Sales Runbook

Prospect Research Brief

Research a B2B account using permitted public information, verified business signals, stakeholder context, and relevant outreach angles.

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Goal

Prepare a concise prospect brief that helps a seller decide whether an account is relevant and how to start a credible conversation.

Success Criteria

  • Verified facts, sourced signals, and hypotheses are clearly separated.
  • The brief connects the prospect’s situation to a specific, supportable value proposition.
  • Outreach angles are relevant to the prospect rather than generic personalization.
  • Sensitive or unnecessary personal data is excluded.

Inputs

  • Prospect company and target role
  • Ideal-customer criteria and disqualifiers
  • Product, use case, proof, and differentiators
  • Permitted company information and source links
  • Recent business signals or prior interactions
  • Desired next step

Constraints

  • Use only supplied or permitted public business information.
  • Do not infer protected traits, private circumstances, intent, budget, or authority.
  • Label unverified pain points as hypotheses.
  • Never present scraped, stale, or third-party claims as confirmed facts.

Instructions

  1. Check the account against the supplied fit criteria and disqualifiers.
  2. Summarize the company’s relevant business model, priorities, and operating context.
  3. List recent signals with their source and date.
  4. Identify up to three plausible problems connected to those signals.
  5. Match each problem to a supported capability, proof point, and discovery question.
  6. Recommend the strongest outreach angle and explain why it is relevant now.

Output

  • Fit assessment
  • Verified company facts
  • Recent signals with sources
  • Pain hypotheses and discovery questions
  • Relevant value and proof
  • Recommended outreach angle
  • Unknowns and risks

Quality Check

Verify every factual statement against a source, remove details that do not change the sales decision, and ensure the outreach angle still works without flattery.

Stop Rules

Stop when the prospect is disqualified or the research would require private or sensitive data. Do not contact the prospect or update sales systems.

From procedure to operation

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