Skill: Sales Prospecting
Overview
This skill enables Perplexity AI to identify, research, and qualify potential sales prospects, building targeted prospect lists and personalized outreach intelligence to accelerate pipeline development.
Skill Metadata
- Skill ID: sales-prospecting
- Category: Sales & Revenue
- Complexity: Advanced
- Estimated Time: 10-30 minutes per prospect or list
- Output Format: Prospect Profile + Outreach Brief (Markdown)
Capabilities
1. Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Research
- Define target company characteristics (industry, size, stage, geography)
- Map buying signals and trigger events
- Identify technology stack indicators
- Research budget and spending signals
- Validate ICP fit against known customer profiles
2. Prospect Identification
- Company discovery based on ICP criteria
- Contact identification (decision makers, champions, influencers)
- Organizational mapping and buying committee research
- Signal-based prospecting (funding, hiring, news events)
- Competitor customer identification
3. Account Intelligence
- Company financials and growth indicators
- Recent news and strategic announcements
- Technology stack and tool usage
- Key initiatives and strategic priorities
- Pain points and challenges based on public information
4. Contact Research
- Decision maker background and career history
- Published content, talks, and thought leadership
- Trigger events (promotions, company changes, new roles)
- Communication preferences and activity patterns
5. Personalized Outreach Intelligence
- Hyper-personalized email hooks
- Relevant talking points for cold calls
- Value proposition alignment to prospect's context
- Timing recommendations based on signals
- Multi-touch sequence recommendations
Input Requirements
yaml
required_inputs:
- product_service: "What you are selling"
- icp_criteria: "Ideal customer profile definition"
- prospecting_goal: "List building|Single account research|Contact identification"
optional_inputs:
- target_industry: "Specific industries to focus on"
- company_size: "Employee count range"
- geography: "Target regions or markets"
- persona: "Job titles and roles to target"
- trigger_events: "Signals to prioritize (funding, hiring, news)"
- competitors: "Competitors whose customers to target"
- exclusion_list: "Companies or domains to exclude"
Step-by-Step Workflow
Phase 1: ICP Definition and Validation
Step 1: ICP Criteria Documentation
- Firmographic: Industry, company size, revenue stage, geography, business model
- Technographic: Current tools they use, technologies that indicate fit
- Behavioral: Buying signals (funding rounds, hiring plans), trigger events
Step 2: ICP Validation
- Cross-reference against 5-10 best existing customers
- Identify common patterns and attributes
- Rank criteria by predictive value
- Define minimum viable fit threshold
Phase 2: Prospect Discovery
Step 3: Company Discovery
Search strategies:
- "Industry] companies location] size range]"
- "Competitor] customers alternatives"
- "Technology] users companies"
- "Series B/C funding industry] 2024"
- "Job title] hiring company type]"
Sources to mine:
- Crunchbase for funded companies
- LinkedIn for company and contact search
- G2/Capterra for technology users
- Industry directories and associations
- Conference and event attendee lists
Step 4: Contact Identification
Buying committee roles to find:
- Economic Buyer: Final budget authority
- Champion: Internal advocate for your solution
- User Buyer: Daily user of the product
- Technical Buyer: IT/security evaluator
- Gatekeeper: EA/coordinator managing access
Phase 3: Account Intelligence Gathering
Step 5: Account Deep-Dive
- Company overview and recent performance
- Strategic initiatives and priorities
- Technology stack from job postings and reviews
- Key challenges from press, reviews, forums
- Recent news and trigger events
- Competitive landscape they face
Step 6: Buying Signal Detection
| Signal Type | What to Look For | Priority | |------------|-----------------|----------| | Funding | New funding round | High | | Leadership | New C-suite hire | High | | Growth | Rapid hiring in target dept | High | | Expansion | New market or product launch | Medium | | Pain Signal | Negative reviews of competitor | Medium | | Content | Published content on your topic | Low |
Phase 4: Outreach Personalization
Step 7: Personalization Research
- Recent post, article, or talk to reference
- Company news relevant to your solution
- Specific challenge they have mentioned
- Connection or shared experience
- Timing trigger that makes outreach relevant now
Step 8: Outreach Brief Creation For each prospect:
- One-sentence personalization hook
- Relevant value proposition alignment
- Specific pain point to address
- Proposed next step and CTA
- Best channel for outreach (email/phone/LinkedIn)
Output Templates
Prospect List Template
# Prospect List: [Campaign Name]
Created: [Date] | ICP: [Brief description] | Goal: [Number]
## Tier 1 Prospects (Best Fit)
| Company | Contact | Title | Signal | Score |
|---------|---------|-------|--------|-------|
## Tier 2 Prospects (Good Fit)
| Company | Contact | Title | Signal | Score |
|---------|---------|-------|--------|-------|
Individual Account Profile Template
# Account Profile: [Company Name]
Researched: [Date] | Tier: 1/2/3 | Owner: [Rep Name]
## Company Snapshot
- Industry: [Sector] | Size: [Employees] | Stage: [Startup/Growth/Enterprise]
- Website: [URL]
## Why They Fit Our ICP
- [Specific ICP criterion 1 and evidence]
- [Technology or behavior signal]
## Recent Intelligence
- [Most recent relevant news or development]
- [Known challenge or pain point]
## Buying Signals
- [Signal 1]: [Details and date]
## Key Contacts
### [Name] - [Title]
- Role in buying: [Economic/Champion/User/Technical]
- Background: [2-3 sentences]
- Outreach hook: [Personalization angle]
## Proposed Outreach
- Channel: [Email/Phone/LinkedIn]
- Subject: [Draft subject line]
- Hook: [Personalized first line]
- Value prop: [1-2 sentences tailored to their context]
- CTA: [Specific next step]
Prospect Scoring Framework
yaml
scoring_criteria:
firmographic_fit:
industry_match: 20 points
size_match: 15 points
geography_match: 10 points
technographic_fit:
complementary_tools: 15 points
replaces_competitor_tool: 20 points
behavioral_signals:
recent_funding: 15 points
leadership_change: 10 points
active_hiring: 10 points
content_engagement: 5 points
scoring_tiers:
tier_1: 70-100 points (immediate outreach)
tier_2: 40-69 points (nurture sequence)
tier_3: 20-39 points (monitor and revisit)
disqualified: below 20 points
Outreach Sequence Recommendations
Cold Email Sequence (10 days)
- Day 1: Personalized cold email with value hook
- Day 3: Follow-up with relevant case study
- Day 5: LinkedIn connection request with note
- Day 7: Phone call attempt
- Day 10: Break-up email with resource offer
LinkedIn-First Sequence (14 days)
- Day 1: Follow and engage with recent content
- Day 3: Connection request with personalized note
- Day 7: DM with specific value observation
- Day 10: Share relevant resource
- Day 14: Soft ask for conversation
Perplexity-Specific Tips
- Search "Company] challenges problems 2024" for pain point intelligence
- Use Focus: News to find recent trigger events
- Use Pro Search for deeper organizational research
- Search "Company] hiring department] jobs" as growth signal
- Use Spaces to organize research by account or territory
- Save prospect profiles for team sharing and CRM import
Integration Points
- Export prospect lists to CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive)
- Sync contact data to sales engagement tools (Outreach, Salesloft)
- Share account profiles with AE before discovery calls
- Feed trigger event alerts into Slack channels
Compliance and Ethics
- Only use publicly available information for research
- Respect do-not-contact lists and opt-outs
- Follow CAN-SPAM and GDPR requirements for outreach
- Honor unsubscribe requests immediately
Success Metrics
- Prospect list quality score (ICP fit percentage)
- Outreach open and reply rates
- Meeting conversion rate (contacts to demos)
- Pipeline generated from prospecting activities
- Time to build qualified prospect list (target: 70% reduction vs. manual)
- Win rate from prospected vs. inbound accounts