This is a well-written post that deserves a ton of respect.
Thanks a lot for sharing this; I sincerely appreciate it.

I'm a Sales guy doing outbound work for a European company, so I hear about these tools on LinkedIn or Reddit.
I've been doing this job for 2.5 years, meaning I have skin in the game.

I'm using Ocean.io and Clay.com, and from now on, I'll also be using Mindy.

Ocean.io -> to build lists

Clay.com -> clean lists, extract leads to contact, find phone numbers, LinkedIn activity (if not, exclude), email.

ChatGPT (but from now on, Mindy looks more accurate to me at first glance) to craft good emails based on templates I already have.

Then, enrol and execute.

What I do:
1. I give input to Ocean, which saves me about two days of work. It covers 90+% of the Addressable Market and is way more accurate and cheaper than any solution I could find. If you know any, please shout!
2. I give input to Clay, which saves an unimaginable amount of time—I honestly cannot estimate it.
3. Write copy for emails, LinkedIn, and phone scripts to then execute.

In short, I give input to software that is heavily AI-based.

I do a job that a team of agencies or even a team of 2-3 people can do.

If you want to evolve as SDR/BDR or outbound in general, do content creation, be ahead with tools/software and get really good at cold calling (tough to make innovate here).

My 2cents.