Sales prospecting is the work of finding and opening conversations with people who have not yet asked to hear from you. When inbound enquiries have levelled off, it is the one lever a sales team controls completely. This article covers how to run outbound sales prospecting on the levelpartner.ai platform: importing a target list from a CSV with a source value on every contact, running a workflow of email, call and consented SMS touches, and reading each week which lists produce meetings.
What you get once it is set up
Each salesperson opens the platform in the morning and sees a short list of people to contact today, with the reason and the channel. Contacts who reply drop out of the sequence and land in the unified inbox. Contacts who book a meeting move into the pipeline as an opportunity. Nobody keeps a private list in a notebook, and nobody contacts the same person twice by accident.
Before you start
- A clear target description: industry, company size, role and the trigger that makes them worth a call now.
- A list of named contacts that meet it, with a lawful basis to contact them in their country.
- A verified sending domain separate from the one your clients receive invoices from.
- Three or four short messages written by a salesperson, not a marketer.
- A calendar with booking enabled, so prospects can pick a time without back and forth.
Outbound rules differ from country to country. In the UK, business email to corporate addresses is treated differently from email to sole traders and individuals. In the US, texting a contact needs consent you can show. Check the rules for each country on the list before importing it.
How to set it up
Prepare the CSV
Save the list as a single-sheet CSV under 30 MB, with a header row. Include name, company, role, email, phone, the trigger you found, and a column called something like "Prospect source" holding the list's name and month, such as "Webinar attendees Oct". Create that source field as a custom field before importing, because new data can only map to fields that already exist.
Import the list
- Click Import Contacts.
- Choose to import Contacts only, and click Next.
- Upload the CSV and select the import type for adding new contacts.
- Map each column to a field, including the prospect source column to your custom field.
- On the final screen, tick the options to create a Smart List for the new contacts, add them to your prospecting workflow and tag them.
- Review the mapping, confirm the mandatory fields are mapped and start the import.
- To check progress, open Bulk Actions, click Show Stats and look at the Error tab.
Fix the errors before you send anything. A row that failed for a bad phone number is a contact the call step will skip.
Build the sequence workflow
- Open Workflows and choose Create Workflow.
- Click Add New Trigger and choose the event that starts the sequence, such as the tag you applied on import.
- Click Add Action and add the first email.
- Add a wait of a few working days, then a call step for the prospector.
- Add a short SMS only on a branch for contacts whose consent field is set.
Add a goal or If/Else at each step that ends the workflow for anyone who has replied or booked, and a final step that creates an opportunity in the first pipeline stage when a meeting is booked. Release the first ten contacts only, read every reply, and then let the rest through.
The calendar link in your messages is what turns a reply into a meeting. The article on following up after the first conversation picks up from the point a prospect responds.
Reading which lists produce meetings
Because every contact carries its prospect source, you can compare lists rather than guess. Each Friday, filter contacts by source and count replies, meetings booked and opportunities created. A list with many contacts and no meetings is either the wrong audience or the wrong trigger. Drop it, or rewrite the message around a sharper reason. The guide to tracking lead source covers how the same field feeds reporting.
What prospecting is for in a stalled 60-person firm
Firms that grew on referrals often hit a ceiling where the referral network is saturated. Revenue flattens, the partners are busy delivering, and nobody owns new conversations. Prospecting gives one or two people a defined job: start a fixed number of new conversations each week with companies that match your best existing clients.
It replaces hoping that marketing will fill the gap. It also replaces the habit of asking salespeople to "do some outreach" with no list, no messages and no measurement. For a deeper look at running prospecting as a daily discipline rather than a campaign, see the fanatical prospecting approach.
How much time it takes
Building the first list and sequence takes a day. After that, a prospector needs about ninety minutes a day for calls and replies, and the sales lead needs half an hour a week to review results by list. Writing new messages takes an hour a month.
Say the agency builds a list of 200 marketing directors at firms like its five best clients and releases 40 a week. After four weeks, 160 would have been contacted. If 22 replied and 9 booked a meeting, the useful number is the 9: roughly 18 contacts per meeting, which tells the sales lead how many contacts the team needs each month to fill the pipeline.
The mistake most people make
Buying a large list and sending the same message to all of it. Volume without a trigger produces low replies and damages your sending domain. A smaller list chosen for a reason, with a message that mentions the reason, outperforms it every time.
The other common error is measuring opens instead of meetings. Opens are unreliable and say nothing about intent. Track replies and booked meetings per list.
When not to prospect
Do not run outbound if you cannot handle the result. If your delivery team is full, new meetings create frustration on both sides. Do not prospect into a segment where you have no proof, such as an industry you have never served. Win two clients there through your network first, then prospect with their story.
Mortgage brokers and estate agents should be particularly careful: much of their market is individuals, where cold contact is heavily restricted. For them, prospecting usually means re-engaging past clients and introducers rather than cold lists.
Troubleshooting
Emails land in spam
Your sending domain is new or shared with transactional mail. Use a separate domain, warm it gradually with small daily volumes, and keep messages short with one link at most.
Replies are not reaching the salesperson
The workflow is not assigning an owner. Add an assignment step at the start of the workflow so every reply in the unified inbox routes to a named person.
The import created duplicates
The import type was set to add new contacts when some already existed. For lists that overlap your database, use the update option, which matches on contact ID, then email, then phone.
Prospects receive messages after they reply
The exit branch is checking the wrong condition. Make the sequence end on any inbound message, not only on a booked meeting, and test it by replying to yourself.
Meetings are booked but never become opportunities
The final step is missing or creates the opportunity in the wrong pipeline. Check the step and confirm the stage. The article on scoring leads by fit and engagement helps decide which replies deserve an opportunity straight away.
Frequently asked questions
How many prospects should one salesperson contact each week?
Enough to produce the meetings your target needs, which you learn from the first month. Start with a small batch, measure meetings per contact, and work backwards from the number of new deals you need.
Is prospecting the same as lead generation?
No. Lead generation attracts people who raise their hand. Prospecting is you choosing them and starting the conversation. The article on automated lead generation covers the inbound side.
Should AI agents send the first message?
They can draft and personalise it, and an AI agent can handle the first reply on SMS or chat. Keep a person on the call step; buyers at established firms expect to speak to someone who understands their business.
Which channel works best for B2B prospecting?
A mix. Email introduces you, the phone call starts the conversation, and SMS works only where you have consent and a prior touch. Relying on one channel narrows who you reach.