How do you find new B2B clients without buying lead lists?

Genuine question for founders, freelancers and agency owners 👋

Bought lead lists always felt wrong to us:

• ❌ Outdated data

• ❌ Generic contacts that never reply

• ❌ No idea where the emails actually came from

So we switched to finding companies through public sources (business directories and their own websites) and writing to them about something specific we noticed.

It's slower per lead, but the reply rate is much better. 📈

So I'm curious, how are you finding new clients right now?

• 🤝 Referrals

• 💼 LinkedIn

• ✉️ Cold email

• 💬 Communities

• 🤷 Something else?

And what's working better than you expected?

(Context: I'm the maker of Boneleads, which launched today, so this is very much on my mind. But I'd love to hear what works for you, tool or no tool.)