OnBase: Smashing Sales and Marketing Misalignments Ep. 550 | How Intercom fixed bad Salesforce data and revived outbound prospecting
Episode Summary
Alexander DeMoulin joins the OnBase Podcast to share his candid and inspiring journey from a failed salesperson to a respected RevOps leader. In this episode, he offers a behind-the-scenes look at how trust is built between sales and marketing teams—and why “bad data” is often the first and biggest barrier to collaboration.
From his apartment (formerly his basement), Alexander details how he used scrappy problem-solving and tools like Clay and Clearbit to rebuild trust with sales by cleaning up data, operationalizing lists, and turning feedback into action. His story is not just about tools and processes, but about earning buy-in and enabling cross-functional teams to take confident action.
Key Takeaways
- Failure Fuels Clarity
Alexander’s early struggles in sales revealed his strengths in operations, eventually guiding him into GTM Ops. - Trust Is Everything
Years of failed outbound efforts eroded sales trust. Only deep collaboration and transparency could repair it. - "Bad Data" Isn’t Just a Problem—It’s the Problem
No enrichment tool fixes poor internal hygiene. Alexander tackled duplicates, rogue opportunities, and data mismatches at scale. - Operational Alignment Enables Strategic Feedback
Once trust was restored, sales, marketing, and ops could collaboratively address messaging, strategy, and execution with accountability in all directions.
Quotes
“There’s never perfect data in Salesforce. What matters is if your team can trust it enough to act.”
Best Moments
(01:11) From Fired Salesperson to Ops Leader
Alexander recounts the painful but transformative early career journey that shaped his specialization in ops.
(06:11) Where Outbound Lists Fail
The unsexy truth behind bad data, duplicate accounts, and trust breakdowns between marketing and sales.
(11:44) The Turning Point
A Slack message on a weekend sparks a rethinking of the entire outbound engine—led by Alexander.
(14:06) Peanut Butter and Clay
How Alexander turned wild sales criteria (“they need peanut butter on their site”) into scalable enrichment using Clay.
(21:03) The 6-Column Salesforce Truth Test
His most impactful solution: a system that ensured every account passed a rigorous check before reaching sales.
(26:19) From Bad Data to Collaborative Gold
With trust rebuilt, feedback loops expanded across ops, sales, and marketing, unlocking real collaboration.
Tech Recommendations
- Clay – A web scraping and enrichment platform that empowered solo operators to iterate quickly, prototype creatively, and scale list building.
- Clearbit – The foundational enrichment layer that Alexander used for domain normalization and duplicate detection in Salesforce.
Resource Recommendations
Newsletter:
- Growth Unhinged by Kyle Poyar – Offers practical go-to-market and pricing insights, especially relevant in the AI era.
About the Guest
Alexander DeMoulin is the Director of Go-To-Market Operations at Intercom. With a career that started in university fundraising and took a winding journey through failed sales roles and marketing operations, Alexander brings a grounded, hands-on perspective to operational strategy. He’s led transformative work in sales and marketing alignment and is especially known for operationalizing outbound programs through innovative use of enrichment tools like Clay and Clearbit.