Prospecting

Prospecting is the process of finding and approaching potential customers. It is the stage that fills the top of the pipeline — and the first one to be dropped when the team gets busy, which explains most bad months two months later.

Active and passive

• Passive prospecting (inbound) — the customer arrives: from the site, an ad, a referral. The job is replying fast and qualifying.
• Active prospecting (outbound) — the business goes after people who never reached out: a list, LinkedIn, a call, a visit.

They are not mutually exclusive, and have different economics: inbound costs upfront (content, media) and converts better; outbound costs during (the team's time) and gives predictability.

ICP: the decision that comes first

ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) is the description of the customer worth going after: size, segment, pain point, timing, who decides. Prospecting with no ICP means spending the whole team's time finding out, one conversation at a time, that most people were not a fit.

The ICP is built by looking at who is already a good customer today — the ones who stay, pay on time and refer others — not who the business wishes it had.

Cadence

Cadence is the planned sequence of attempts: how many contacts, through which channels, at what interval. It exists because the first attempt almost never works — and because, with no plan, the salesperson tries twice and gives up.

A typical cadence mixes channels (message, email, call) over two to three weeks, with a clear cap on attempts before closing it out.

Prospecting over WhatsApp

It is the channel with the highest response rate in Brazil and the highest risk. Outreach with no opt-in generates blocks and reports, and blocks tank the number's quality rating — see spam on WhatsApp. Bulk active prospecting over WhatsApp is the fastest way to lose the business's number.