B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

When Priya Sharma joined ScaleGrid as Head of Operations, she inherited a tech stack held together by duct tape. Four different automation tools, a shared Google Sheet that served as the team’s task router, and a Slack channel called #ops-fires that never stopped pinging.

“Every morning started the same way,” Priya told us. “Check what broke overnight, manually copy data between three dashboards, and spend an hour building the weekly report that leadership needed by 9am.”

Her team of six was spending more time managing their tools than doing actual operations work.

The breaking point

The tipping point came during a critical product launch. An incident alert from their monitoring system went unnoticed for 47 minutes because it was buried in a Slack channel between status updates and lunch orders. The delayed response cost them a significant customer.

“That was the moment I decided we needed to rethink everything,” Priya said. “Not just add another tool — actually rethink how our operations work.”

Finding Leama

Priya evaluated several platforms. Zapier handled simple triggers but couldn’t manage the complex, multi-step workflows her team needed. Make was powerful but required technical expertise her ops team didn’t have. Workato was enterprise-grade but priced well beyond their budget.

Leama stood out for three reasons: the visual builder was intuitive enough for non-technical operators, the AI suggestions proactively identified automation opportunities, and the pricing was transparent with no per-workflow limits on the Pro plan.

The implementation

ScaleGrid replaced all four existing tools with Leama in a single week. They built three core workflows.

First, an incident routing system. When their monitoring stack detects an alert, Leama categorizes the severity using AI, routes it to the right on-call engineer with full context, and escalates automatically if there’s no response within five minutes. No more lost alerts in Slack channels.

Second, a deployment tracking pipeline. GitHub releases automatically sync to their project tracker, post formatted summaries to the engineering channel, and update the internal status page. The engineering team stopped asking “did that ship?” because the answer was always visible.

Third, automated weekly reporting. Every Monday at 6am, Leama pulls data from five sources, generates a formatted report with charts, and delivers it to leadership before anyone opens their laptop. The report that used to take Priya’s team an hour now takes zero minutes.

The results

Within 90 days, ScaleGrid reduced operational costs by 40%. Each team member reclaimed 15 hours per week. Incident response time dropped from 12 minutes to 3 minutes. And they haven’t had a single missed handoff since deploying Leama.

“The moment that sold us was when Leama suggested an automation we hadn’t thought of,” Priya said. “It noticed our team was manually tagging support tickets by region and built the workflow for us. One click to activate. That’s when we knew this was different.”

Today, ScaleGrid runs 2,800+ automated workflow executions per day. The ops team that used to fight fires now focuses on strategic improvements. And that #ops-fires Slack channel? It’s been archived.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

B2B SaaS is one of the easiest markets to search and one of the easiest markets to target badly.

There are thousands of software companies with visible websites, team pages, job listings, funding announcements, and employee profiles. That abundance makes it tempting to define the campaign with two filters and call the list finished.

The problem is that B2B SaaS contains almost every commercial reality imaginable.

A 30-person product selling

When Priya Sharma joined ScaleGrid as Head of Operations, she inherited a tech stack held together by duct tape. Four different automation tools, a shared Google Sheet that served as the team’s task router, and a Slack channel called #ops-fires that never stopped pinging.

“Every morning started the same way,” Priya told us. “Check what broke overnight, manually copy data between three dashboards, and spend an hour building the weekly report that leadership needed by 9am.”

Her team of six was spending more time managing their tools than doing actual operations work.

The breaking point

The tipping point came during a critical product launch. An incident alert from their monitoring system went unnoticed for 47 minutes because it was buried in a Slack channel between status updates and lunch orders. The delayed response cost them a significant customer.

“That was the moment I decided we needed to rethink everything,” Priya said. “Not just add another tool — actually rethink how our operations work.”

Finding Leama

Priya evaluated several platforms. Zapier handled simple triggers but couldn’t manage the complex, multi-step workflows her team needed. Make was powerful but required technical expertise her ops team didn’t have. Workato was enterprise-grade but priced well beyond their budget.

Leama stood out for three reasons: the visual builder was intuitive enough for non-technical operators, the AI suggestions proactively identified automation opportunities, and the pricing was transparent with no per-workflow limits on the Pro plan.

The implementation

ScaleGrid replaced all four existing tools with Leama in a single week. They built three core workflows.

First, an incident routing system. When their monitoring stack detects an alert, Leama categorizes the severity using AI, routes it to the right on-call engineer with full context, and escalates automatically if there’s no response within five minutes. No more lost alerts in Slack channels.

Second, a deployment tracking pipeline. GitHub releases automatically sync to their project tracker, post formatted summaries to the engineering channel, and update the internal status page. The engineering team stopped asking “did that ship?” because the answer was always visible.

Third, automated weekly reporting. Every Monday at 6am, Leama pulls data from five sources, generates a formatted report with charts, and delivers it to leadership before anyone opens their laptop. The report that used to take Priya’s team an hour now takes zero minutes.

The results

Within 90 days, ScaleGrid reduced operational costs by 40%. Each team member reclaimed 15 hours per week. Incident response time dropped from 12 minutes to 3 minutes. And they haven’t had a single missed handoff since deploying Leama.

“The moment that sold us was when Leama suggested an automation we hadn’t thought of,” Priya said. “It noticed our team was manually tagging support tickets by region and built the workflow for us. One click to activate. That’s when we knew this was different.”

Today, ScaleGrid runs 2,800+ automated workflow executions per day. The ops team that used to fight fires now focuses on strategic improvements. And that #ops-fires Slack channel? It’s been archived.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.

0 subscriptions to freelancers is different from a 30-person product selling six-figure infrastructure contracts. A bootstrapped vertical tool is different from a recently funded horizontal platform. A company hiring its first salesperson is different from one with a mature global revenue organization.

A useful prospecting brief has to describe the problem your offer can solve inside that category.

For this example, imagine an outbound agency that helps B2B SaaS companies build a repeatable pipeline.

Step 1: define the commercial use case

The offer is not for every software company.

It is most relevant when a company:

• Sells a considered product to businesses
• Needs human sales rather than purely self-serve acquisition
• Has a clear target market
• Has enough maturity to invest in pipeline
• Has a commercial owner who can evaluate outbound support
• Is entering a period when more prospecting capacity may matter

That description immediately improves the target.

A consumer app can be excluded. A $9 self-serve tool may be excluded. A pre-launch founder with no repeatable offer may be excluded. A global company with hundreds of SDRs may be outside the agency's delivery model.

Step 2: choose the account criteria

The required criteria might be:

Business model B2B SaaS or software-enabled service with a clear business buyer.

Company size 20 to 250 employees.

Geography United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, or New Zealand.

Sales motion A considered purchase with demos, sales conversations, or account-based selling.

Offer maturity A live product, identifiable customer type, and enough commercial evidence to suggest the business is beyond the idea stage.

These criteria are still broad, but they create a defensible base.

Step 3: define the buyer logic

The right contact changes with company size and structure.

An example hierarchy could be:

• Founder or CEO for companies with fewer than 30 employees
• VP Sales or Head of Sales for companies with 30 to 150 employees
• VP Sales, Head of Growth, Sales Development leader, or Revenue Operations leader for larger companies

The agent should also know which titles to reject.

A sales manager may not own agency budget. A marketing specialist may care about pipeline but lack authority. A customer-success leader is usually irrelevant to the offer even when senior.

The goal is not to find the most important person in the company. It is to find the person most relevant to this decision.

Step 4: add positive signals

Positive signals make a qualified account more timely.

For this campaign, useful signals might include:

• Hiring SDRs or business-development representatives
• Hiring a sales-development manager
• Appointing a new VP Sales or CRO
• Entering a new country or segment
• Launching a new product or plan
• Raising a recent funding round
• Publishing a clear pipeline or partner-growth initiative

A signal should increase priority, not replace fit.

A consumer app hiring SDRs is still outside the ICP. A B2B SaaS company raising capital but making no commercial investment may remain medium priority. The context works in combination.

Step 5: write the exclusions before the search

Exclusions protect the quality standard when the agent is trying to complete a batch.

For this example:

• Consumer software and mobile apps
• Agencies and consultancies
• Pre-launch or dormant products
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees
• Global enterprises outside the service model
• Sales-tech vendors that compete directly with the agency
• Companies already contacted in the last six months
• Current customers, partners, and blocked accounts

Without exclusions, near-matches have a habit of becoming "close enough."

A good prospecting system makes "no" easy.

Step 6: decide what evidence is enough

The agent needs an acceptance standard.

A company should not qualify because its website contains the words "B2B" and "growth."

A stronger record might have:

• A clear product and business buyer
• Company size inside the target range
• A sales-led or considered purchase motion
• A relevant revenue owner
• At least one source supporting the current signal
• No hard exclusion
• Enough public information to explain the fit

When the company cannot be classified with reasonable confidence, it should move to review or be rejected rather than silently accepted.

Step 7: define the contact fields

Request the fields the team will genuinely use:

• First and last name
• Current role
• Company
• Website
• Country
• Business email
• Phone where available
• LinkedIn profile
• Company size
• ICP score
• Priority
• Why the account matches
• Current signal
• Suggested conversation angle

More fields are not automatically better. Every required field can reduce coverage or increase cost.

The key is to separate required fields from optional fields. A verified email may be required. An Instagram profile may be irrelevant for this market.

Step 8: design the record for review

The final record should make the decision visible.

Example:

Company FictionalFlow, B2B workflow software

Company size 82 employees

Buyer VP Sales

Fit note Sells a considered operations product to mid-market companies, operates in the United States, and has an established sales team.

Current signal Hiring four SDRs and a Sales Development Manager.

Priority High

Suggested angle Ask how the company plans to build and maintain qualified account coverage for the new SDR team.

Uncertainty Direct phone not found. Business email checked before delivery.

This record gives a rep a reason to inspect the account. It does not pretend that the prospect has agreed to buy.

Step 9: review a sample before scaling

Before launching the full batch, review ten to twenty records.

Check:

• Are the companies genuinely B2B SaaS?
• Is the sales motion compatible with the offer?
• Are the selected buyers relevant?
• Are the signals current and accurately described?
• Are exclusions being applied?
• Does the fit note make sense without reading the source again?

Correct the brief before increasing volume.

The fastest way to produce 1,000 weak prospects is to scale a vague ICP without checking the first ten.

Step 10: feed outcomes back into the brief

After outreach begins, record what the market teaches you.

Perhaps founders reply more often than VPs at companies under 50 employees. Perhaps newly funded companies are less relevant than companies actively hiring SDRs. Perhaps one software category consistently converts while another never does.

Those observations should change the next run.

The goal is not a permanent list. It is a prospecting system that becomes more precise as the company learns where fit actually lives.