Prospect Research in Seconds
This is the lesson that changes how you sell. By the end of it, you'll be able to build a complete pre-call briefing on any prospect in under 2 minutes — the kind of briefing that used to take 30 minutes of Googling, LinkedIn stalking, and CRM digging.
Every cold call you make, every email you send, every discovery meeting you walk into will be better because of what you learn today. This is the foundation of the entire AI-powered sales system.
Let's go.
The old way vs. the AI way
The old way (25-40 minutes per prospect):
1. Google the company name. Open their website. Skim the About page. (5 min)
2. Search for recent news. Open 3-4 articles. Read and take notes. (8 min)
3. Go to LinkedIn. Search for the company. Browse employee profiles. Try to figure out the org chart. (10 min)
4. Check Crunchbase for funding info. (3 min)
5. Look up their tech stack on BuiltWith or similar. (5 min)
6. Try to piece it all together into something useful. (5 min)
The AI way (90 seconds):
1. Open Perplexity. Paste one prompt. Hit enter.
2. Read the briefing. Verify one or two key facts.
3. Done.
That's not a slight improvement. That's a 15x speed increase — and the AI briefing is often more thorough than what you'd compile manually because it searches dozens of sources simultaneously.
The master research prompt
Here's the prompt that does it all. Copy this and save it somewhere you can access quickly — you'll use it every single day:
```
Research [COMPANY NAME] and give me a sales intelligence briefing:
1. COMPANY OVERVIEW: What they do, founding year, headquarters, company size/headcount
2. FUNDING & FINANCIALS: Funding rounds, total raised, revenue estimates, investors
3. RECENT NEWS: Last 6 months of significant news — product launches, partnerships, expansions, leadership changes
4. TECHNOLOGY STACK: What tools and platforms they use (marketing, sales, engineering)
5. COMPETITORS: Top 3-5 competitors and how this company differentiates
6. KEY DECISION-MAKERS: C-suite and VP-level leaders with their titles and backgrounds
7. POTENTIAL PAIN POINTS: Based on their industry, size, and recent activity, what challenges are they likely facing?
8. TRIGGER EVENTS: Any recent events that create urgency — new funding, rapid hiring, leadership changes, competitive threats
Format as a concise briefing I can review in 2 minutes before a call.
```
Paste this into Perplexity, replace `[COMPANY NAME]` with your target account, and watch it work.
What you'll get back
When you run this prompt against a real company, Perplexity will return something like this:
Company Overview: Acme Corp is a B2B SaaS company founded in 2019, headquartered in Austin, TX. ~350 employees. They provide supply chain visibility software for mid-market manufacturers.
Funding: Series C ($85M) closed March 2025, led by Sequoia. Total raised: $142M. Estimated ARR: $40-50M.
Recent News: Launched AI-powered demand forecasting module (Jan 2025). Expanded to EMEA with London office (Nov 2024). Former Salesforce VP of Engineering hired as CTO (Oct 2024).
Tech Stack: Salesforce CRM, HubSpot Marketing, AWS infrastructure, Snowflake data warehouse, Slack, Notion.
Competitors: Kinaxis, o9 Solutions, Blue Yonder. Differentiates on mid-market focus and ease of implementation.
Decision-Makers: CEO Jane Smith (ex-McKinsey), CTO Robert Chen (ex-Salesforce), VP Sales Maria Garcia (ex-Oracle), CFO David Park.
Pain Points: Scaling sales team post-Series C, likely evaluating new sales tools. Managing rapid international expansion. Integrating AI capabilities across product.
Trigger Events: Fresh Series C funding creates budget for new tools. New CTO likely evaluating tech stack. EMEA expansion requires new processes and infrastructure.
Every single data point there is something you can use in a cold email, a call opener, or a discovery question. You now know more about this company than 95% of reps who are going to pitch them this month.
Prompt variations for different situations
The master prompt works for initial research, but here are variations for specific scenarios:
Before a first call:
```
I'm calling [PERSON NAME], [TITLE] at [COMPANY]. Research them personally — their career history, recent LinkedIn activity, any published articles or speaking engagements, and mutual connections or shared interests I could reference. Also give me 3 personalized conversation starters.
```
Before a discovery meeting:
```
I have a discovery meeting with [COMPANY]. They use [COMPETITOR PRODUCT] and are evaluating alternatives. Research their likely pain points with [COMPETITOR], what they'd want in a replacement, and give me 5 discovery questions that uncover real needs without sounding scripted.
```
For competitive intelligence:
```
Compare [MY COMPANY] vs [COMPETITOR] from a buyer's perspective. What are the honest strengths and weaknesses of each? What objections will a prospect raise about my product vs theirs? Give me responses to the top 5 objections.
```
For trigger event monitoring:
```
What significant events have happened at [COMPANY] in the last 90 days? I'm looking for funding rounds, executive hires, product launches, partnerships, office expansions, layoffs, or any other events that could create a buying need for [YOUR PRODUCT CATEGORY].
```
Building your pre-call briefing system
Here's how to make this a repeatable part of your daily workflow:
Step 1: Save your prompts. Create a note in your phone or a document with your go-to research prompts. No rewriting from scratch each time.
Step 2: Batch your research. Before your calling block, research 5-10 accounts at once. Paste each briefing into a running document. You'll have a full day's worth of intel in 15-20 minutes.
Step 3: Highlight the hooks. In each briefing, star or bold the 2-3 facts you'll actually use in your outreach. A recent funding round. A new executive hire. A competitor they use. These are your personalization anchors.
Step 4: Verify the critical stuff. AI is very good but not perfect. If you're going to reference a specific funding amount or a leadership change on a call, spend 30 seconds confirming it. Perplexity's citations make this easy — just click the source link.
Step 5: Store and reuse. Paste your briefings into your CRM account notes. When you follow up in 3 weeks, you won't need to research the account again — it's all there.
The 2-minute pre-call routine
Here's your new pre-call habit. Do this before every single call:
:00 - :30 — Paste the company name into Perplexity with your research prompt. Scan the briefing.
:30 - 1:00 — Identify your opener: what's the one piece of research that's most relevant to your prospect's role and most likely to start a real conversation?
1:00 - 1:30 — Review your talk track: what's your value prop for this specific person? What discovery questions will you ask?
1:30 - 2:00 — Note your fallback: if they hit you with an objection, what's your response? What's your meeting ask?
Two minutes. Every call. The rep who does this consistently will outperform the rep who "wings it" by a staggering margin. And with AI handling the research, there's no excuse not to do it.