execution

Prospecting

Also called: Sales Prospecting, Lead Prospecting, B2B Prospecting

Definition

The process of identifying and researching potential customers (prospects) who match your ICP — building the list of companies and contacts who will receive outbound outreach.

Prospecting is the first step in the outbound sales process: finding the right people to reach out to before any message is sent. A strong prospecting process identifies companies that match your ICP, finds the right decision-maker titles within those companies, and builds a verified contact list with email addresses and/or phone numbers.

The quality of prospecting determines the ceiling of everything downstream. A well-researched, tightly targeted prospect list will outperform a broad, unfiltered list on every metric: open rate, reply rate, qualification rate, close rate.

Modern prospecting tools

  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Filters LinkedIn’s database by company size, industry, seniority, geography, and dozens of other parameters
  • Apollo.io: Combined prospecting database + sequencing tool with 250M+ contacts
  • Clay: Advanced prospecting data enrichment platform — aggregates data from 50+ sources and applies AI to build personalised contact records
  • ZoomInfo: Enterprise-grade B2B database with strong phone data for cold calling
  • Crunchbase: Funding and company growth data for trigger-based prospecting

Prospecting vs list buying

Buying a list from a data vendor is not prospecting — it’s purchasing a generic export that may or may not match your ICP. True prospecting involves researching and selecting contacts based on specific criteria, verifying their information, and understanding why each company on the list is a fit before you reach out.

Prospecting builds the input for outbound sequences. Data enrichment improves prospect data quality. ICP definition determines what criteria to prospect against.

Related Terms

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