Person research and the Prospect Brief
Prospecting 10 min
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Business problem
You have company research, but you don't know how to write to the person — because you don't know who they are, what they're responsible for and what motivates them. Personalization without person research is guessing that sounds like guessing.
Proven method
Person research (6 areas):
- Position and scope of responsibility,
- Experience (where they came from, how many years),
- Professional interests (what they publish, share),
- Activity (posts, comments, webinars),
- Publications/talks,
- Ties to the company (how long, role changes). The Prospect Brief combines everything into 9 fields: Company (industry, size, product, market) + Contact (role, seniority) + Pain hypotheses + Recent events + Buying signals + Potential objections + Conversation starters + Why this prospect. The rule: if you can't fill 'why this prospect' with one concrete sentence — the lead isn't ready.
Market example
- BAD
- Unstructured prospecting without ICP filters and generic outreach to random accounts.
- GOOD
- Prospect Brief (summary): Company — performance agency, 18 people, Warsaw. Contact — Head of Sales, 2 years at the company, previously SaaS sales. Pain hypotheses — manual pipeline reports, missing follow-ups. Recent events — the company hired 2 salespeople. Buying signals — hiring + a new website with a 'case studies' section. Objections — 'we have HubSpot', 'not much time'. Conversation starters — 'I see you're growing the sales team; how do you track follow-ups today?' Why this prospect — the company invests in sales and has no follow-up automation, and this person manages that process.
Ready-to-use prompt
You are a prospect analyst. Context: I'm building a Prospect Brief for: [COMPANY NAME], person: [NAME/ROLE], product: [PRODUCT]. Company research: [SUMMARY FROM LESSON 6.1]. Task: Complete the Prospect Brief: 1. Company: industry, size, product, market (4 points) 2. Contact: role, seniority, experience (3 points) 3. Pain hypotheses: 3 hypotheses (each max 15 words) 4. Recent events: 2 events 5. Buying signals: 2 signals 6. Potential objections: 3 objections 7. Conversation starters: 3 opening questions 8. Why this prospect: 1 sentence, specific Format: sections, ready to copy into a note.
Model rekomendowany: Claude 3.5 Sonnet / GPT-4o Copy and paste into ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity
ALTERNATYWNE SCENARIUSZE
Variations & alternative scenarios
Express version: only sections 1, 3, 5, 8 — 60 seconds of research before a call.
LinkedIn version: add 'what their LinkedIn activity looks like'.
Practical exercise
For 3 companies from the previous lesson, build a Prospect Brief from person research. Fill all 9 fields. Mark the ones you couldn't fill — those are your data gaps.
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