prospecting

Start by defining your ICP with firmographic fit, buying signals, and disqualifiers, then source 2-3x your target count from tools like Apollo, ZoomInfo, or Clay. Score each candidate Hot, Warm, or Cold based on ICP fit plus a clear buying signal, and verify every email before outreach.

Apollo works for firmographic and contact discovery, Clay for multi-source waterfall enrichment, Crunchbase for funding signals, and BuiltWith or Wappalyzer for tech stack qualification. Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator manually for decision-maker mapping and Truelist to validate emails before sending.

Search Google Maps manually for your target category and area, then cross-check each business name plus city in a web search to confirm website status. Classify results as no site, social only, weak site, or has site, and prioritize no-site and social-only businesses as hot prospects.

No, bulk scraping LinkedIn or Google Maps violates their terms of service and risks permanent account bans. Use browser-assisted manual research for discovery, and tools like Firecrawl only on individual prospect websites you already found, never on the platforms themselves.

Data providers like Apollo are typically 60-80% accurate, and bounce rates above 2% damage sender reputation with ISPs. Run every email through a validator like Truelist, keep only deliverable addresses, and exclude invalid ones before handing the list to outreach.

Use the demand-signal branch: mine public forums, reviews, GitHub issues, and job posts for people explicitly describing the problem you solve. Score prospects on a 0-100 demand-fit rubric, require a cited public signal for each, and ship an evidence report with a manual outreach plan.