How to Research a Prospect: A 15-Minute Routine (and a 2-Minute Version)

Steps 3 to 5: The Buyer, the Signal and the Line

Now narrow from the company to the person and the message. This is where research turns into something you can send.

Step 3: Understand the buyer (4 minutes). On LinkedIn, read their headline, about section and tenure, then their last few work posts. Note what they own and one thing they've said publicly about their priorities.

Step 4: Pick the signal (2 minutes). Choose the one change that best connects their situation to your product. Recent beats old, specific beats general, and their problem beats your feature.

Step 5: Write the line (2 minutes). One sentence of fact, one of implication, one question. If the line won't come, go back to step 4 and pick a different signal (or borrow a pattern from these cold email opening lines).

The 2-Minute Way to Research a Prospect

High-volume lists don't allow 15 minutes per row, but they still deserve one real fact. The 2-minute version keeps only the steps that change the message.

1. Careers page or newsroom (60 seconds): one dated change
2. Buyer's LinkedIn headline (30 seconds): what they own
3. Write it (30 seconds):
   "[Change] at [Company]. For a [role], that usually means [problem].
    Is that on your radar this quarter?"

Batch by source, not by prospect. For a list of 30, open all 30 careers pages first, then all 30 LinkedIn headlines. Switching tasks less often is faster than finishing one prospect at a time.

If nothing has changed, don't fake it. Send an honest segment message instead, or move the prospect to a later batch and check again next month.

Worked Example: Researching Halden Freight

Here is the routine applied to a fictional prospect. Northwind sells a freight quoting tool; the buyer is Maya Chen, VP of Operations at Halden Freight.

Step 1  Fit: YES. Regional freight broker, mid-size, quotes spot loads
        for mid-market shippers. Site says "a quote in hours, not days."
Step 2  Change: careers page lists 3 pricing analyst roles (posted Sept).
        One job post mentions "manual rate lookups across carriers."
Step 3  Buyer: Maya Chen, VP Operations, 14 months in role. Recent post
        about "keeping service levels while volume grows."
Step 4  Signal: pricing analyst hiring + manual rate lookups.
Step 5  Line: "Halden has three pricing analyst roles open, and the posting
        mentions manual rate lookups. When volume grows faster than the
        pricing team, 'a quote in hours' is usually the first promise
        that slips. How are you protecting it while you hire?"

Notice what's missing: no hobbies, no compliments, no funding history. Every fact either confirmed fit or fed the line. Store notes like these in a sales research template so your next touch builds on them.

Prospect Research Mistakes That Waste Time

Most research time is lost to the same few habits. Fix the habit and the routine stays at 15 minutes.

Reuse research across channels. The same signal should drive your email, your cold call opener and your LinkedIn note. And before a booked meeting, run a short pre-call research pass rather than starting over.

Researching a Whole List Without Cutting Corners

The routine works for 10 prospects a day. At 50, reps start skipping steps 2 and 5, and the emails go generic. The fix is to automate the reading and keep the judgment.

Let the reading happen while it writes. With Edithly's prospect research, you paste a prospect's website into Email Outreach or Cold Call Script and it reads their site and public signals while writing. The email output lists the facts it used with source links, so you spend your two minutes checking and adjusting instead of searching.

Keep the full routine for the accounts that matter. For strategic deals with several stakeholders, 15 minutes is a floor, not a ceiling. Step up to account research and map the buying group before you write.