Bec Turton3/25/25 3:19 PM22 min read

Sales Prospecting: A Step-by-Step Playbook for Success

What is Sales Prospecting?

Sales prospecting is the foundation of every successful revenue engine. Prospecting is all about identifying potential buyers, cutting through the noise, and capturing their attention. The goal? Get prospects leaning in, ignite conversation and convert into real sales opportunities.

The Prospecting Problem

Buyers in 2025 are bombarded with sales messages, selective with their time, and immune to generic pitches. That’s why effective sales prospecting isn’t just about doing more volume - it’s about more meaningful interactions.

Prospecting remains one of the most challenging yet critical parts of the sales process. In fact, 42% of salespeople say prospecting is the hardest stage (vs. 36% for closing and 22% for qualifying).

A structured, data-driven prospecting approach will help you to:

Identify high-value prospects who are most likely to convert.
Shorten sales cycles by engaging with decision-makers at the right time.
Improve conversion rates by crafting messaging which connects with your buyers
Build sustainable pipeline growth instead of relying on sporadic inbound leads.

If you’re looking to consistently hit quota and build predictable revenue, mastering sales prospecting isn’t optional - it’s essential.

So how do you cut through the noise?

Sales Prospecting Strategy

Despite its difficulty, effective prospecting is vital: 70% of B2B companies rate prospecting as the most effective way to drive revenue growth, so a strong sales prospecting strategy is vital.

Winning at sales prospecting today requires a multi-channel, highly strategic approach. This article will cover everything you need to build yours.

We'll cover:

Refining your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to ensure you’re targeting the right people.
Crafting compelling messaging that speaks directly to your prospect’s pain points.
Mastering cold calls, cold emails, video outreach, and social selling to meet prospects where they are.
Building a structured cadence that keeps outreach professionally persistent without being annoying.
Using AI and data to track engagement and optimise your efforts in real-time.

Whether you’re an SDR looking to book more meetings or a sales leader building a top-tier outbound team, this article will give you the frameworks, tactics, and real-world insights to prospect smarter and build more pipeline.

We’ll break this down step by step so you can implement an effective, repeatable, and scalable prospecting strategy that consistently delivers results. Let's dive in!

Sales Prospecting Principles

When it comes to sales prospecting strategy, remember your CORE prospecting principles — because without these, your outbound effort has no core strength.

C – Commitment to Outbound
Outbound needs to be embedded in your culture. Without full buy-in from the business, prospecting will always feel secondary. True commitment means understanding outbound as essential to reaching your growth goals.
O – Optimisation
Prospecting isn’t “set it and forget it.” Test fast, learn fast. Constantly refine messaging, channels, and approach. If something isn’t working, change it. The best teams iterate with purpose.
R – Relevance through Specificity
Generic messaging doesn’t cut through. The more specific your outreach, the more it resonates. Know your ideal customer’s world better than they do — and speak directly to the pain they live every day.
E – Every Channel Matters
Outbound success rarely lives in a single channel. Understand where your audience lives and use a multi-touch, multi-channel approach to increase reach, engagement, and conversions.

FREE DOWNLOAD How to Win at Prospecting in 2025 Your roadmap to a healthy pipeline, including templates and examples of what is working in sales today.

The Sales Prospecting Process

Step 1: Define and Refine Your ICP

In 2025, successful prospecting is all about precision—mass outreach is no longer effective. To break through crowded inboxes and noisy LinkedIn feeds, your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and messaging must be highly targeted. Today’s buyers expect personalised outreach that feels relevant and valuable, not generic pitches.

Top performing companies understand the importance of this - 71% of companies that consistently exceed their revenue and lead goals use ideal customer profiles as a core part of their sales and marketing process. In contrast, companies that “take any lead they can get” without ICP focus often struggle with long sales cycles, low conversion, and churn. In fact, one study showed companies with less than 10% of their customer base fitting their ICP were 50% less likely to survive past 5 years.

In this section, we’ll cover how to refine your ICP using data-driven insights, craft messaging that speaks directly to their key pain points, and leverage AI-powered tools to scale personalisation—ensuring every interaction grabs attention and drives meaningful conversations.

Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn’t just a job title or company size—it’s a behaviour profile. You need to target companies and individuals who actively experience the problem your solution solves. Market conditions change, so reassess your ICP every six months to keep up with industry trends.

Consider these key criteria:

Activity-based targeting: What behaviours indicate a company or individual needs your solution?
Successful Customers: Which customers have you signed up recently who have seen success in a short amount of time? What were that account's attributes?
Trigger events: Has the company recently secured funding, expanded, or changed leadership?
Pain points alignment: How does your solution directly impact their current challenges?
Industry trends: Are external factors driving a stronger need for your product or service?

The Importance of a Laser Focused ICP in Prospecting

"Having a clearly defined Ideal Customer Profile is the cornerstone of truly effective prospecting.

By using data-driven insights, we can accurately pinpoint who benefits most from our offerings—and shape our outreach accordingly.

This approach brings greater efficiency, stronger connections, and more sustainable growth. In other words, when our ICP is powered by the right data, everyone wins."

Manoj Ramnani - CEO and Founder of SalesIntel

Step 2: Craft Messaging That Cuts Through the Noise

In 2025, getting your messaging right isn’t just important—it’s the difference between being ignored and starting meaningful conversations. Buyers are overwhelmed with generic outreach, and traditional firmographics alone no longer guarantee a good fit.

To stand out, your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) must be based on real activity, not assumptions, and your messaging needs to reflect how prospects actually talk about their problems. That means staying close to your market through direct engagement, testing messaging in real interactions, and adapting to shifting trends. Outcome-driven pitches aren’t enough—you need to first establish credibility by showing how your solution works in their world.

It’s also important to match your message to where the buyer is in their decision process. According to a HubSpot study, only 19% of buyers want to connect with a salesperson during the very early awareness stage, but 60% want to talk during the consideration stage once they have identified possible solutions. This implies your initial outreach should be educational and not overly aggressive. If you reach someone too early, focus on insight and awareness (e.g. share a relevant industry stat or resource). Being more direct about how you can help and offer that demo or meeting sooner should be left for those further on in the funnel.

AI can help scale personalisation, but without human oversight, it risks losing authenticity. The sales teams that win in 2025 will be the ones who take a dynamic, customer-driven approach to messaging—staying agile, relevant, and always in tune with their audience.

Your outreach needs to be sharp, relevant, and impossible to ignore. Generic sales emails or cold calls that scream “I’m here to sell you something” won’t work.

A strong sales message should:

Speak to a specific pain point rather than listing features.
Use the prospect’s own language—mirror their terminology. A good tip here is to study transcripts of your team's sales calls and to unpick the specific words and phrases your prospects use when describing their challenges.
Provide a clear reason for reaching out (not just “checking in” or “following up”). This can be achieved by providing an observation you have made about their business. For example seeing a job advert, a recent comment from their CEO, or even news about them opening in a new country.
Offer tangible value, whether it's a unique insight, or an offer to provide some perspectives on their competition or market.

Example of weak messaging:

"We help companies streamline their workflow to improve efficiency."

Example of strong messaging:

"Many [industry] leaders are struggling to prevent deals from stalling in later stages. We've helped companies like [similar company] reduce sales cycle length by 30%—happy to share how."

Ready to craft effective sales messaging that really speaks to your ICP? We've got a deep dive article here, which includes more messaging examples actually working in sales in 2025.

Step 3: Sharpen Up Your Outreach

Cold Calling

Despite countless claims that cold calling is dead, it remains one of the most powerful tools in a seller’s arsenal—when done right. In an era where digital outreach dominates, the ability to pick up the phone and engage prospects in real-time is a differentiator, not a relic.

Top performers who get results from cold calling have mastered their openers, and have an arsenal of pattern interrupts to leverage when needed that keep prospects on the line, but they also understand that cold calling is notoriously tough. On average, only about 2% of cold calls result in an appointment or demo . In other words, you might need 50 calls to secure one solid meeting.

Pair this with the fact studies find it takes about 8 call attempts on average to connect with a prospect live , and potentially up to 18 dials just to connect one time with a buyer, with approximately 80% going to voicemail.

The combination of all these things is why volume and perseverance are important, as 78% of decision-makers have taken a meeting or attended an event due to a cold call or email outreach. In other words, many buyers will respond if the call catches their interest at the right time.

So how do you time it right?

The truth is, it is largely a game of chance. Hence why it is crucial to have a defined cadence of follow up. Don't give up after one attempt, and ensure you also invest in high quality data so that your dials are reaching the right numbers. Further, make your cold calling more strategic by using intent signals so that your call feels more relevant and timely.

What's Working in Cold Calling Today

“When I first began in a BDR role, before moving into an AE position, I quickly realised that cold calling wasn’t about trying to ‘sell’ straight away – it was about having real conversations.

For me, the opener is everything. I always start by being upfront: ‘I’m going to be honest with you - this is a cold call. I’m just looking to grab a moment of your time.’ Being direct like this immediately lowers resistance. There’s no point in pretending it’s not a cold call, and if you deliver it in a friendly, confident way, people tend to appreciate the honesty.

The next big thing is leading with value. Instead of launching into what we do at Jiminny (in my case), I talk about the common challenges sales leaders (our target audience) face. For example I'll touch on struggling to get visibility on calls or being overwhelmed with data. I’ll ask if those issues resonate with them, which makes it a conversation rather than a pitch.

Objections are always part of the game, but I’ve found that one of the most common ones isn't always true and often just a reflex. That objection is when someone says 'Sorry, I'm just in a meeting'. How many people would really take a call in the middle of a meeting? Instead of accepting it and moving on, I push back gently: ‘No worries - I appreciate you’re busy. Can I quickly tell you why I’m calling to see if it makes sense to follow up at a better time?’ More often than not, they’ll give me that extra few seconds to make my case.

Another thing I’ve learned is the importance of finding internal champions. Even if the person I’m speaking to isn’t the ultimate decision-maker, I’ll ask, ‘If you found a platform that had real benefits for the business, would you be able to bring it to your leadership team?’

This small shift in approach has helped me turn early conversations into real opportunities.

At the end of the day, cold calling is about confidence, curiosity, and knowing when to challenge. If you can master those things, you’ll start having better conversations - and better results will follow.”

Ben Jones - Account Executive, Jiminny

Want to master cold calling? It's a game of mindset, skill, and adaptability. If you overthink, rely too much on a rigid script, or let rejection shake your confidence, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

We have a deep dive cold calling article here which breaks down the key principles that separate top cold callers from those who struggle. If you want a framework so you can stop dreading cold calls and start owning them, this is for you.

Cold Email

With inboxes more crowded than ever in 2025, standing out in cold email is both an art and a science. The key isn’t just getting opened—it’s getting a response. Yet, only about 24% of sales prospecting emails are opened on average, with the average cold email reply rate is just 6%.

So how do you strike a chord with your prospects?

This section breaks down how personalisation, timing, and structure turn ignored messages into real conversations. We’ll cover subject lines that grab attention, frameworks that convert curiosity into replies, and strategies to make your emails feel relevant and valuable. Plus, we’ll explore how AI and automation can support—not replace—the human touch in modern email prospecting.

How To Stand Out With Email Prospecting:

"200 characters. You have less than 200 characters to show someone that your email isn't automated and you've done your research.

Why?

Because most phones will preview about 200 characters in an email push notification, and it's at that moment people decide "do I open this or swipe it away?"

So! How do you stand out?

1) Get to the point immediately - "I was on your careers page and saw X"

2) Don't talk about what you do, talk about the pain you think they have

3) Use their name at the end of the sentence - No more "Hi {first_name}"

You want to know what's even scarier? An old exec I used to work with didn't read emails on his phone, he read them on his smart-watch. Even less characters to catch his attention with!

So! Focus on catching attention by being specific and personalised in your first 200 characters. That's how you earn a higher open rate.

Bryan Mulry - Expert Sales Coach and Strategist, MySalesCoach

Video

In a world of overflowing inboxes and shrinking attention spans, video prospecting has become a must-have strategy in 2025. A well-executed video message stands out, delivering a personal, human touch that static emails and LinkedIn messages can’t match.

Including video in your outreach can substantially lift response rates. HubSpot reports that a personalised sales video can increase reply rates by 80% relative to text emails, and a recent Vidyard study found that using video for sales outreach increased response rates for over 60% of sales reps surveyed.

But simply sending a video won’t cut it—it needs to be engaging, relevant, and timed strategically.

This section unpacks how to craft compelling prospecting videos, maximise engagement, and use analytics to fine-tune your approach. From AI-generated captions to multi-channel integration, you’ll learn how to make video your most powerful first impression.

So, how are salespeople utilising video today to stand out from the crowd?

Social Selling

In 2025, social selling isn’t about mass connection requests or generic DMs—it’s about engaging your audience before you pitch. Buyers expect meaningful engagement, and sellers who get this right will win. And with 50% of B2B buyers using LinkedIn as a resource when making purchasing decisions, having a strong online presence and reaching out on LinkedIn can influence buyers who are already researching solutions.

This section breaks down the modern social selling playbook, from building a credible personal brand to creating content that attracts the right audience. Learn how to engage prospects in a way that builds trust before the first conversation and how AI-driven insights and intent data can help you identify and convert warm leads into real pipeline.

The importance of building a personal brand in 2025

When you’re building a personal brand on LinkedIn, you’re building way more than your follower count.You’re building your reputation.

Your brand is your credibility in the space that you operate in.Building a personal brand is about way more than posting selfies on LinkedIn.

It’s about adding value to your network and having a voice in your industry.

We're living in the new age of AI and a lot has changed over the years, but one thing remains the same. People buy from people.

In fact, I would tweak this saying slightly: People buy from people that they trust.

Building a personal brand isn’t optional anymore, it’s essential.

And there’s never been a better time to start building trust with your buyers on LinkedIn.

Tom Boston - Content Creator and Brand at MySalesCoach

The Key to Social Selling

The key to social selling is to forget about the selling part.You have to have patience.

As a seller, that's one of the hardest things to master. True social selling comes when you give with no expectation of getting anything.

Comment on your prospects posts, share value, create content that's entertaining or educational.

It might feel like a one way journey for a while, but once you've done it for a few weeks/months your prospects will WANT to speak to you and some of them will come before you ask.

It's like magic.

Chris Van Praag - Content Creator and Account Executive at Supered

Step 4: Get Your Cadences Right

The era of generic outreach sequences is over. In 2025, successful prospecting cadences are personalised, dynamic, and multi-channel—combining calls, emails, social, and video to drive real engagement.

It often takes 5 or more touches to get a response or close a sale – in fact, 80% of sales require 5+ follow-ups from the initial contact . Yet many salespeople give up far too early. 44% of reps stop after just one follow-up attempt (whether that’s one call or one email), and only about 8% of sales reps consistently follow up more than five times.

It’s this diligent 8% who are capturing the majority of their prospect's attention.

This section covers how to build cadences that strike the right balance between persistence and personalisation, using data to fine-tune timing, frequency, and messaging. Yesware’s data analysis found that a cadence of six touches over roughly 3 weeks maximised reply rates without overwhelming the prospect, so it's worth getting this right.

We’ll also dive into AI-powered automation and predictive analytics, helping sales teams focus on high-intent leads and maximise response rates.

Sales Cadence Example That Works In 2025

"Prospecting in 2025 requires a more strategic approach, and account segmentation is key to managing time and efforts effectively.

I categorise accounts into three buckets:

Tier 1 for high-value accounts that demand extensive research and longer engagement.

Tier 2/3 for good-fit, average-size deals that can be approached more quickly, and Signals for intent-driven accounts that offer quick wins.

This segmentation ensures that each outreach is purposeful, with a focus on high-impact opportunities.

For Tier 1 accounts, I take a strategic, time-intensive approach, combining extensive research, internal insights, and leveraging common connections for introductions. I then create a detailed outreach plan, incorporating multithread strategies and a proof of view document to synthesise key insights for C-suite executives. This method ensures I’m not just filling up cadences but engaging in meaningful, personalised outreach that aligns with the company's priorities."

Charlotte Johnson - Account Executive, SalesLoft

Step 5: Metrics and Management

In 2025, top-performing prospecting teams win by pairing data-driven strategies with elite coaching. Outdated metrics like call volume and email count have been replaced by engagement rates, meeting conversions, and pipeline velocity—KPIs that directly impact revenue. But tracking numbers isn’t enough.

Sales leaders must provide ongoing coaching to refine techniques, boost conversions, and keep teams motivated. With AI-powered analytics delivering real-time insights, managers can quickly identify what’s working, fix weak spots, and optimise every outreach effort. By combining smart technology with strong coaching—both internal and external—modern sales teams can prospect more effectively, scale faster, and consistently hit their targets in an ultra-competitive market.

If you're a sales leader wanting less headaches and more sales success in 2025, check out our essential guide to effective sales leadership.

Upskilling The Whole Team

With the top 20% of sellers driving up to 80% of revenue, depending upon which report you read. There is clearly a huge challenge to increase the contribution from the rest of the team.

A key turning point for any sales leader is being able to upskill the whole team - whether that is through balancing territories or applying science.

What I mean by that is with coaching, applying best practice through playbooks/talk-tracks, leveraging AI conversational intelligence all give an opportunity to level up the skillset across the team so they have equal understanding of the science - you can then help apply the art to help personalise the science, make it relevant to customers and to deliver value messaging in every conversation, through deeper connections finding pain and gaining real champions.

Richard Bounds - CRO, VP Sales, Board Advisor, Coach for Start-up and Scale-up

How Great Leaders Coach the Numbers

"Great managers don’t just track numbers — they coach to them.
Prospecting metrics like dials, connection rates, and reply percentages aren’t just KPIs to report upwards - they’re goldmines of coaching insight. When leaders take the time to dig into these numbers with reps, they can uncover the real story behind performance: is it a messaging issue, a list issue, or a mindset issue?
When a rep sees that they’re converting 30% of conversations into meetings, the next logical question becomes, ‘What if I could increase my conversations by 20% - how many more meetings would that unlock?’ That’s the power of data-driven coaching. It turns vague activity targets into tangible goals and actionable growth plans.
The best coaches help reps see numbers not as pressure, but as possibility - and that shift in mindset is often what takes a rep from average to exceptional."

Rich Smith - Head of Growth, MySalesCoach

Final Thoughts: Improve Your Sales Prospecting

Sales prospecting isn’t about spamming, guessing, or waiting for inbound leads to save the day.

It’s about strategic, multi-channel, data-driven engagement.

Get your ICP right. Nail your messaging. Combine calls, emails, video, and social selling. Handle objections like a pro.

And most importantly—keep going.

The best reps don’t prospect harder. They prospect smarter.

Ready to level up your prospecting skills?

Our Prospecting learning path is ideal for individuals or teams who want to build pipeline, drive activity and win more deals.

TL;DR: The Prospecting Problem & How to Fix It in 2025

Prospecting in 2025 is harder than ever. Buyers are flooded with messages, making it crucial to move beyond high-volume outreach and focus on targeted, meaningful interactions.

🔍 Why Prospecting Still Matters

• 42% of reps say prospecting is the hardest part of the sales process.

• Yet, it’s still the most effective way to drive pipeline and revenue growth.

Your Sales Prospecting in 2025 Playbook Includes:

1. Define & Refine Your ICP

• Focus on behavior, not just firmographics.

• Use data, trigger events, and recent wins to target the right buyers.

• Revisit and update your ICP every 6 months.

2. Craft Messaging That Cuts Through

• Speak directly to pain points using the prospect’s own language.

• Match your message to the buyer’s journey stage.

• Lead with insights, not pitches.

3. Sharpen Up Your Outreach Channels

• Cold Calls: Confidence, curiosity, and timing matter. Master the opener and keep going after objections.

• Cold Emails: You’ve got 200 characters to stand out—be specific, personalised, and quick to the point.

• Video: Use native video on platforms like LinkedIn for a personal, human-first touch. Follow up with genuine value.

• Social Selling: Build trust before you pitch. Engage meaningfully, create content, and stay visible.

4. Build Smart, Persistent Cadences

• Multi-channel. 5+ touches. Personalised over time.

• Don’t give up after one follow-up—most reps do, and they miss opportunities.

• Use AI to time it right and focus on warm signals.

5. Track the Right Metrics & Coach to Win

• Look beyond activity volume. Focus on conversion, engagement, and pipeline movement.

• Use data for coaching, not just reporting. Coaching turns numbers into growth.

• Empower your reps with feedback loops and mindset shifts.

CORE Prospecting Principles

C – Commitment to Outbound

O – Optimisation

R – Relevance through Specificity

E – Every Channel Matters

Bec Turton

Digital Marketing Manager at MySalesCoach. Sales is hard. I'm passionate about providing the best, most helpful and actionable content from our expert sales coaches to the sales community to make it a bit easier.