The Scenario
You are an outbound SDR. Your manager told you Monday morning: build a list of 200 VP of Engineering contacts at Series B SaaS companies with fewer than 500 employees. By Wednesday. The cold email campaign kicks off Thursday.
You have access to Apollo's people search. You do not have time to click through the filter UI, export a CSV, clean the headers, import into the sheet, and repeat until you hit 200.
The slow version of Monday and Tuesday:
- You open Apollo, set the title filter to "VP of Engineering," set the company type to SaaS, set headcount to under 500, set funding stage to Series B
- Apollo returns 900 results. You click through pages, manually selecting contacts, until you hit the export limit
- The export comes back with 40 columns you do not need, and the four you do need are buried
- You spend an hour slimming the CSV down to name, email, company, and LinkedIn URL
- Wednesday morning: 163 contacts, not 200. You go back into Apollo to find more.
The fast version is one prompt.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent inside your spreadsheet that runs the Apollo people search with your filters and writes the results directly into the sheet in the columns you specify.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
Search Apollo for people with the title "VP of Engineering" at SaaS companies with 50 to 500 employees and funding stage Series B. Return up to 200 contacts. Write first name and last name into column A and B, email into column C, company name into column D, and LinkedIn URL into column E. Skip any contact without a verified email.
SheetXAI runs the search, filters for verified emails, and writes the results into the sheet. You get the list, shaped the way you need it, without touching Apollo's export UI.
What You Get
A 200-row prospect list with:
- Column A — first name
- Column B — last name
- Column C — verified email address
- Column D — company name
- Column E — LinkedIn URL
Only contacts with verified emails make it into the list. No bounced emails on the first send.
Need to add company headcount or the company's city for personalization? Add those to the same prompt. SheetXAI returns whatever Apollo fields you ask for.
What If the Search Results Are Not Quite Ready
Search results rarely land exactly how you need them. SheetXAI handles filtering, deduplication, and personalization prep in the same operation.
When the results include contacts from companies that are already in your CRM
You do not want to cold-email contacts your team is already working.
Search Apollo for VP of Engineering contacts at Series B SaaS companies with 50 to 500 employees. Return up to 200. Write name, email, company, and LinkedIn URL into columns A through D. Then check column E, which has a list of company domains your team is already working. Remove any result row whose company domain matches a domain in column E before writing the final list.
When you want the list grouped by company headcount range for tiered sequencing
Your sequence has two tracks: one for 50-to-200 employee companies, one for 201-to-500. The list needs to reflect that.
Search Apollo for VP of Engineering contacts at Series B SaaS companies with 50 to 500 employees. Write name, email, company, and LinkedIn URL into columns A through D. Add a "Tier" label in column E: write "Mid-Market" for companies with 50 to 200 employees, and "Upper Mid-Market" for 201 to 500.
When you need contacts from two different title variations
Your campaign targets both "VP of Engineering" and "Head of Engineering," but Apollo returns them separately.
Run two Apollo people searches: one for "VP of Engineering" and one for "Head of Engineering," both at Series B SaaS companies with 50 to 500 employees. Combine the results, deduplicate by email, and return up to 200 unique contacts. Write name, email, company, title, and LinkedIn URL into columns A through E.
When you want the search, deduplication, CRM exclusion, and personalization data in one shot
Your manager wants 200 clean contacts, without duplicates, not already in the CRM, with company headcount and city added for personalization.
Search Apollo for VP of Engineering and Head of Engineering contacts at Series B SaaS companies with 50 to 500 employees. Deduplicate by email. Remove any contact whose company domain matches a domain in the Existing CRM tab, column A. Return up to 200 remaining contacts. Write name, email, company, LinkedIn URL, headcount, and city into columns A through F.
The pattern: the search, the filtering, and the cleanup are one prompt. The list lands in the sheet ready to use.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open a blank sheet, then ask it to run an Apollo people search and write the results in. The Apollo integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For related workflows, see how to bulk-create contacts in Apollo from a sheet or the Apollo in Google Sheets overview.