Start With the Output, Not the Tool

Before designing the workflow, define what good prospect intelligence looks like for your context. The output should answer five questions:

  1. What does this company do, and where are they in their growth stage?
  2. What is this person's role, scope of responsibility, and likely decision-making authority?
  3. What are the probable business challenges relevant to what you sell?
  4. What is the current context — recent news, growth signals, hiring patterns, technology changes?
  5. What is the specific hook — the timely, relevant reason to reach out now?

Design the workflow to answer these five questions reliably. Everything else is secondary.

The Information Sources

Company-level

  • Company website — About, Team, Products/Services pages
  • LinkedIn company page — size, recent growth, hiring activity, posts
  • Recent news — press releases, funding, product launches, leadership changes
  • Job postings — current hiring reflects organisational priorities and gaps

Contact-level

  • LinkedIn profile — role, tenure, recent activity, published content
  • Company team page — how they describe their own role
  • Published content — articles, interviews, or talks that reveal priorities

The Four-Stage Workflow

Stage 1 — Input collection (2–3 min)

The rep collects the raw inputs: company name, contact name and LinkedIn URL, and a brief note on why this prospect is in the pipeline. These become the structured inputs for the AI workflow.

Stage 2 — AI research execution (5–8 min)

The workflow processes inputs against a structured prompt library, pulling from defined sources and producing a consistent intelligence document. The prompt specifies the five output questions and the format they should be answered in.

Stage 3 — Human review (3–5 min)

The rep reviews the AI output, adds relationship context or judgment, and flags gaps needing additional research. This is where expertise adds value — pattern recognition, strategic judgment, relationship context.

Stage 4 — Output deployment (1–2 min)

The intelligence document is filed in the CRM, used to personalise outreach, or used to prepare for a discovery call. The output format should map directly to how it gets used — not a general document, but a structured output that feeds the next workflow step.

The 80/20 principle: 80% of the value comes from 20% of the information. Design the workflow to produce that 20% quickly and reliably — not comprehensive research that takes longer than the sale is worth.

See a real prospect intelligence workflow in Module 01

Module 01 of Course 01 demonstrates a complete prospect research and sales intelligence workflow using real tools. Free to watch — no credit card.

Watch Module 01 Free → Course 01 Curriculum