# Prospect Research

> Pre-meeting research on a person or company, producing a short, skimmable briefing note in a fixed format. Use before a sales, partnership, recruiting, or BD meeting — whenever someone gives a name, a company, or a list (often pasted from a calendar) and wants the counterpart researched beforehand. Triggers on "research this person/company", "prep me for this meeting", "who am I meeting", or a pasted attendee list.

- Skill: `lucasksjang/prospect-research` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add lucasksjang/prospect-research`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/lucasksjang/prospect-research/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Research & Search
- Author: LucasKSJang (https://skillmd.com/u/lucasksjang)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/lucasksjang/prospect-research

---


# Prospect Research — pre-meeting briefing notes

Produce one briefing note per target, optimized to be skimmed in ~30 seconds right before a
meeting. Lead with memorable, human hooks; end with an explicit fit verdict. This is a
decision-support note, not a neutral encyclopedia entry.

## Scope (confirm per target)
Scope is set per name: ① person only ② company only ③ both. Use the scope given; if unstated, ask.
"Company, recent-only" = skip the full history, cover recent developments.

## The assessment lens (four axes)
Adapt the weights to the meeting's goal (sales / partnership / hiring / fundraising):
1. **Fit / relevance** — how well the target matches what this meeting is for (most important).
2. **Capacity** — budget, size, resources to actually act.
3. **Decision power** — decision-maker vs. gatekeeper vs. influencer.
4. **Network value** — who they can introduce, even if they don't act themselves.

## Workflow (per target)
1. **Web research (fan out with parallel subagents if available):** bio, career, company, and
   relevance signals. Separate FACT from inference. Never fabricate — these are real people;
   "couldn't find it" beats a wrong fact. Treat subagent output as unverified *leads*, not facts:
   agents surface candidates + source URLs and can fail silently — re-verify before trusting.
2. **Search internal records (do not skip):** check your own CRM / notes / shared history for
   prior contact with the person AND the company. An existing relationship can flip the
   assessment entirely (already a customer, already in talks, a known intro path). Pull specifics
   from the actual records and fold them into the intro and verdict.
3. **Verify each load-bearing claim yourself, then loop.** Go bullet by bullet: for every claim
   that matters (title, tenure, size, a specific deal, identity) pull the primary source yourself —
   the profile, the company's own site, public registries. Confirm identity FIRST (common name →
   nail it via a second identifier) so you don't research the wrong person. Anything you can't
   confirm after a real attempt is marked `(unverified)` inline, or "couldn't find it" if blank.
   Repeat until every bullet is either primary-source-confirmed or explicitly marked.
4. **Write the note** in the format below.

## Output format
One target = one note.
```
{Full Name}: {Company} ({Role})        ← profile link inline

<Intro: max 2 sentences. Role + one-line essence + why they matter to this meeting.
 If there is an existing relationship on record, lead with it.>

Person:
- age / location / background   (mark inference; drop the line if unknown and useless)
- Education:                    (its own line)
- Notable:                      (one memorable line)

Icebreaker:
- a genuinely non-obvious human hook; cross-link to others on the attendee list if there's a tie

Career:
- A → B → C …                   (keep company names; compress role descriptions)

Company ({Company}):            ← per scope
- what they do, founded, size (revenue / funding / headcount), notable points

Fit verdict:
- the four-axis read + any existing-relationship status. Bring real detail; don't defer with
  "confirm in the meeting". If they're the one selling to you, say so.
```

## Style rules
- **Lead with memorable hooks.** The human angle is the point — the reader opens the profile
  himself, so don't just restate it.
- **Intro ≤ 2 sentences.** No filler framing.
- **The verdict is a judgment, not a playbook.** Cut multi-step "next actions" lists.
- **Do the disambiguation; don't print the warning.** Resolve same-name confusion silently, but
  keep real honesty: mark genuine uncertainty, and DO state a real risk finding.
- **Education on its own line.**
- Convert small foreign amounts to the reader's currency; large institutional figures can stay.

## Verification mindset
Mark FACT vs. inference explicitly. Tie surprising/high-stakes claims to sources. Quotes must be
real — check before quoting. Two traps that have shipped wrong notes before: (a) search-snippet
mis-attribution — a snippet can splice another person's text onto your target, so confirm
distinctive claims on the actual profile, not a snippet; (b) time-stamped marketing claims that
go stale ("the only regulated X") — bind them to a date. It's fine to end with a short list of
what's left unverified so the reader knows exactly what to confirm live.

## Notes
Long-term context accumulates in the operator's own memory; this SKILL.md is the canonical
procedure + output format. When feedback refines a rule, update this file so it persists.