Prospecting is the foundation of every successful B2B sales organization. Without a consistent flow of new prospects entering your pipeline, growth stalls regardless of how good your product is or how skilled your closers are. Yet prospecting is also the activity most salespeople avoid, procrastinate on, or execute poorly.
This guide covers 10 prospecting techniques that are producing results right now in B2B sales. These are not abstract theories. They are practical methods that sales development teams use daily to fill their pipelines with qualified opportunities.
Technique 1: Multi-Thread Account Targeting
Instead of reaching out to a single contact at a target company, identify 3 to 5 decision-makers and influencers at each account and engage them simultaneously across different channels. This multi-threading approach dramatically increases your chances of getting a response because you are not dependent on a single person's inbox or schedule.
How to implement: For each target account, identify the primary decision-maker, their direct reports, and a peer in an adjacent department who might champion your solution internally. Reach out to each with a tailored message that speaks to their specific role and priorities.
Technique 2: Trigger-Based Prospecting
Monitor your target accounts for buying signals and trigger events -- new funding rounds, leadership changes, product launches, expansion announcements, technology adoption signals, and regulatory changes. When a trigger event occurs, it creates a natural reason to reach out and makes your outreach feel timely rather than random.
Tools for trigger monitoring include Google Alerts, LinkedIn Sales Navigator alerts, Crunchbase notifications, and specialized intent data platforms. Build a system that delivers relevant triggers to your SDR team daily so they can act quickly while the event is still fresh.
Technique 3: Social Selling on LinkedIn
Social selling goes beyond sending LinkedIn connection requests with a pitch attached. True social selling means building relationships by engaging with prospects' content, sharing valuable insights, and establishing yourself as a knowledgeable resource in your industry before you ever ask for a meeting.
A practical social selling routine takes 30 to 45 minutes per day: comment on 5 to 10 prospects' posts, share one original insight or piece of content, and send 3 to 5 personalized connection requests with no pitch attached. Over 2 to 4 weeks, you build familiarity and trust that makes your eventual outreach far more effective.
Technique 4: Warm Referral Prospecting
Referrals are the highest-converting prospecting channel in B2B. A warm introduction from a trusted connection converts to a meeting at 3 to 5 times the rate of cold outreach. Yet most salespeople only receive referrals passively instead of systematically generating them.
Build a referral engine by doing three things: ask every happy customer for 2 to 3 introductions during quarterly reviews, ask every new connection on LinkedIn if they can introduce you to anyone in your target market, and create a simple referral incentive program that rewards introductions. The key is making the ask specific: "Do you know the VP of Sales at [specific company]?" converts better than "Do you know anyone who might need our help?"
Technique 5: Video Prospecting
Video messages cut through inbox clutter like nothing else. A short, personalized video recorded on your webcam or phone stands out in a sea of text-based emails and LinkedIn messages. Tools like Loom, Vidyard, and BombBomb make recording and tracking video messages simple.
The most effective video prospecting messages are 30 to 60 seconds long and include: the prospect's name and company visible on your screen (proving it is not a mass message), one specific observation about their company or role, and a clear, simple ask. Keep it casual and conversational -- the human connection is the entire point.
Technique 6: Intent-Driven Prospecting
Use intent data to identify which target accounts are actively researching topics related to your solution. When a company shows a spike in research activity around your product category, they are likely in an evaluation phase and are 2 to 4 times more likely to respond to outreach.
Integrate intent data from providers like Bombora, G2, or 6sense into your daily prospecting workflow. Start each day by reviewing which target accounts are showing elevated intent signals and prioritize those accounts for immediate outreach.
Technique 7: Event-Based Prospecting
Industry conferences, webinars, and virtual events are prospecting gold mines -- not just for the people you meet at the event, but for the attendee lists you can prospect before and after. Reach out to registered attendees 1 to 2 weeks before the event suggesting a meeting during the event. After the event, reference it in your outreach to attendees you did not connect with.
Webinar attendance lists are particularly valuable because they indicate active interest in a specific topic. If someone attended a webinar on "improving B2B conversion rates," they have self-identified a relevant need.
Technique 8: Competitive Displacement Prospecting
Target companies that are using a competitor's solution, especially if that competitor has known weaknesses or if the company is approaching a contract renewal. Technographic data providers can reveal which technologies a company uses, and review sites like G2 can surface dissatisfied competitor customers through negative reviews.
When reaching out, do not bash the competitor. Instead, position your outreach as exploratory: "I noticed [Company] uses [Competitor]. Many companies we talk to that use [Competitor] are curious about how [specific capability] compares. Would it be worth a 15-minute conversation to explore whether there is a better fit?"
Technique 9: Content-Led Prospecting
Instead of asking for a meeting in your initial cold email outreach, lead with a piece of genuinely valuable content -- a relevant case study, an industry report, a benchmarking tool, or an insightful article. This lowers the barrier to engagement because you are giving before you ask.
The content should be directly relevant to the prospect's role and challenges. A generic whitepaper will not cut it. A case study about how a similar company in their industry solved a specific problem they likely face -- that will get their attention.
Technique 10: Account-Based Prospecting
For high-value target accounts, abandon the spray-and-pray approach entirely. Instead, create a personalized prospecting plan for each account that includes research on the company's strategic priorities, mapping of the buying committee, custom messaging for each stakeholder, coordinated multi-channel outreach, and personalized content or assets created specifically for that account.
Account-based prospecting requires more effort per account but produces dramatically higher conversion rates. For enterprise deals, this is not optional -- it is the only approach that works consistently.
Building a Daily Prospecting Routine
Consistency is the key to prospecting success. Build a daily routine that incorporates multiple techniques:
- Morning (30 min): Review trigger events and intent signals. Identify priority accounts for the day.
- Mid-morning (90 min): Execute primary outreach -- cold calls, personalized emails, LinkedIn messages to priority accounts.
- Midday (30 min): LinkedIn engagement -- comment on prospect posts, share content, build social presence.
- Afternoon (60 min): Follow-ups on previous outreach, referral requests, and list building for tomorrow.
- Late afternoon (30 min): Record video messages for high-priority prospects who have not responded to other channels.
At Dewx.io, we build prospecting systems for B2B companies that combine multiple techniques into a coordinated workflow. The reps and teams that succeed are not the ones using one silver-bullet technique. They are the ones who show up every day, execute a multi-technique approach, and continuously refine based on what the data tells them is working.