Lead Generation Expert — Apollo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator & AI Outbound (Luxury Travel)

Lead Generation Expert — Apollo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator & AI Outbound (Luxury Travel) I run JustKeeps Travel, a luxury travel advisory in South Florida. Fifteen years in the business, and most of my growth so far has come from referrals and relationships. I'm now building a proper outbound motion and I need someone who knows how to do it well. I already have Apollo and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. What I don't have is someone who can actually run them. Who I'm trying to reach Two audiences, and they're both B2B: Executive assistants, chiefs of staff, and travel coordinators. These are the people who book travel for senior executives, and they're the real decision makers. Almost nobody in my industry markets to them properly. I want to be the advisor they call when the CEO needs Tokyo sorted in four days. Corporate offsite and incentive travel planners. HR leaders, chiefs of staff, event and operations people at companies planning retreats, offsites, and executive group travel. There's a third group I care about, but it's more delicate: entertainment travel — tour managers, production companies, talent agencies. Small industry, everybody knows everybody, and a clumsy cold email does more harm than good. If you have a view on how to approach that world specifically, I'd like to hear it. One thing I'm not asking for: cold outreach to wealthy individuals for leisure travel. That's a different motion, and honestly a bad one. Please don't propose it. What the job involves Building the target lists. Define the ideal customer profile with me, then build accurate, segmented lists in Apollo and Sales Navigator. I care much more about precision than volume. Two hundred right people beat five thousand wrong ones, and in a small industry the wrong ones cost me reputation. Running the campaigns. Multi-touch sequences across email and LinkedIn. Writing that sounds like a person wrote it, not a template with a first name swapped in. My brand is understated and my audience is sharp — generic outreach gets ignored at best. Email infrastructure and deliverability. This is where most outbound quietly fails. I need secondary sending domains set up properly, SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured, mailbox warming, sensible volume limits, and monitoring so we don't burn our domain reputation. I will not send cold email from my primary domain. AI tooling. I want someone using modern tools rather than doing everything by hand, but I also don't want AI slop going out under my name. Tell me where you'd use AI for research, enrichment and personalization, and where you'd insist a human writes the message. I have opinions about this and I'd like to hear yours. Measurement and iteration. Reply rates, positive reply rates, meetings booked. Not open rates. Test messaging and targeting, and tell me what's actually working. CRM hygiene. Leads need to land somewhere clean, with source data attached, so I can see what's producing business. Tools I currently have Apollo and LinkedIn Sales Navigator and I'm open to adding more if you can justify it. Tools I'm aware of and would consider: Clay for enrichment and personalization at scale, Instantly, Smartlead or Lemlist for sending and warmup, Cognism or ZoomInfo if the data justifies the cost, and signal-based tools that pick up hiring, funding or travel-relevant triggers. A few things I'd like your honest read on: Is Apollo enough for both prospecting and sending, or should sending live in a dedicated tool? I've read that good prospecting with a mediocre sender still lands in spam. Is Clay worth it for an operation my size, or is it overkill? LinkedIn automation tools. I know they exist. I also know they can get an account restricted, and my LinkedIn network is one of the most valuable assets I have. If you use them, tell me how you manage that risk. If you think they're not worth it for me, say so. What matters to me My industry is small and reputation-driven. An executive assistant who finds my outreach annoying will tell three others. So volume for its own sake is not the goal, and I'd rather send fifty excellent messages a week than five hundred forgettable ones. You also need to know compliance — CAN-SPAM, GDPR where relevant, and LinkedIn's terms. I'm not interested in shortcuts that create problems later. Who I'm looking for Real experience running Apollo and Sales Navigator, not just familiarity A track record in B2B outbound with proof: reply rates, meetings booked, what you did Strong writing. This might be the most important thing on the list. Email deliverability knowledge — if you can't explain DMARC to me, you're not the right fit Experience selling considered, expensive services rather than cheap software Bonus: travel, hospitality, luxury, events, or anything where you sold to executive assistants One condition: you can't work with another travel agency or advisory while you work with me. Past travel experience is a plus, so mention it. To apply Start your message with the word ITINERARY so I know you read this. Then tell me: Two examples of outbound campaigns you've run, with real numbers and what you specifically did How you'd approach executive assistants. What would the first message say? A rough draft beats a description. Your recommended stack and why, including what you'd add to Apollo and Sales Navigator and what you'd skip Your position on LinkedIn automation and how you'd protect my account How you'd handle deliverability from day one Your rate and structure, and what you'd realistically expect in the first 90 days I'd rather have a conservative number I can trust than an optimistic one. If you think something in this post is wrong, say that too. It helps you with me.