Quick answer
HelloGrowthCRM's lead finder searches Google Places and web search for businesses by keyword, country and city, and drops the results into a raw database inside the CRM. You review and approve, then promote the best to leads — so outbound prospecting feeds the same pipeline your team already works. Searches are admin-run and draw on a plan-based monthly data allowance.
Prospecting in a separate tool never makes it to the pipeline
The usual outbound setup is a scraping tool or a bought list on one side and the CRM on the other, with a messy copy-paste in between. Lists arrive dirty, the good names get lost in a spreadsheet, and half the research never becomes a real lead anyone follows up.
✗ Lists live outside the CRM
A spreadsheet of scraped businesses is not a pipeline. The names sit there, nobody owns them, and follow-up never starts.
✗ Dirty data, manual cleanup
Generic scrapes need hours of de-duping and formatting before they are usable, which is time reps do not spend selling.
✗ No triage step
Without a place to review and approve, either everything becomes a lead (clogging the pipeline) or nothing does (wasting the research).
✗ Discovery and outreach disconnected
Finding the company and contacting it happen in different tools, so the context of why you added them is lost by the time anyone reaches out.
What the lead finder does
Find, triage and promote — without leaving the CRM.
Search by keyword and place
Give a business type, a country and a city — with category, radius and a result cap — and the tool returns matching businesses to work through.
Google Places and web search
Pull prospects from Google Places (the default) or web search via Firecrawl, with open-data rows appearing too — real sources, not a guesswork list.
A raw database to triage
Results land in a Raw DB tab so you can scan, filter and judge before anything becomes a lead. Prospecting stays separate from your clean pipeline until you say so.
Approve, then promote to leads
Approve the businesses worth pursuing and promote them to leads in one move. From there they carry an owner, a stage and a follow-up like any other lead.
Outreach through your channels
Once promoted, reach them by email, WhatsApp or SMS using your connected channels — so discovery and outreach happen in the same CRM.
Admin-controlled allowance
Searches are admin-only and draw on a monthly, plan-based allowance of paid data, so prospecting spend stays deliberate while the whole team works the results.
How it works in 4 steps
Search by keyword and location
An admin enters a business type, country and city — plus category, radius and a result cap — and picks Google Places or web search as the source.
Results land in the Raw DB
Matching businesses appear in a raw database tab inside the CRM, kept separate from your clean leads until you decide they belong there.
Review and approve
Scan the raw results and approve the ones worth pursuing. The triage step keeps junk out of the pipeline and the research from being wasted.
Promote to leads and work them
Approved businesses become leads with an owner and a stage, ready for outreach through your connected email, WhatsApp or SMS channels.
What it is, and what it is not
It is
- Business discovery by keyword, category and location
- Backed by Google Places and web search (paid data)
- A Search → Raw DB → Approved → promote-to-lead flow
- Inside the CRM, so prospects feed your pipeline directly
It is not
- A LinkedIn / Apollo-style people search by name or title
- Unlimited — searches draw on a plan-based monthly allowance
- A messaging tool on its own — outreach uses your connected channels
- Self-serve for everyone — running searches is admin-only
Frequently asked questions
What is the lead finder in HelloGrowthCRM?
The lead finder is a built-in prospecting tool that searches for businesses by keyword and location — using Google Places or web search — and pulls the results into a raw database inside the CRM. You review and approve the good ones, then promote them to leads so outbound prospecting and your pipeline live in the same place.
Where does the data come from?
Primarily Google Places (the default source) and web search via Firecrawl, with some open-data rows appearing too. This is paid third-party data, so searches draw on a monthly allowance that depends on your plan — it is a real prospecting database, not a scrape you have to clean up by hand.
What do I search by?
You give a keyword (the kind of business), a country and a city — plus a state where required — along with a business category, a maximum number of results and a radius. The tool returns matching businesses into a Raw database tab for you to work through.
How do results become leads?
The flow runs Search → Raw DB → Approved. You review raw results, approve the ones worth pursuing, and promote approved businesses to leads in the CRM. From there they behave like any other lead — owner, pipeline stage, follow-up — so prospecting feeds straight into your normal process.
Can I email or message the businesses I find?
Yes, once they are leads — but email verification and bulk messaging depend on the channels you have connected (email, WhatsApp, SMS). The lead finder gets you the companies; your connected channels do the outreach, so the quality of that step follows your channel setup.
Does the lead finder search for individual people or job titles?
No. This is business discovery — finding companies by type and location — not LinkedIn- or Apollo-style people search by name or title. Contact-level enrichment is a separate capability; the lead finder is about finding the right businesses to approach in the first place.
Who can run searches?
Running searches is admin-only, while the resulting leads are worked by the whole team. That keeps the paid search allowance under control — an admin runs the prospecting, and reps work the approved leads it produces.
How is the lead finder different from lead enrichment?
Lead enrichment fills in detail on leads you already have; the lead finder discovers businesses you do not have yet. One deepens existing records, the other widens the top of the funnel. Teams use them together: find the right companies, promote them to leads, then enrich and work them.
Outbound works when discovery lives in the CRM
Every outbound motion starts with the same question: who should we be talking to that we are not already? The usual answer involves a separate scraping tool, a purchased list, or an afternoon of manual searching — and then the real work of getting any of it into a shape your CRM and your reps can use. That handoff is where most prospecting dies. A list of five hundred businesses in a spreadsheet is not pipeline; it is homework nobody does. The lead finder removes the handoff by putting discovery inside the CRM, so the businesses you find and the leads you work are never in two different places.
The flow is deliberately a funnel, not a firehose. A search by business type, city and category pulls candidates from Google Places or web search into a raw database — a staging area, explicitly separate from your clean leads. You triage there: scan, judge, and approve only the businesses worth pursuing. Approved companies are promoted to leads with an owner and a stage, at which point they are indistinguishable from any other lead in your pipeline and can be enriched, segmented and worked through your connected channels. The triage step is what keeps your pipeline trustworthy: junk never gets promoted, and good research never gets lost.
Two things are worth being straight about. First, this is business discovery, not people search — it finds companies by type and place, not individuals by name or job title, so it complements rather than replaces contact-level enrichment. Second, it runs on paid third-party data (Google Places and Firecrawl), which is why searches are admin-run and draw on a monthly, plan-based allowance; that design keeps prospecting spend deliberate while still letting the whole team work the leads it produces. Email verification and bulk outreach then depend on the channels you have connected. Used this way — find, triage, promote, work — the lead finder turns outbound from a disconnected chore into the top of the same pipeline everything else runs through.
Related resources
Enrichment, capture and outreach that work with the lead finder.