| name | lead-research |
| description | Identifies and qualifies high-quality leads by analyzing your product or service, searching for target companies and contacts, and providing actionable outreach strategies. Use when building a prospect list, preparing for outbound sales, researching a target account before a call, or building an ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). |
Lead Research Assistant
A structured lead qualification and research framework. Moves from product understanding → ICP definition → prospect identification → contact research → outreach strategy.
Phase 1 — Define the ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)
Before researching any prospect, define who you're looking for:
| Attribute | Example |
|---|
| Company size | 50-500 employees |
| Industry | SaaS, fintech, e-commerce |
| Geography | North America, EMEA |
| Tech stack signals | Uses Salesforce, Segment, Intercom |
| Growth signals | Hiring, recent funding, new product launches |
| Pain signal | Job postings mentioning a specific problem |
| Buyer role | VP of Engineering, Head of Growth, CFO |
| Disqualifiers | Bootstrapped only, < $1M ARR, government contracts |
If you don't have an ICP yet, provide 3-5 of your best existing customers and I'll extract the pattern.
Phase 2 — Company Research
For each target company, surface:
Firmographic data
- Founded, employee count, funding stage and amount, HQ
- Revenue estimate (if available)
Strategic signals
- Recent news (funding, expansion, leadership changes, product launches)
- Job postings (what problems are they hiring to solve?)
- Tech stack (from job postings, BuiltWith, Wappalyzer)
- Competitors (are they actively competing in a space you serve?)
Relevance score
Rate 1-5 against your ICP. Flag why they score high or low.
Phase 3 — Contact Research
For each target company, identify the right people:
- Primary contact: the person with budget authority for your solution
- Champion candidate: the person who would use/benefit from your solution most
- Blocker: who would likely object and how to address them preemptively
For each contact, find:
- Current role and tenure (LinkedIn)
- Recent activity (posts, comments, interviews)
- Mutual connections or warm paths in
- Direct contact (email pattern + tool verification where possible)
Phase 4 — Outreach Strategy
For each high-scored prospect, produce:
Personalisation angle
Specific to this company and contact — not generic. Should reference something they've said, published, or done recently.
Opening hook
One sentence that earns the next sentence. Not "I noticed you're the VP of X" — that's about you. Something that shows you understand their world.
Value statement
What specific pain does your product solve for this company, given what you know about them?
Call to action
One clear, low-friction ask. Not "let me know if you want a demo" — specific: "Would a 20-min call Thursday or Friday work?"
Output Format
## ICP Summary
[What you're targeting and why]
## Company Profile: [Name]
- Fit score: [1-5]
- Why they fit / why they don't
- Key signals: [funding, hiring, tech stack, news]
## Target Contacts
| Name | Role | Why them | Contact |
|------|------|----------|---------|
## Outreach Draft
[Personalised opening message for primary contact]
## Next Steps
[Specific actions to move this account forward]
Tips
- The best personalisation comes from recent activity — a LinkedIn post from last week beats a funding announcement from 18 months ago.
- A warm introduction beats cold outreach by 10x. Before writing a cold email, check every mutual connection.
- Don't over-research. 20 minutes per account is enough. The signal you need is usually in the first 5 minutes; the rest is procrastination.
