Prospect Research Deep Dive
Research brief saved in CRM: company snapshot, buying committee, trigger event, hypothesis, opening message, discovery questions, risk factors. Personalized outreach drafted and ready for AE review.
Before you start
- Target account or prospect identified
- Access to enrichment and research tools
- Sales playbook with discovery question library
- Prospect name, title, and company
- Use case hypothesis (why this account, why now)
- Existing CRM notes if account has prior touches
The steps
- Pull company snapshot — Capture: headcount, headquarters, industry, year founded, funding history with amounts and dates, last 3 product launches, top competitors, and any recent press in the last 90 days. Note key inflection events (funding, acquisition, exec change).
- Map the buying committee — Identify likely buyer, champion, user, and economic decision maker by title. Pull their LinkedIn profiles. For each: tenure in role, prior companies, recent posts (last 30 days), and any podcast or speaking appearances. Save 1-2 specific personalization hooks per person.
- Identify the trigger event — What changed recently that makes them buyable now? Funding, hiring spree (especially in the buyer's function), exec change, competitor switch, public goal announcement, or regulatory pressure. If no trigger event found, downgrade priority — they may not be ready to buy.
- Build hypothesis and matched value prop — Draft a 1-paragraph hypothesis: 'Based on [trigger event], they likely need [outcome]. Our value prop maps to that via [specific feature/case study].' Include the case study most relevant to their industry and stage. If no clean match, note it — generic value props lose enterprise deals.
- Draft the opening message — Write a personalized opening: 1 sentence on the trigger event, 1 sentence on the implied need, 1 sentence on the value prop, 1 question (not an ask). Subject: 6-8 words referencing their context, not your product. Tone: peer-to-peer, not pitch.
- Compile research brief — Structure: Company snapshot, Buying committee, Trigger event, Hypothesis, Opening message, Suggested discovery questions (5), Risk factors (e.g., they just signed with competitor 6 months ago). Save in CRM as an attachment or note. Share link with AE.
If it goes wrong
Enrichment returns sparse data on private mid-market companies
Switch to LinkedIn primary research, podcast appearances, and conference speaker lists. Manual research is sometimes the only path for companies under 200 employees.
Trigger event found but not actionable (too generic)
Tighten the trigger criteria — 'they hired a VP Eng' is generic; 'they hired a VP Eng with a security background last week, suggesting compliance focus' is actionable. Demand specificity.
AE rejects the brief as too long to use
Front-load the brief with a 3-line TL;DR (trigger, hypothesis, opening). The detailed sections are reference material, not the headline.
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