A prospect list is the foundation of any outbound sales effort. Without one, your team has no one to call, email, or follow up with. With a well-built list, you can run systematic outreach campaigns and measure what's working.
Here's how to build one from scratch — using free and low-cost tools that work for any business type, anywhere in the world.
Before sourcing any contacts, define exactly who belongs on your list. Answer these questions in writing:
Decide how many prospects you need. A useful rule of thumb: if your close rate on outreach is 2%, you need 50 contacts to close 1 deal. To close 10 deals, build a list of 500. Set a realistic target before you start sourcing.
Google Maps has over 200 million verified business listings. Every listing has a business name, address, phone number, website, category, and rating — updated by the businesses themselves. For SMBs, local services, retailers, restaurants, clinics, agencies, and contractors, it's the most accurate and up-to-date business database available for free.
Install GrabNear, search Google Maps for your ICP (e.g. "accounting firms in Melbourne"), and the extension automatically extracts every business's phone, website, address and image into a list. Export to CSV with one click. Run 5 different searches and you have 300–500 contacts in an hour — all free, no account required.
LinkedIn's search lets you filter by job title, company size, industry, and location. Use Boolean search operators for precision: "Head of Marketing" AND "SaaS" AND "London". Sales Navigator (paid) unlocks advanced filters and saves more searches. The free tier still lets you identify companies and decision-maker names.
Many industries have professional directories that list member businesses — law societies, medical councils, chamber of commerce directories, trade association member lists. These are often free and highly targeted to a specific sector. Search "[industry] directory [country]" to find them.
Industry conferences and trade shows publish exhibitor and sponsor lists on their websites. These businesses are actively spending money in your market, which makes them high-intent prospects. Scraping the list manually takes 30–60 minutes but produces a tightly qualified set of contacts.
Once you have company names and websites, find the contact email: visit the company website and check "Contact Us" or "About" pages, or use Hunter.io (25 free lookups/month) to find emails by domain. GrabNear's Deep Search visits each business website automatically and extracts the publicly listed email.
For small businesses, the owner is usually the decision-maker. Google "[company name] owner" or check the About page. For larger companies, search LinkedIn for the job title you identified in your ICP. Personalized outreach with a real name outperforms "Dear Sir/Madam" by 3–5x.
An unverified list wastes your outreach effort. Check that websites are live, phone numbers are active, and email formats are correct. NeverBounce (free tier available) verifies email addresses before you send. For phone numbers, a quick manual spot-check of 10% of the list catches most dead numbers.
A disorganized prospect list is almost as bad as no list. Use these columns as a minimum:
| Column | What to Put Here |
|---|---|
| Business Name | Full legal/trading name |
| Contact Name | Decision-maker first and last name |
| Phone | Direct phone number |
| Verified contact email | |
| Website | Company website URL |
| City / Country | For segmentation |
| Source | Where you found this lead (Google Maps, LinkedIn, etc.) |
| Status | Not contacted / Emailed / Called / Replied / Meeting / Closed / Lost |
| Last Contacted | Date of last outreach |
| Notes | Anything relevant from previous conversations |
Don't send the same message to your entire list. Segment by:
A segmented list produces 2–3x better response rates than a single unsegmented blast.
Pro tip: Start outreach before your list is "complete." Send to your first 50 contacts, see what resonates, then apply those learnings to how you message the next 200. Waiting until you have 1,000 contacts means 1,000 messages using an untested template.
Install GrabNear and extract phone numbers, websites, addresses and ratings from any Google Maps search. Export to CSV — no account required.
Install GrabNear — Free