I tracked how many hours I actually spent finding leads last month. It broke me.

I got curious and timed myself for a week. Building a list of 100 "good fit" B2B/IT prospects, not just any companies, ones actually showing signs they need the service, took me 14 hours. That's LinkedIn Sales Nav, cross-checking job postings, checking if they raised recently, verifying emails that bounce anyway.

14 hours to get a list I'd start burning through outreach on in 2 days.

The wildest part: most of that time wasn't "finding companies." It was figuring out if they were worth contacting right now versus just being a company that exists.

How much of your week goes into list-building vs. actual selling? Curious if I'm an outlier or if this is just normal and everyone's quietly suffering through it.