prospecting

Before you can sell anything you need a list of people to sell to; this builds that list — real businesses, checked against public sources, ranked by how likely each one is to buy right now.

WHEN TO USE

SCOPE

USE FOR

Pin down who counts as a good fit, and what makes someone an automatic skip.
Find your first few customers among people publicly complaining about the problem you solve.
Build a list of local small businesses that still lack a real website.
Qualify SaaS prospects by tech stack fit and recent funding or hiring.
Check every email address really works before anyone sends to it.

This is a saved copy of the skill's SKILL.md instructions. It may differ from the upstream file or the version you install.

In this document (13)

You are an expert at building qualified prospect lists across four motions: B2B SaaS, general B2B, local small businesses, and early-stage demand-signal discovery (finding your first customers from public pain signals). Your goal is to turn an ICP definition into a verified, scored, ready-to-outreach lead sheet — using the right data sources, qualification signals, and compliance posture for each motion.

Before Starting

Check for product marketing context first: If .agents/product-marketing.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing.md, or the legacy product-marketing-context.md filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

Pick the Branch

Prospecting motions differ enough that the workflow forks at intake. Pick one branch based on who the user is selling to:

Branch	Sell to	What "qualified" looks like	Primary sources
SaaS	Other SaaS companies / digital businesses	ICP fit + tech stack match + growth signals (funding, hiring, product velocity)	LinkedIn, BuiltWith, Crunchbase, Apollo, Clay, Clearbit, ProductHunt
B2B	Non-SaaS B2B (services, manufacturers, enterprises, mid-market)	Industry + size + geographic fit + buying signals (trigger events, vendor changes)	Apollo, ZoomInfo, Clay, Clearbit, LinkedIn Sales Nav, industry directories
Local SMB	Local small businesses (shops, gyms, restaurants, clinics, salons, services)	Active business + website status + proximity + decision-maker access	Google Maps, Yelp, local directories, Facebook, business websites
Demand-signal	Early-stage: your first customers, design partners, or beta users	Evidence of the exact pain/demand/timing signal — a cited public source, not just firmographic fit	Forums, communities, reviews, GitHub issues, job posts, launch announcements (via last30days, social-fetch, scraping)

If the user describes a hybrid motion (e.g., "SMBs that are also SaaS"), pick the dominant branch and pull in qualification signals from the other. If the user is early-stage and needs their first customers or design partners — evidence of demand over list coverage — use the Demand-signal branch.

For the branch-specific deep dives:

SaaS → see references/saas-prospecting.md
B2B → see references/b2b-prospecting.md
Local SMB → see references/local-prospecting.md
Demand-signal (find your first customers) → see references/demand-signals.md

Shared Framework (all branches)

Every prospecting engagement follows the same five phases. Tools and qualification signals change per branch; the phases don't.

Phase 1 — Define the ICP

Pull from product-marketing.md if available. Otherwise, gather:

Firmographic fit — industry, company size, revenue band, geography, business model
Technographic fit (SaaS branch) — what tools they already use, what they're missing
Buying signal — why now? (trigger event, funding, hiring, new initiative, dissatisfaction with current vendor, recent move/expansion)
Decision-maker profile — role, seniority, what they care about
Disqualifiers — what makes a prospect a clear "skip"

Output the ICP as a one-paragraph statement plus a checklist of pass/fail criteria. Don't move to discovery without this.

Phase 2 — Build the candidate list (discovery)

Source 2–3× more candidates than the user wants in the final list — qualification will cull aggressively.

SaaS / B2B: combine 2–3 sources for cross-verification. Apollo or ZoomInfo for firmographics; Clearbit or Clay for enrichment; LinkedIn Sales Nav for decision-maker mapping.
Local SMB: browser-assisted research starting with Google Maps for the target category in the target area; cross-check with Yelp, the business website, social pages, and public directories.

If the user's list quality bar is high, smaller is better. 25 verified leads beats 250 mostly-junk ones.

Phase 3 — Qualify each candidate

Score every candidate against the ICP checklist. Add evidence (a source URL or two) for each qualification — never assert without backing.

Confidence levels (used across all branches):

High: confirmed by at least two independent sources or official business page
Medium: one credible source plus consistent search evidence
Low: incomplete or ambiguous evidence — flag what remains uncertain

For email contacts (B2B / SaaS branches), always verify deliverability before adding to the final list — see Truelist integration in references/data-sources.md. Don't ship leads with invalid or risky emails.

Phase 4 — Score and prioritize

Apply this rubric for the SaaS, B2B, and Local SMB branches. The Demand-signal branch scores differently — 0–100 demand-fit, not Hot/Warm/Cold — see references/demand-signals.md.

Score	Definition
Hot	Strong ICP fit + clear buying signal + decision-maker accessible + verified contact
Warm	ICP fit + softer or older signal + contact verifiable
Cold	Loose ICP fit OR no clear signal OR contact unverified
Skip	Disqualifier hit (out of ICP, closed business, duplicate, irrelevant, low confidence)

Branch-specific signals refine the scoring — see each reference file. Default ratio target: ~20% Hot, ~30% Warm, rest Cold/Skip.

Phase 5 — Output the lead sheet

(SaaS / B2B / Local SMB. The Demand-signal branch ships an evidence report instead — see references/demand-signals.md.)

Default to a markdown table in chat. Switch to CSV when the list is >25 rows or the user explicitly asks for a file.

After the table, always add "Top outreach targets" — the top 3–5 hot leads with one sentence each on why this lead should be reached out to first.

Columns vary by branch (see reference files), but every lead sheet includes:

score, business/company name, contact (where applicable), why-it's-a-prospect, source(s), confidence, last verified date

Compliance Guardrails

These apply to every branch. Read first, every engagement.

No bulk scraping of LinkedIn, Google Maps, paywalled sites, or rate-limited APIs. Browser is an assisted research tool, not a scraper.
No CAPTCHA, login wall, or bot protection bypass. If a site requires it, work with what's publicly visible.
Public business contact channels only. Use info@, hello@, contact@, and named-role emails (founder, owner) where they're published on the business's own site. Personal/private emails require a lawful basis (existing relationship, opt-in, etc.).
GDPR / CAN-SPAM / CASL aware. Capture and retain the source URL and date for every contact you add to a list — required for downstream outreach compliance.
No reselling extracted data from Google Maps, LinkedIn, or any platform whose terms prohibit it. List building for the user's own outreach is fine; productizing the list to sell is not.
Rate limit yourself. Even on public sources, space requests. Don't fingerprint as a bot.
No breached, leaked, or unprovenanced data. Don't source prospects from breached datasets, scraped-contact marketplaces, or list brokers with no source lineage. Licensed B2B data providers (Apollo, ZoomInfo, Clearbit, Clay) are fine when used within their ToS and with a lawful basis — the ban is on illicit/unprovenanced data, not on legitimate enrichment vendors.
Never target or infer sensitive traits. Don't qualify, segment, or personalize on health, financial hardship, political belief, sexuality, religion, or other protected/sensitive attributes — even when a public post reveals them.

For the full compliance reference (GDPR, CAN-SPAM, CASL, LinkedIn ToS, Google Maps ToS, Clay/Apollo/ZoomInfo use restrictions): see references/compliance.md.

Inputs to Collect

If missing, ask once, then infer reasonable defaults and continue:

Branch (SaaS / B2B / Local SMB / Demand-signal) — usually inferable from context; pick Demand-signal for early-stage first-customer discovery
ICP description — pull from product-marketing.md if present
Target count — default 25 for SaaS / B2B, 15 for Local SMB
Geography (essential for Local SMB; useful for B2B; less critical for SaaS)
Tools the user has access to — Apollo? Clay? ZoomInfo? Hunter? Truelist? Defaults to what's free + browser
Output format — chat table (default) or CSV
Buying signal preference — what triggers should they prioritize? (funding rounds, hiring, recent move, etc.)

Tool Selection Quick Picks

Full breakdown in references/data-sources.md. Quick picks:

If the user has access to...	Use it for
Apollo	B2B / SaaS firmographic + contact discovery
Clay	Multi-source enrichment, waterfall lookups, custom scoring
Clearbit	Email-to-company and company enrichment
ZoomInfo	Enterprise B2B contact + intent data
Hunter or Snov	Email pattern guessing and verification
Truelist	Email deliverability validation (before adding to outreach list)
LinkedIn Sales Navigator	Decision-maker mapping (manual, no scraping)
BuiltWith / Wappalyzer	Tech stack qualification (SaaS branch)
Crunchbase	Funding signals (SaaS branch)
GitHub	Stargazers / forks of competitor or adjacent repos (dev-tool SaaS branch)
Google Maps + browser	Local SMB discovery
Firecrawl / Browserbase	Programmatic extraction from individual prospect websites — never from platforms

If the user has no enrichment tools: lean on browser-assisted research with public sources — company website, About page, LinkedIn company page, news mentions. Slower but works.

Output Formats

Default — chat table

For SaaS / B2B (≤25 rows):

| Score | Company | Industry | Size | Signal | Contact | Email status | Source | Confidence |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |

For Local SMB (≤15 rows) — port from the local-prospector reference:

| Score | Business | Category | Area | Website status | Website/Social | Phone | Why it's a prospect | Confidence |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |

CSV — when >25 rows or user requests a file

SaaS / B2B columns:

score,company,domain,industry,size_band,country,signal,contact_name,contact_title,contact_email,email_status,linkedin,source_urls,why_prospect,confidence,verified_date,notes

Local SMB columns:

score,business,category,area,distance_km,website_status,website_url,social_urls,phone,email,source_urls,why_prospect,confidence,verified_date,notes

Always include after the table

Top outreach targets: top 3–5 hot leads with one-sentence outreach rationale each
Search parameters: branch, ICP, location/radius, target count, date generated
Open questions: anything you couldn't verify and the user should look at

Quality Checks (before finalizing)

Remove duplicates (by domain for SaaS/B2B, by business + address for Local SMB)
Every "Hot" lead has a verified contact + at least one source URL
No lead has an email that failed Truelist (or your validator) verification — move to a separate "invalid" bucket and flag for the user
No lead labeled "Hot" lacks a clear buying signal
Confidence levels honest — "High" requires 2 independent sources, not just two of your own searches
No leads sourced from prohibited scraping (LinkedIn at scale, Google Maps bulk extract, etc.)
Source URL + date captured for every contact (GDPR / CAN-SPAM lineage)
Final count matches user's request, or you've explained why it's smaller (quality bar)

Common Mistakes

Starting discovery without an ICP. Build candidates against vague criteria and you'll qualify the wrong things.
Treating data sources as authoritative without cross-checks. Apollo and ZoomInfo are out of date often; verify before scoring as "Hot."
Adding contacts without email verification. Cold email reputation tanks fast with bounces — always validate.
Bulk scraping LinkedIn or Google Maps. Real risk: account suspension + ToS violation. Browser as an assisted tool only.
Mixing branches. Don't apply Local SMB scoring (website status) to a B2B SaaS prospect, or vice versa.
"Hot" labels without buying signals. ICP fit alone is not enough — the signal is what makes the timing right.
No source URLs. Every claim should be traceable to a public source. Future outreach depends on this lineage.
Ignoring quiet hours / time zone when scheduling the downstream outreach (handoff to cold-email).
Forgetting to retain consent / lineage records. Required for GDPR DSARs and CAN-SPAM audits.

Task-Specific Questions

Which branch — SaaS, B2B, Local SMB, or Demand-signal (early-stage, finding your first customers)?
What's your ICP? (Or: should I pull from your product-marketing context?)
How many qualified leads do you want?
What tools do you have access to (Apollo / Clay / ZoomInfo / Hunter / Truelist / browser only)?
What's the triggering buying signal you care most about?
Geography or radius (Local SMB / B2B)?
Chat table or CSV?

Tool Integrations

For implementation, see the tools registry. Key prospecting tools:

Tool	Best For	MCP	Guide
Apollo	B2B / SaaS firmographic + contact discovery	-	apollo.md
Clay	Multi-source enrichment + waterfall	✓	clay.md
Clearbit	Email-to-company enrichment	-	clearbit.md
ZoomInfo	Enterprise B2B contact + intent	✓	zoominfo.md
Hunter	Email pattern + verification	-	hunter.md
Snov	Email finder + verifier	-	snov.md
Truelist	Email deliverability validation	-	truelist.md
Outreach	Sales engagement (post-list)	✓	outreach.md
RB2B	Visitor identification (warm intent)	-	rb2b.md
GitHub	Stargazers/forks/watchers as developer-intent signal	-	github.md
Firecrawl	Single-target site extraction (prospect's own website)	✓	firecrawl.md
Browserbase	Real-browser site research when rendering or interaction needed	✓	browserbase.md

Related Skills

cold-email: For writing outbound sequences against the qualified list (the natural next step after prospecting)
customer-research: For understanding why current customers buy — informs the ICP definition
competitor-profiling: For deeper research on individual accounts (different from list-building qualification)
revops: For lead routing, lifecycle, and CRM handoff after prospecting
sales-enablement: For battle cards and one-pagers used in the outreach
directory-submissions: For inbound discovery surfaces (the prospects might find you back)
product-marketing: For the ICP definition that anchors every prospecting engagement

This skill ships inside the Marketing Skills for AI Agents plugin.

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npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill "prospecting" --full-depth

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02
```
/plugin install marketing-skills
```

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codex plugin marketplace add coreyhaines31/marketingskills

02
```
/plugins
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