Top 4 Free Prospecting Methods

Prospecting and getting meetings set up is one of the toughest tasks a business development person or salesperson can do. It’s knowing that 95% of the time, you are going to get ignored or told “not interested”. That’s why we created this community and newsletter. Through a lot of experience and time spent prospecting, we will help you become more effective at getting meetings that can lead to more opportunities for you & team to close.

Through my years of prospecting, my core strategy and tools used within that strategy have not changed much. Find stakeholders who have either: 1) An initiative that aligns with the value proposition of your solution. 2) A business problem that your solution can uniquely solve.

Here are my top methods to prospect for absolutely free. These are the bare minimum that I will leverage, but will always start with these.

1. Company Website | Investor Relations Section: I always start with the prospect company website and if they are a public company, you will be able to access the investor relations section. (If you haven’t yet check out our recent post on how to leverage a 10-K) Your goal here is to learn about where the company is going, what its large initiatives are, and who are the main stakeholders behind these initiatives. The annual report will break down the company’s financial performance, how they are differentiating in the market, and break down the business for you. Leverage the company website, annual report, and 10-K at a bare minimum to understand how your solution can align with the prospects’ objectives.

2. Google/Youtube: Now that you understand who the main stakeholders are behind the prospect’s initiatives, you need to understand if they have talked in public about these big goals/initiatives. What better way than to see if they have been part of any news articles, conference discussions, or interviews? Youtube is the 2nd largest Search Engine behind Google, so you would be surprised how much is on Youtube from an interview perspective. Here is a short list of the nuggets you are looking for: news articles, podcast snippets, interviews/quotes, and presentations. You would be surprised how much is out there if you just look for it.

So we now understand the big company goals/problems/initiatives, and the stakeholders behind them. Now we craft our message.

3. ChatGPT/Bard: Now we can save some time and craft some outreach messaging using artificial intelligence. Here is a great prompt I like to use to get things rolling: “You are a technology consultant and your goal is to provide a summary of why (solution) is going to be important to (Company Name) and their current initiatives. In the summary, I would like examples of similar customers who used the solution, as well as any metrics that were impacted by using the solution.“

Below is an example of the output this prompt can provide. Super valuable for outreach!

4. LinkedIn: This one is very obvious and is the largest network of professionals, so if you don’t have LinkedIn, go sign up…it’s free. The goal here is to start connecting with contacts and stakeholders at your prospective customers. My strategy here is to connect with folks using a simple message in the connection request: “Hey Mr./Mrs. Prospect, I would be honored if you joined my professional network”. If you have someone that you know in common, then make sure to mention them. Once they connect with you, then you can send them a message using the above context from ChatCPT/Bard. I have set up countless meetings through LinkedIn, and it is the most powerful collection of professionals in one place.

What are some of the other top methods that you leverage not mentioned in the above post? Would love to hear your feedback. Happy prospecting!