Illustration for Sales & revenue marketing skills
Sales & revenue skill · v0.1.0

Prospecting & lead research skill

Find and qualify prospects and build a dossier for each before reaching out.

Free · MIT licence · Copy needs a free sign-in

Category
Sales & revenue
Works with
Claude, Codex, Cursor, any agent
Format
SKILL.md · 1,412 words
Version
v0.1.0
Price
Free · MIT

The Prospecting & lead research skill file

cmo-prospecting/SKILL.md1,412 words · MIT
---
name: cmo-prospecting
description: Find and qualify prospects and build a dossier for each before reaching out.
---

Turns an ideal customer profile into a short, verified list of accounts worth contacting, and a research brief for the best of them. Quality beats volume: 25 verified, well-timed leads with a reason to reach out will do more than 250 guesses. Every claim carries a source and date, so outreach is relevant and the list stands up to privacy rules.

When to use

  • "Build a lead list", "find prospects", "research this account", "who should we contact?".
  • Before a cold email or LinkedIn outreach campaign, or before a sales call.
  • Early-stage: finding first customers or design partners from people publicly describing the problem.
  • Not for: writing the outreach (use cmo-cold-email), defining personas from research (use cmo-customer-research), profiling competitors (use cmo-competitor-research), or scoring and routing inbound leads (use cmo-revops).
Sign in to see, copy and download the whole skillIt's free. Copying also upvotes and saves it, so you'll find it again under Saved.
Preview: the workflow, output, example, quality bar and guardrails unlock when you sign in.

Adapts open work by ericosiu/ai-marketing-skills (MIT).

Everyday usage

How people use Prospecting & lead research day to day

Ask in plain words. The agent picks this skill, asks for anything it needs and hands back the result. Words in a highlight are yours to change.

Most common · also on the Sales & revenue page

Research a prospect before the call

A dossier on the company and person: what they do, recent news and how to open.

Ask your agentResearch Acme Ltd before my call tomorrow.
  • An ICP checklist with pass/fail criteria and disqualifiers
  • A scored lead sheet (Hot / Warm / Cold / Skip) with sources, confidence and verification date
  • A research dossier for each top account, with the outreach angle

More things to ask

  • Build me a prospect list
  • Find companies that fit our ICP
  • Research this account before my call
  • Who should we reach out to first?
  • Find local businesses we could sell to
  • Find our first customers
How it works

From input to output

  1. 1You give it
    • The ICP, or the business profile and best customers to derive it from
    • Motion: software/digital buyers, other B2B, local small businesses, or first customers from public demand signals
    • Target count, geography, and the buying signals that matter most
    • Data tools the user is licensed to use (or browser research only) and output format
  2. 2It works through the method
    • Asks what's missing, one question at a time
    • Follows the workflow step by step
    • Checks the result against its quality bar and guardrails
  3. 3You get
    • An ICP checklist with pass/fail criteria and disqualifiers
    • A scored lead sheet (Hot / Warm / Cold / Skip) with sources, confidence and verification date
    • A research dossier for each top account, with the outreach angle
Why a skill

The skill against the alternatives

Do it yourselfHire helpProspecting & lead research skill
CostYour own timeAgency or freelancer feesFree, MIT licence
Time to a first resultHours, every timeDays to weeks, plus revisionsMinutes, in your agent
ConsistencyDepends on remembering every stepAs long as the retainer lastsSame steps and checks every run
The methodIn your headTheir process, often hiddenWritten down: read it, change it
Who does the workYou, from scratchSomeone learning your businessYour agent, following the skill
FAQ

Questions about the Prospecting & lead research skill

What it does, what it needs and how to use it with your agent.

Still not sure?Try it free on your own website and see the first posts before you decide.
Start free
What is the Prospecting & lead research skill?

Find and qualify prospects and build a dossier for each before reaching out.

It's one of cmo.so's open Sales & revenue skills: a SKILL.md file that tells an AI agent when to use it, what to ask you first, the steps to follow, the checks to pass and what to hand back, so the job is done the same careful way every time.

When should I use it?

Reach for it when you'd otherwise say something like “Build me a prospect list”, “Find companies that fit our ICP”, “Research this account before my call”. Your agent reads the skill's description and picks it for requests like these, so you don't need to name it.

If a request is close but not quite right, the skill says so and points to the related skill that fits better, instead of forcing a poor answer.

What do I need to give it?

It works best with the ICP, or the business profile and best customers to derive it from; motion: software/digital buyers, other B2B, local small businesses, or first customers from public demand signals; target count, geography, and the buying signals that matter most; and data tools the user is licensed to use (or browser research only) and output format.

You don't have to prepare everything up front. The skill asks for missing pieces one at a time and says plainly when it's working from an assumption instead of your data.

What do I get back?

You get an ICP checklist with pass/fail criteria and disqualifiers; a scored lead sheet (Hot / Warm / Cold / Skip) with sources, confidence and verification date; and a research dossier for each top account, with the outreach angle.

Every result comes from a written method with a quality bar, so numbers name their source, claims are checked and the output is ready to use or share rather than a rough draft.

Is it free?

Yes. The skill is open source under the MIT licence, so you can use it, change it and share it, including for client work.

Seeing, copying and downloading the whole file on cmo.so needs a free sign-in. Copying also upvotes and saves it, so you can find it again under Saved on the skills page.

Which AI agents can use it?

Claude Code installs it from the cmo.so marketplace. Any agent that reads SKILL.md folders, such as Codex or Cursor, can use it once the folder is in its skills directory.

You can also paste the copied skill into ChatGPT, Claude or any assistant at the start of a conversation and ask it to follow the skill.

How do I install it?

In Claude Code, run /plugin marketplace add AI-Marketing-OS-LTD/cmo-so-skills, then /plugin install cmo-so-sales@cmo-so. That installs this skill together with the rest of the Sales & revenue group.

For other agents, sign in, press Copy or Download above and put the file in your agent's skills folder as SKILL.md inside a folder named after the skill.

Do I need a cmo.so account to use it?

No. The skill works on its own with whatever your agent can already see and do: your files, the pages you share and the data you paste in.

A free cmo.so account only matters if you also want Maggie to plan, write and publish your marketing every day.

Which skills work well with it?

It pairs well with Cold email & outbound; and Customer research & ICP. The agent can hand over from one to the next in the same conversation, for example research first, then the plan, then the writing.

Each of them has its own page with what it needs and what it returns, linked below.

Can I change it to fit my business?

Yes. It's a plain Markdown file, so you can edit the steps, add your own checks and examples, and keep your version in your own repo. The MIT licence allows it.

If your change would help others too, suggest it on the skills page or open a pull request on GitHub, and it may be folded into the library for everyone.

Where does the method come from?

It's written by cmo.so and adapts open work by others, credited on this page: ericosiu/ai-marketing-skills (MIT).

Only permissively licensed work is adapted; copyleft repos are used for ideas only and repos without a licence aren't used at all.

Is my data sent to cmo.so when the agent uses it?

No. The skill only guides your own agent; your files, documents and data stay wherever your agent and its tools keep them.

cmo.so only sees what you connect to cmo.so. Your votes and saves on this page are stored against your cmo.so sign-in.

Ready when you are!

Rather have Maggie do it for you?

Enter your website. Maggie uses the same playbooks to plan, write and publish your marketing every day.

  • Free plan, no card needed
  • You decide what goes out
  • Cancel any time

Start with your website

Free to start. No card needed.

Welcome back.

Sign in to cmo.so.

or
At least 8 characters.
New to cmo.so? Have an account? Prefer a password?

By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.