How Pennylane turned industry events into fully booked AE calendars with lemlist

Pennylane is a Paris-based fintech that builds financial management and accounting software for SMEs and accounting firms. In 2025, its BDR team had to build outbound from scratch, and fast. With lemlist, 3 BDRs booked 190 meetings in six months, and some AEs walked into the biggest industry event of the year with 15 meetings already in their calendar.

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Pennylane lacked a structured outbound process, and time was running out.

When Charlotte joined Pennylane as BDR Team Lead, she started from a blank page.

No well-structured outbound process, a prospecting motion held together by manual effort, door-to-door visits, and an external agency that was generating leads but not much else.

We had volume on leads but not necessarily conversion. We really wanted to accelerate on the outbound side this year.

— Charlotte, BDR Team Lead @Pennylane

And the clock was ticking. New BDRs were joining in September, and the outbound foundation had to be ready before they arrived. That’s when the team started looking at lemlist.

Why Pennylane chose lemlist over Outreach and Salesloft

Outreach and Salesloft were already in the building. Neither made the cut.

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  The UX felt dated

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  Syncing with Salesforce was a constant headache

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  The team runs a lot of automation through n8n, and the API docs got in the way more than they helped

The result: building a new sequence felt like a chore, so nobody did it.

lemlist felt different from day one. During the POC (a short trial before buying), Charlotte tested it on her own, built sequences from scratch, and could reach the lemlist team whenever she had a question.

I was able to really explore the whole platform, ask lots of questions, make suggestions, and get feedback directly. And the tool was just much easier to use than what we were used to.

But ease of use was only half the test. The real proof came at the most important event of Pennylane’s year.

The target was 6 to 9 meetings per AE. Some booked 15.

The National Congress of Chartered Accountants is Pennylane’s biggest lead moment of the year. Nearly half of the team’s leads in this segment come from it.

Before the congress, each Account Executive (AE) had to book 6 to 9 meetings. The problem: each AE manages 200 to 300 accounts, and contacting that many people by hand before a big event just isn’t realistic.

So the team changed how it prepared. Instead of manual outreach, the Growth Ops team set everything up in advance:

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  pre-built outreach sequences,

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  segmented prospect lists inside Salesforce,

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  and messaging tailored specifically for the event.

AEs didn’t have to build anything. They picked the right accounts in Salesforce, adjusted the message if needed, and launched the sequence. With the lemlist Chrome extension, they could add hundreds of contacts to a sequence in a few clicks, without leaving Salesforce.
In practice, that meant:

→ Ops handled the structure,
→ AEs stayed focused on selling,
→ and outreach could scale instantly.

The target was 6 to 9 meetings. Some AEs had 15 booked before the event even started.

Some of them ended up with 15 meetings from the event instead of the initial target of 6 to 9. We had to tell ourselves: he's going to the event but won't be able to see anyone if he already has 15 appointments in his agenda.

— Bastien, Growth Ops Team Lead @Pennylane

lemlist had proven itself at the most important prospecting moment of the year. After that, rolling it out to the whole team was an easy decision.

Four playbooks, one platform

he congress was only the start. Today, Pennylane runs four different playbooks, all in lemlist.
From high-volume SMB outreach to qualitative BDR sequences, post-event follow-ups, and door-to-door warm-up campaigns.
Because building a sequence is now quick, the team creates a new one for each use case instead of recycling old ones. With conditions in multichannel sequences, each lead gets the message that fits their situation.

"With lemlist, it's almost fun creating new sequences. You can, for each use case, create something that actually makes sense, and put conditions behind it to make sure the right message reaches the right person."

— Charlotte, BDR Team Lead @Pennylane

The team is also adding more channels. On LinkedIn, they already use voice notes and videos.

190 meetings in 6 months, with 3 BDRs

All of this adds up. In the second half of 2025, Pennylane’s BDR team of just 3 people booked 190 meetings. They didn’t need a bigger team or more budget to get there, just a better process and the right platform.

"lemlist helped us structure the team, structure our prospecting processes, and supported us throughout. It's a tool that corresponds to a lot of use cases, and we can grow with a product that keeps evolving."

— Charlotte, BDR Team Lead @Pennylane

What's next for Pennylane?

Pennylane isn’t slowing down. Next on the list:

→ WhatsApp steps for freelancers and small businesses

→ Video attachments in LinkedIn messages, across all sequences

→ More AI-powered automation on every channel

Curious to see what your team can achieve?

Try lemlist to build multi-channel sequences, automate follow-ups, and give your sales team a workflow they actually enjoy using.

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