Self-Paced · ~1.5 Hours · Selling Pillar
Prospecting 101
For founders and sellers building a pipeline from scratch or from habit: how to get in front of the right people in a way that doesn't feel like a mass email.
Who this is for
Founders and early sales hires who need to build a pipeline and aren't sure where to start, or who have been prospecting but aren't getting traction. This covers the logic of prospecting: who to contact, how to reach them, and how to open a conversation that doesn't feel like a mass email to the person reading it.
Not for: teams with an established outbound function and an SDR playbook in place. This is the first principles version, not an optimization guide.
What you'll be able to do after this course
- Define exactly who you're prospecting into (by role, trigger, and context, not just company size)
- Write outbound messages that get responses because they're specific, not because they're clever
- Build a simple prospecting cadence you can actually maintain without a CRM full of sequences
- Identify the two or three channels where your ICP actually lives and pays attention
- Know when to stop following up, and how to do it without burning the relationship
Lesson Outline
01Start With the Audience Question
Before you write a single email, you need a clear answer to one question: who, exactly, is this for? Not a persona description... a specific answer. This lesson teaches the audience diagnostic: how to define your outbound ICP in terms of role, buying trigger, and context, and why getting this wrong makes everything downstream harder than it needs to be.
02The Message That Gets Read (and the One That Doesn't)
There's a structure to outbound messages that get responses, and it has nothing to do with subject line tricks. This lesson covers how to write a prospecting message that's specific enough to feel like it was written for the person reading it, short enough to respect their time, and clear enough about what you want that the response is obvious.
03Channels (Go Where They Actually Are)
Not every ICP is on LinkedIn. Not every ICP reads cold email. This lesson covers how to match your prospecting channel to your buyer, including the less obvious platforms (communities, events, marketplace listings, introduction networks), and why trying to be everywhere at once is the surest way to get traction nowhere.
04The Cadence (How Many Touches, How Far Apart)
More follow-ups aren't better. This lesson covers what a reasonable prospecting cadence looks like (how many touches, in what order, over what timeframe), and how to write follow-ups that add something instead of just nudging. You'll also learn how to close a cadence cleanly so the door stays open.
05What Happens When It Works (Qualifying the Conversation)
Getting a reply isn't the goal. Getting the right conversation is. This lesson covers how to qualify quickly in the first call, what questions surface whether this is a real opportunity, and how to move from “interesting” to “this is a real conversation” without dragging out the discovery stage.
Ready to go deeper?
Pitchslap handles the inbox side (classify inbound messages and draft replies that don't sound like everyone else). For working your live deals alongside someone who's done it, The Sales Room is the first step.