| name | apollo-io-sales |
| description | Use Apollo.io for sales contact discovery and email enrichment on Igor's Mac. CLI: /opt/homebrew/bin/apollo (apollo-io-cli), already authenticated. Trigger when: make money, outreach, prospects, enrich email, find founder email, no public email, pipeline send, Partner Pilot, cold call, leads, Apollo, or when tempted to give up because leads.csv says "no public email." Slash: /apollo-io-sales. NEVER skip Apollo when money depends on a real inbox.
|
Apollo.io sales enrichment (mandatory for cash outreach)
Hard lesson (2026-07-14): Agent said MindFort/Puntt had "no public email" and stopped. Apollo CLI was installed, logged in, and had 2k+ lead credits. User had to ask "are you using Apollo?" — that is a directive breach.
Preconditions (run every money session)
which apollo
apollo auth whoami
apollo usage credits
If whoami fails: open Chrome tab https://app.apollo.io (usually already logged in) and apollo auth login — do not ask Igor for an API key first. Chrome is often already on Apollo (see drive-logged-in-chrome).
Default workflow (before any "can't email them")
- Domain people search for company founders/C-suite:
apollo people search --domain mindfort.ai --seniority founder c_suite --per-page 5 -f json
- For each person with
has_email: true, reveal email (consumes credits — worth it for $499–$3k offers):
apollo people email --id <APOLLO_PERSON_ID> -f json
- Prefer
email_status: verified. Log privately under business_os/revenue/apollo-enrichment-YYYY-MM-DD.md (gitignored ops — do not commit PII to public git).
- Send via Gmail MCP (not Apollo sequences unless user asked for sequences).
- pipeline-update.js note:
Apollo: emailed X@Y (verified).
Useful commands
| Goal | Command |
|---|
| Search people | apollo people search --domain <co.com> --seniority founder c_suite -f json |
| Keyword | apollo people search -q "Name Here" -f json |
| Reveal email | apollo people email --id <id> -f json |
| Enrich by name+domain | apollo people enrich --name "Jane Doe" --domain acme.com -f json |
| Credits | apollo usage credits |
| Auth | apollo auth whoami / apollo auth login |
When Apollo is mandatory
- Pipeline stage
sent/ready with next_action needing contact and leads.csv has no email
- User says make money / outreach / follow up / "do everything"
- Partner Pilot / diagnostic / hardening closes
- "No public email" is about to leave your mouth
When not to burn credits
- Prospect already has a verified working email in leads.csv (still OK to verify once)
- Domain NXDOMAIN bounce (e.g. asquaredgames.com) — mark lost; don't re-mail same bad To:
- Direct dial: credits often exhausted; email first
Anti-patterns
- Skipping Apollo and declaring "no email" from GitHub/HN only
- Putting revealed emails into public git files
- Using Playwright for Apollo when CLI already works
- Building more lead scrapers instead of
apollo people email
Pair with
execute-revenue-cash-path — full funnel + senddrive-logged-in-chrome — Stripe live payment linksdiagnose-revenue-funnel — bottleneck stage- Gmail MCP for send;
tools/pipeline-update.js for state
