What Is Prospecting? B2B Prospecting Strategies & Best Practices

Prospecting is the process of identifying and contacting potential customers who might be interested in your product or service. It's how salespeople build their pipeline.

Prospecting answers the question: "Who should we talk to?" and "How do we reach them?"

In B2B sales, prospecting is often the biggest time consumer and biggest source of pain for sales teams. Many salespeople spend 40-50% of their time prospecting instead of selling. The better you get at prospecting, the more time you spend selling.

Types of Prospecting

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Inbound Prospecting

Prospects contact you first. They filled out a form on your website, downloaded a guide, requested a demo. Your job is to follow up quickly and qualify them.

Inbound prospecting is higher-quality but lower-volume. These prospects have already raised their hands showing interest.

Effort: Low. They came to you. Quality: High. They're interested. Volume: Lower. Only so many people find you organically.

Outbound Prospecting

You identify potential customers and reach out to them. Cold email, cold calls, LinkedIn outreach.

Outbound prospecting is lower-quality but higher-volume. Most of these prospects aren't expecting you.

Effort: High. You have to find them and convince them to talk. Quality: Medium to low. Most aren't looking for you. Volume: Higher. You can reach more people.

Referral Prospecting

An existing customer or contact introduces you to a potential customer. You're reaching out warm, not cold.

Referral prospecting has high quality and reasonable conversion. The prospect has been pre-vetted by someone they trust.

Effort: Low. You're coming in warm. Quality: Very high. They're pre-vetted. Volume: Limited by your referral network.

Prospecting Channels

Email Prospecting

Cold email at scale. You build a list of target prospects, write a personalized email, send it, and follow up.

Email works because it's asynchronous, non-intrusive, and creates a record. Prospects can respond when they have time.

Average cold email response rate: 2-5% depending on personalization and relevance.

Phone Prospecting

Cold calling. You identify a prospect, find their phone number, call them.

Calling is direct and can move conversations forward fast. But it's intrusive and many prospects are screening calls.

Average cold call connection rate: 2-5%. Average cold call-to-conversation rate: 10-20% of those who pick up.

LinkedIn Prospecting

LinkedIn outreach through connection requests and direct messages.

LinkedIn works because it's professional and contextual. You can reference their profile, shared connections, company, background.

Average LinkedIn message response rate: 10-20% depending on personalization.

Event and Networking Prospecting

Meeting prospects at conferences, trade shows, networking events, meetups.

Event prospecting creates warm relationships. You meet in person. There's inherent credibility.

Average event-to-conversation conversion: 30-50% if you follow up within 48 hours.

Referral Prospecting

Asking existing customers, contacts, or partners to introduce you to potential customers.

Referral conversion is highest because the prospect is pre-vetted.

Average referral-to-conversation conversion: 50-70%.

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Building a Prospecting Plan

Step 1: Define Your Target Prospect

Who are you trying to reach? Be specific.

• Company size (headcount, revenue)
• Industry or vertical
• Geography
• Company characteristics (growth stage, profitability, hiring)
• Buyer title or role
• Buyer characteristics (seniority, priorities, pain points)

The more specific your target, the more efficiently you can prospect.

Step 2: Estimate Available Prospect Pool

How many prospects matching your criteria exist? If you're targeting "VP of Sales at $10-100M ARR SaaS companies in North America," that's maybe 5,000-10,000 people.

This helps you understand whether your prospect pool is large enough to build a business from, or whether you need to expand your criteria.

Step 3: Choose Your Prospecting Channels

Don't try to prospect everywhere. Choose 2-3 channels you can execute well.

If your prospect is busy and on email overload, email might not work. Phone might be better. If they're very active on LinkedIn, LinkedIn outreach might work.

Choose channels based on where your prospects are most receptive.

Step 4: Build Your Prospect List

Identify specific companies and people to reach out to.

Use tools: ZoomInfo, Apollo, Hunter, RocketReach, LinkedIn Sales Navigator. These help you build lists of prospects matching your criteria.

Prioritize. Which prospects are most likely to buy? Which are highest value? Start there.

Step 5: Create Your Prospecting Message

Craft a message tailored to your target:

Cold email: Personalized subject line, relevant opening, clear ask, short.

Cold call: Brief intro, reason for call, permission to continue, benefit statement.

LinkedIn: Personalized connection request or message, relevant to their profile, clear reason for connecting.

The best prospecting messages are personalized, relevant, and respect the prospect's time.

Step 6: Execute and Measure

Start prospecting. Track metrics:

• Connect rate (how many respond positively)
• Response rate (how many reply to your outreach)
• Conversion rate (how many agree to a conversation)
• Time to first response

Measure by channel. If one channel has higher response rate, do more of that.

Step 7: Refine Based on Data

Don't prospect the same way for six months without measuring. Measure after every 50-100 outreach attempts.

What's working? Double down. What's not? Try a different approach.

Prospecting Best Practices

Personalization Matters

Generic emails get 1-2% response. Personalized emails get 5-10%.

Spend 2-3 minutes personalizing each email. Reference something specific about them, their company, their role. Show you did homework.

Timing Matters

When you reach out affects response rate. Tuesday-Thursday mornings typically get better response than Monday morning or Friday.

If you're doing phone, call mid-morning (9-11am) or mid-afternoon (2-4pm). Avoid first thing and last thing.

Volume Matters

Most prospects won't respond to one outreach. They might need 5-7 touches before they respond.

Create a sequence: email, email, LinkedIn, email, LinkedIn, phone, email.

Space touches 2-3 days apart. Don't hammer them on the same day.

Relevance Matters

The more relevant your opening is to their situation, the higher response rate.

Instead of: "I help SaaS companies improve sales" Try: "I noticed you recently raised Series B. I've worked with three similar-sized companies who faced challenges scaling their sales team post-funding"

Specific and relevant beats generic.

Permission to Continue

Always ask permission to continue the conversation.

"Does this sound relevant?" or "Have you thought about this?" or "Would it be worth a brief conversation?"

Giving them permission to say no increases the likelihood they'll say yes.

Follow-Up is Everything

First outreach gets low response. Follow-up gets much higher response.

If you send one email and stop, you'll get low response rate. If you follow up 3-5 times, you'll get significantly higher response.

Most salespeople give up after 1-2 follow-ups. Persist respectfully.

Common Prospecting Mistakes

Prospecting to the wrong person: You spend time reaching VPs of Marketing when your champion is VP of Sales. Spend time upfront getting the right contact.

No personalization: "Hi, I have a solution that might help" is never going to work. Personalize every outreach.

Too salesy too fast: Lead with value and insight, not your product. The first email should be about them, not about you.

Not following up: Most deals happen after follow-up, not on first contact. Persistence with respect is key.

Spreading effort too thin: Trying to do phone, email, LinkedIn, events at the same time usually fails. Master one or two channels first.

Not measuring: If you're not measuring response rate by channel and prospect type, you're flying blind. Measure everything.

Giving up too fast: Most people give up after 2-3 attempts. That's when you should be ramping up, not stopping.

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Prospecting by Company Size

Outbound Prospecting at Small Companies

Few reps, everyone prospects. Grassroots approach. Personal networks matter.

Mix: 40% referrals, 40% outbound email/LinkedIn, 20% events and networking.

Outbound Prospecting at Scaling Companies

Dedicated SDRs or BDRs doing prospecting. More systematized approach.

Mix: 30% inbound, 40% outbound campaigns, 30% events and accounts.

Outbound Prospecting at Large Companies

Account-based prospecting. Instead of broad outbound, focused effort on 20-50 high-value accounts.

Mix: 40% inbound, 40% ABM/outbound, 20% partnerships and referrals.

Key Takeaway

Prospecting is identifying and reaching potential customers. It's time-consuming, but necessary. The better you get at prospecting, the less time you spend on it, and the more time you spend selling.

Focus on being highly personalized and relevant. Build a system (list, message, channel, sequence, follow-up). Measure results. Refine based on data.

Most salespeople prospect inefficiently because they haven't systematized it. Build a repeatable prospecting system and you'll spend half the time generating twice the results.

FAQ: B2B Prospecting

Q: How much time should a salesperson spend prospecting?

A: Depends on your sales model. In self-serve companies, 10-20% of time. In sales-assisted, 30-40%. In enterprise sales, 20-30%. The rest should be on selling (discovery, demos, closes) and admin. If prospecting is consuming more than 40%, something is wrong.

Q: Is cold calling dead?

A: No, but it requires better targeting and positioning. Random cold calls to random people don't work. Calling prospects you've done homework on, with a relevant reason for the call, still works.

Q: What's the best cold email response rate I should expect?

A: 2-5% is average. If you're below 2%, your messaging or targeting is off. If you're above 10%, you're doing something right. Track it to see what works.

Q: Should I use tools to automate prospecting?

A: Yes, tools help with efficiency (finding contacts, scheduling follow-up, tracking engagement). But the outreach itself should be personalized and human. Automating personalization defeats the purpose.

Q: How many prospects should I be prospecting at once?

A: Depends on your pipeline health. If you have 15 opportunities in pipeline, focus on those. If you have 5, you need to prospect more to fill the pipeline. Generally, maintain 3-5x pipeline coverage relative to quota.

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