Web activity: Web page visits, content engagement, campaign activity
Company hierarchy: Geographic locations, parent-company, subsidiaries
Predictive AI: Account fit & buying stage, contact fit, contact engagement

You can finally move past superficial outreach to a deeper connection that converts contacts into customers.

We’re Always in Touch

6sense’s platform tracks intent signals at scale and immediately alerts your team as accounts move through the buying journey. We provide:

Timely notifications when target accounts exhibit key behaviors (which you define)
Insights into what’s motivating that activity
Conversation guidance on engaging active contacts
Coverage of buying committee roles

With 6sense, your entire revenue engine — sales, marketing, and customer success — operates in alignment, seamlessly orchestrating multithreaded outreach across all channels.

We’re Worldly and Well-Travelled

As your business grows, you’ll need data to go where your customers are … and 6sense has it. We’ll help you engage new international markets and expand seamlessly into every region.

With 6sense’s worldwide contact data coverage, you can:

Uncover contacts across North America, Europe, APAC, LATAM, and more
Localize outreach with regional buyer preferences, languages, and company hierarchy insights
Stay on top of overseas competitor moves and new threats via the latest intent signals

6sense’s robust international datasets level the playing field against competitors and remove blind spots. No more scrambling to fill regional gaps — consistent global data means you can act quickly on new global opportunities and unlock new levels of growth.

6sense’s Recent Data Investments in EMEA

To support our customers’ global growth, 6sense aggressively expanded EMEA data coverage and insights in the recent months, including:

We’ve added 3+ million new EMEA accounts, for a total of 14 million
40% more email and phone numbers, for a total of 100 million contact profiles
150+ million new trackable intent signals

We Make the Transition Drama-Free

Switching contact data vendors can be daunting, but 6sense makes the transition to our platform seamless and painless. Here’s how:

Frictionless Onboarding

Data testing to ensure quality replacement of existing contacts
Gradual ramp-up options during transition
Clean CRM migration protecting past engagement data
Guides and best practices for adoption and usage

Ongoing Success and Support

Regular, automated data refreshes to capture latest signals
Customer success guidance on optimizing usage
New data and integration enhancements added continually
Proactive monitoring to surface new adoption and use case opportunities

Your Single Source of Truth

6sense also easily integrates data into your existing workflows. Sellers can access relevant intent signals natively in sales tools like Salesforce, Outreach, or SalesLoft without switching between systems.

We keep the process simple, organized, and low risk. It’s data-driven growth without the drama.

Ready to see 6sense in action?

Chapter 4

Part 3 — It’s Time to Dump Your Data Provider

If you take the journey to break up with your current provider, know that their reaction may be cooperative or combative. This section lays out strategies to make a clean break while avoiding common pitfalls.

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

Firstly, lay the groundwork with your colleagues by defining clear terms for offboarding contacts and data access.

This can help you get ahead of any vendor scare tactics around lost contact data or legal action. With the right approach, you can:

Reset the relationship on your terms
Protect your data access during the transition, and
Avoid bitter parting shots

These efforts will help you move confidently toward a new partnership. Remember, this isn’t personal — it’s business. Keep the focus on your needs and growth. With forethought and facts, you can orchestrate an amicable exit.

Build Confidence and Consensus

Switching contact data vendors is an all-company decision. Arm yourself with answers to address concerns among internal stakeholders. For instance:

Sales may worry about workflow disruption or lost historical contact data. Assure them there’ll be minimal disruption. They’ll likely see an increase in relevant contacts, not a loss.
Marketing and sales ops need confidence that new data will integrate seamlessly without disrupting workflows. (For instance: With 6sense, sellers can discover new contacts and sync them to their CRM with one click. This eliminates fragmented data and manual effort.)
Execs care about continuous revenue impact. Provide air cover with data tests, pilot groups, and customer success support from 6sense. These speak to the long-term revenue goals and outcomes like increased opportunity volume, deal size, and win rates.

With the right preparation, your organization will be primed for liftoff when your new vendor’s data kicks in.

We’ve Got Your Back <3

With your stakeholders aligned, tap 6sense’s customer success and pre-sales resources to eliminate adoption friction. We’ll help with:

Data testing to verify coverage and quality
Account segmentation and rollout plan
Training programs and change management, and
Ongoing program value reviews

Saying the Actual Goodbye

Expect some growing pains as your vendor reacts to the news that you want to see other people. You’ll likely endure the five stages of grief — including anger.

They may make claims like…

They’ll withhold your contacts if you leave: Stand firm. Any previously engaged contacts are yours to keep.
You’ll lose historical contact data: Know that your CRM data stays intact.
You’ll get limited access: More drama. We can’t speak for other vendors, but 6sense can quickly bulk replace and enrich most relevant contacts before go-live.
You’ll face legal action: Stay brave. This is usually the bluster of a bully and not a legit concern.

Beware of Auto-Renewals

Many vendors’ contracts include auto-renewal clauses. Be sure to plan for these so you can truly say goodbye when your next renewal period comes.

As you move forward with the separation, stay focused on your needs and goals:

Be transparent about why you’re moving in a new direction
Clearly outline what contacts and data you will be taking
Determine if any ongoing data access makes sense
Explore if contractual obligations allow an accelerated exit

With customer success and pre-sales guidance from 6sense, set the terms to meet both parties’ legitimate needs during offboarding. The freedom of a clean break and fresh start awaits.

They’ll Say Anything to Get You to Stay…

As you initiate change, your provider may continuously (and even desperately) push certain narratives to create fear and doubt to keep you locked in. Here’s some of those tall tales:

Myth: “Your contact coverage will decrease!”

Truth: With 6sense’s advanced matching, you’ll usually see increased coverage. Data testing during our onboarding process verifies ongoing reach. We offer the most relevant contacts, so you get the most value from every contact purchase.

Myth: “Our revenue operations enrichment and workflows are impossible to replace!”

Truth: 6sense makes enrichment easy and automated across your stack. We can bulk enrich your data at regular intervals. And we’ll soon provide a fully automated real-time data enrichment solution.

Keep the dialogue fact-based. Surface real risks, but don’t accept limiting narratives. The truth will set your contact data free.

Ready to see 6sense in action?

Chapter 5

Part 4 — Early Days with 6sense

As you make the split with your provider, you’ll begin a true partnership with 6sense — one built for growth. During the early days of our collaboration, we provide:

Pre-implementation data testing to validate our superior coverage
Gradual account rollout to prove value with minimal disruption
Proactive data refreshes to continuously capture the newest signals
Ongoing training and adoption best practices to expand usage

More importantly, our customer success team becomes your trusted advisor in maximizing 6sense’s value. Here’s how:

We track usage metrics and revenue impact together to optimize adoption
Our experts help tailor workflows, signals, and features to your evolving needs
We act as your guided growth partner far beyond implementation

This white-glove support continues throughout our relationship. We aim to drive immediate value while building an enduring relationship focused on your revenue goals.

Reading Your New Partner’s (Intent) Signals

Armed with powerful new revenue intelligence from 6sense, your teams can quickly:

Conduct training programs to extract insights from account and contact analytics
Set alert sequences so the newest and hottest signals get immediate attention by sellers
Build CRM workflows to regularly refresh enriched contact profiles
Provide templatized outreach emails pre-populated with conversation starters based on target account activity
Deliver skills coaching to help sellers communicate insights in engaging, personalized ways

We’ll provide adoption guidance so your team can rapidly translate contact data into warmer conversations. Your sellers will understand which signals indicate true interest and how to leverage those clues to their personalize outreach.

They’ll soon confidently, and proactively, engage accounts with tailored insights instead of generic cold calls.

Chapter 6

Part 5 — Success Stories: Customers Who Left and Achieved Greatness

Our partnerships with customers consistently deliver measurable revenue growth and pipeline velocity. Here are a few of their positive experiences:

Drift highlighted 6sense as providing the highest quality actionable data to power their sales and marketing.
Martal Group switched providers and immediately experienced 6sense’s superior data and white-glove customer service.

Hundreds of our customers have experienced similar mileage. In fact, based on a 2022 Forrester Total Economic Impact study, a 6sense composite-customer experienced significant gains in profits for their organization, including:

2X increases in average contract value
4X increases in win rate
31% increases in opportunity volume

6sense customers can also see significant decreases in costs from marketing, and more efficient and effective selling:

40% reduction in aggregate costs to qualify opportunities
40% reduction in effort to close opportunities
20% to 40% reduction in time to close deals

We want you to hear our customers’ accolades first-hand. We welcome you to join one of our monthly Customer Story Hours. These lively events provide prospective 6sense customers like you to speak directly to existing 6sense users. 

Chapter 7

Conclusion: Your Revenue ‘Happily Ever After’

Like finding true love, meeting the right contact data provider and revenue intelligence solution changes everything. That’s why settling for a less-than-stellar vendor isn’t just bad for your emotional state… it’s bad for your business. Remember: You deserve better.

When you work with 6sense, your team gains the best contact data and the insights, workflows, and coaching to convert contacts into customers. We immerse your sellers in the signals, context, and recommendations they need to craft authentic outreach that converts.

Our globe-spanning data empowers you to tap into new markets
Our robust analytics empower you to fine-tune strategies using hard evidence
Our omnichannel intent trackers capture interest the moment it appears across the web
And our customer success team’s tireless support accelerates your adoption and growth

It’s time to dump the provider with limited vision, control-freak tendencies, and stagnant data. Let’s start a new journey together. Contact us for a personalized demo to discover why 6sense is the one for you now — and for happily ever after.

Ready to see 6sense in action?

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You Deserve Better: A Guide to Dumping Your Contact Data Provider

Chapters

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1 — Why You Deserve Better

Communication Breakdown

Quiz: Is Your Data Vendor Really Listening?

Trust Issues

Part 2 — Why 6sense is Marriage Material

6sense: Not Just Names and Numbers

We’re Always in Touch

We’re Worldly and Well-Travelled

6sense’s Recent Data Investments in EMEA

We Make the Transition Drama-Free

Your Single Source of Truth

Part 3 — It’s Time to Dump Your Data Provider

We’ve Got Your Back <3

Saying the Actual Goodbye

Beware of Auto-Renewals

They’ll Say Anything to Get You to Stay…

Part 4 — Early Days with 6sense

Part 5 — Success Stories: Customers Who Left and Achieved Greatness

Conclusion: Your Revenue ‘Happily Ever After’

The 6sense Team

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