LinkedIn is where a large share of working professionals list their role, employer, industry and location, which makes it one of the most useful places to build a prospect list. The difficulty is not finding people. It is finding the right people, in a form you can use. This guide walks through the process in the order you would do it.
1. Describe who you sell to, in plain terms
Before you search, write down the customer in one sentence: the kind of company, where it is, and the person inside it who decides or influences the purchase. For example: "software companies in the United Kingdom with 10 to 200 people, and their head of operations."
That sentence turns into the filters you will search on:
- Industry: the sector the company operates in.
- Location: the country, region or city you can actually serve.
- Job title: the roles that buy, approve or recommend what you sell.
2. Search on role, location and industry together
A search on one signal alone returns far too much. Combining role, location and industry narrows the results to people who plausibly match, and it keeps the list small enough to review properly. Start narrow and widen only if you run out of results, rather than starting wide and trying to clean up afterwards.
Titles vary between companies, so use a few variations of the role you want. "Head of Operations", "Operations Director" and "Operations Manager" may all describe the person you are after.
3. Decide whether you want people or companies
Some campaigns start with people: you want every operations lead in a region. Others start with companies: you want a list of businesses first, then the decision-makers inside each one. The second approach produces a list organised like an account list, with several contacts under one company, which suits selling to organisations rather than individuals.
4. Check what comes back
Treat every result as a candidate, not a confirmed lead. Skim each one for fit:
- Does the person's current role match what you searched for?
- Is the company the right size and in the right industry?
- Is the location where you can actually do business?
- Is the profile current, or does it look abandoned?
Discard what does not fit. A shorter, accurate list outperforms a long, loose one.
5. Keep a clean list
The same person often turns up in more than one search. Keep one record per person, group people under their company, and keep a note of which search found them. A tidy list is what lets you come back a week later and know exactly what you did and who you have already contacted.
6. Reach out with care
Contacting people is where the legal and reputational risk sits. Use only information you are permitted to use, say clearly who you are and why you are writing, give people a simple way to opt out, and follow the email and direct-marketing rules that apply where you and your recipients are. A short, relevant message to a well-chosen person is better than a mass message to a large list.
Where Prospectra fits
Prospectra is a prospecting suite for Windows and Android that follows this same order. You set a source, industry, location and titles, run the search, review and save the leads that fit, then export them or write to them from your own mailbox. Saved leads are de-duplicated and grouped by company, and each run is kept in history so you can return to it.
It does not guarantee that any individual lead is accurate, current or contactable, so the checking step above still applies. See the download page to get the current release, or read more about how Prospectra works.