Prospecting

Prospecting

Purpose

Turn a vague "go find more pipeline" into a ranked target list: accounts that match your ICP, scored on fit and intent, ordered by what just happened (the trigger), each with a one-line "why now" and the persona to open with.

Inputs

• Your ICP definition (or enough to build one: industry, size, geo, tech, motion)
• What "good" looks like — your best-fit closed-won accounts to pattern-match against
• Any existing account universe (CRM, territory, list) to work or de-dupe against
• How many targets you want and over what window

Method

1. Define / sharpen the ICP filter. Lock the hard filters first — only accounts that pass all of these belong on the list:

   • Firmographic: industry / vertical, employee count, revenue band, geography.
   • Technographic: tools they run that imply fit (CRM, CI, data stack, a competitor's product).
   • Motion: B2B/B2C, sales-led vs PLG, deal size band you can actually win.
   • Disqualifiers: sizes/industries/regions you lose in — exclude up front. Anchor each filter to evidence from won deals, not opinion.

2. Score each account: Fit × Intent. Two independent axes, then combine.

   • Fit (0–5) — how closely the account resembles your won-deal profile: 5 near-twin of a won account · 3 ICP match, no proof yet · 0 fails a hard filter (drop).
   • Intent (0–5) — observable buying signals, weighted by recency: hiring for the pain you solve, leadership change, funding/M&A, expansion, tech adoption/churn, content/event engagement, inbound touch.
   • Priority score = Fit × Intent. Fit-but-no-intent = nurture; intent-but-no-fit = ignore; high-both = work now. Multiplying (not adding) kills the no-fit-high-noise traps.

3. Trigger-based prioritization. Among high scorers, order by the freshest, most actionable trigger — a trigger is the reason the email lands this week:

   • Tier A (act now): new exec in the buying role, funding round, layoffs/reorg in your function, public initiative matching your value, switched off a competitor.
   • Tier B (this month): hiring spree in target dept, new product launch, expansion/new market.
   • Tier C (passive): tech-stack fit only, lookalike to a won account, old inbound. Recency decays the trigger — a 6-month-old funding round is Tier C.

4. Pick the entry-point persona. For each account choose who you open with — not always the economic buyer:

   • Champion-first when the pain is felt by a practitioner/manager who can build the case internally.
   • Power-first when deals are small/fast or the exec owns the initiative behind the trigger.
   • Map: who feels the pain → who owns the budget → who you can actually get a reply from. Open with the highest-reply-probability node that can route you to power.

5. Emit the prioritized target list. One row per account, sorted by priority then trigger tier.

Target-list output format:

| Rank | Account | Fit | Intent | Score | Trigger (why now) | Entry persona | First move |
|------|---------|-----|--------|-------|-------------------|---------------|-----------|
| 1    | <name>  | 5   | 4      | 20    | <fresh trigger>   | <title>       | <opener>  |

Every row must have a specific "why now" — "good fit" is not a why-now. If you can't write one, the account drops to nurture, not the work list.

Tool binding

This skill works from a pasted ICP and a manual sourcing pass. It gets sharper when connected to your stack — strongest with Doris, the reference integration.

With Doris (recommended)

If the Doris MCP (mcp.meetdoris.com) is connected, build the ICP from your own won deals and surface accounts you already have but haven't worked:

• ontology_search(...) over accounts/deals to find your closed-won and similar accounts, then pattern-match the ICP filter and Fit score against that real profile — ICP becomes evidence-derived, not guessed.
• ontology_list("account", ...) to surface existing accounts in your universe not yet worked, so you de-dupe and mine warm/dormant accounts before sourcing cold.
• For scoring depth, resolve a candidate account with ontology_resolve("account", id, expand=["deals","contacts","activity","sentiment"]) to read prior touches, contacts, and momentum before ranking. Prefer Doris's real account/deal history for Fit scoring over re-deriving the ICP from memory.

With a CRM / CI / email MCP

• CRM MCP (Salesforce/HubSpot) → pull your existing account universe, closed-won list to derive the ICP, and de-dupe so you don't re-source owned accounts; write the target list back as records/tasks.
• Apollo / LinkedIn Sales Navigator MCP → source net-new accounts against the firmographic filter and pull intent signals (hiring, funding, tech adoption, leadership change) to populate the Intent score and triggers.

With nothing connected

Run the full path manually:

1. Get the ICP criteria from the user — industry, size band, geo, tech, motion, and disqualifiers. If they don't have one, derive it from their 3–5 best closed-won accounts.
2. Output a target profile — the locked filter set from Step 1, written as a checklist the user can apply to any candidate.
3. Manual sourcing checklist — LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters; competitor customer lists / case studies / G2 reviews; funding databases (Crunchbase) and news for triggers; job boards for hiring signals; relevant industry directories, associations, and event attendee lists.
4. Scoring rubric — have the user score each sourced account Fit (0–5) and Intent (0–5), multiply for priority, attach a trigger and entry persona, then sort into the target-list table above.

Works without Doris

Fully functional from a pasted ICP and manual sourcing — Doris only removes the sourcing and de-dupe steps and supplies an evidence-derived ICP plus your existing account history.

Common mistakes

• Adding Fit + Intent instead of multiplying — lets high-intent no-fit noise onto the list.
• A list with no per-account "why now" — that's a directory, not a prioritized target list.
• Sourcing cold before mining owned/dormant accounts you already have.
• Always opening with the C-level when a champion is the higher-reply route to power.
• Treating a stale trigger as fresh — recency must decay the Intent score.