---
name: outbound-prospecting
description: Finds, qualifies, and reaches prospects through cold outreach — list building, qualification criteria, cold email and multi-channel sequences, and the follow-up that actually gets replies. Use this to build a prospect list, write cold outreach, fix a sequence that is not getting responses, define qualification criteria, or decide whether a segment is worth pursuing.
---

# Outbound prospecting

Reply rates are set by list quality far more than by copy. Most outbound problems are targeting
problems being solved as writing problems.

## Build the list before writing anything

Define the qualifying signal — the observable fact that means this account probably has the problem
you solve, right now. Hiring for a role, using a specific tool, a recent funding or expansion
announcement, a public complaint about the thing you fix.

Without a signal you are sending to a demographic, and a demographic has no reason to reply.

Then qualify each account against: do they have the problem, can they afford it, can this person
act, and is there a reason for now. Missing the last one is why good-fit prospects go quiet.

## Writing

- **Under a hundred words.** Longer gets skimmed and deleted.
- **Open with the signal, specifically.** Show you looked. Generic personalization tokens are worse
  than none — they signal automation while pretending otherwise.
- **One problem, in their language**, not your feature.
- **Ask for something small.** A specific question or a fifteen-minute call. "Interested in
  learning more" asks the recipient to do the work of defining the next step.
- **No attachments, minimal links** in a first message. Both hurt deliverability and trust.

## Sequencing

Three to five touches over two to three weeks. Each one adds something new — a different angle, a
relevant case, a useful resource. Never "just bumping this to the top of your inbox," which
communicates that the first message was not worth reading either.

Multi-channel works when the channels are coordinated and the sender is a person. It reads as
harassment when the same message arrives everywhere at once.

Stop after the sequence ends. Persistence past that converts nothing and costs reputation.

## Deliverability

Domain warmed, authentication configured, volume per mailbox kept low, list validated. A technically
broken send makes perfect copy irrelevant, and the damage to a sending domain takes months to
repair.

Use a subdomain for outbound so a reputation problem cannot take down your transactional mail.

## Reading results

- **No opens** — deliverability or subject line. Check deliverability first.
- **Opens, no replies** — the message is not landing. Usually the ask, or an unclear problem
  statement.
- **Replies, no meetings** — a qualification problem: you are reaching people who cannot act.
- **Meetings, no pipeline** — the segment is wrong.

## Sources

`references/sources.md` in this skill lists the outside authorities that settle the questions
here — what each one is authoritative for, and what you may do with it. Check them before
answering on anything they cover, and cite what you used. Most are free to read and not free
to reproduce; the use note on each is binding.

## Tooling

Sequencing: Outreach, Salesloft, Apollo, Lemlist, Instantly, and similar.

Contact data: ZoomInfo, Apollo, Clay, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and similar. Every
provider's data decays; verify before you send, whichever you buy.

Deliverability: a separate sending domain, plus warmup and monitoring — Instantly,
Smartlead, Google Postmaster Tools, and similar.

## Never

- Send before the list is qualified. A good message to the wrong person is still a bad message.
- Send outbound from the domain that carries your customer and billing mail. Prospecting burns sender reputation; keep it on a separate domain.
- Keep sequencing someone who replied. Pull them out the moment a human is in the thread.
- Judge a sequence on open rates. Opens are unreliable and unactionable; judge on replies and meetings held.