The sales process · Prospecting
A sheet of four thousand names nobody has rung is not a prospect list.
Prospect list building decides what your target list must contain before anybody goes hunting for names: which companies belong on it, and which columns every row has to carry. The finished thing is one ranked sheet that the person making calls can work through without opening a search engine.
In one paragraph
Prospect list building decides what your target list must contain before anybody goes hunting for names: which companies belong on it, and which columns every row has to carry. The finished thing is one ranked sheet that the person making calls can work through without opening a search engine.
This is the first step where the customer research turns into names. Your value proposition told you what you are worth buying for; this sheet is who might buy it. Settle the columns before you go looking for rows, because a column added in week three has to be back-filled for every row already there.
A list is not a directory dump. It is the set of companies somebody has decided are worth an hour of a salesperson's time, with the reason written beside each one. That reason column is the artefact. Take it away and the caller simply works down the rows in the order they were pasted in.
Your first list should be short. Sixty companies you can describe out loud beat four thousand you cannot, because the short one gets finished and the long one is abandoned by the second week. Build it yourself. The judgement sitting in the reason column is yours, and it does not survive being handed to an intern with a search box.
Where this sits
Stage 3 of 10, prospecting. Building the list of companies worth approaching, and deciding which of them to spend time on.
- The stage before
- Customer research
- The stage after
- Lead generation
If you want this done for you
Your team spends the morning finding numbers instead of calling them.
The work
What this step is actually like.
“Columns before rows”
Name them now. Company, town or industrial area, what they make or buy, and the reason they are here. The named person, their role, a number that reaches a human and the WhatsApp number. Where the row came from and when, who is working it, and the date of the last contact. Ten columns is plenty. Every extra one is a column somebody will leave blank.
“Who has to agree the list”
The owner, because the reason column is a judgement about where the firm spends its week. The person who will actually dial, because they know which numbers are useless. And whoever handles the accounts, since they know which of these companies already owes you money.
“Where a list dies quietly”
It dies when two people work the same sheet with no owner column and ring the same purchase manager on the same Tuesday. It dies when the reason column reads industry match on every row, which means nobody thought about any row. Mostly it dies of neglect: built once in January, never opened again.
“How long a first list takes”
An afternoon with the team to agree the columns and the definition of a company worth calling. Then a few days of evenings to fill sixty rows properly. A list of several hundred is a week of somebody's real time, which is the point at which most owners decide to hand it over.
What we do
What you end up with.
The artefacts this step produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.
The target sheet
One file, one row per company, the agreed columns across the top and nothing else. No merged cells, no colour coding that only one person understands.
Result: The caller opens one file and starts at row two.
The reason column
One line per company saying why this one. They run the machine you service. They opened a second unit in Attibele. Their website still lists a product you replaced last year.
Result: A cold call opens with something true about them.
The ownership and status columns
Who is working the row, what happened last, and the date it happened. Three columns, filled by the person who made the call, the same day.
Result: Nobody rings a company a colleague spoke to on Monday.
The exclusion list
A second tab for companies deliberately ruled out, and why. Current customers, a firm in a payment dispute, the one your dealer already covers, the group whose buying is done from Mumbai.
Result: A ruled-out account never has to be argued about twice.
Why us
Why owners pick GullySales over an agency.
Marketing and sales, as one job
Most agencies stop at the enquiry. We also fix what happens after it: the reply, the follow-up, the quote and the CRM.
The person on the first call does the work
No account managers in between. You are never handed to someone you have not met.
A baseline before anything starts
Your numbers are written down on day one, so every monthly report compares against something honest.
The fee in writing, split three ways
Our time, your media spend and production on separate lines. You always see what goes to us.
No lock-in, no guarantees we cannot keep
Three to six months at a time. We never promise a ranking or a lead count, because nobody controls those.
One office, and we say so
Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru. We work across India by call and WhatsApp and travel when a session needs to be in person.
#257, 3rd floor, Sri Nanjundeshwara Complex, Nagarbhavi 8th Block, Outer Ring Road. How we work.
The offer
Start with a free audit of how you sell.
It is useful on its own, whether or not you hire us.
What you receive
- A 90-minute call with the person who will do the work
- A written, scored report on the six places orders leak, within a few working days
- Every fix ranked by what it returns and what it costs
- The one thing to do first, and why
- An honest line on whether you need outside help at all
- If you do, the scope and the fee in writing
No invoice. No obligation. No sales script.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
How many companies should be on our first list?
Who should build it, the owner or the sales team?
Do we need a CRM for this?
Where should the first rows come from?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
How soon will we see results?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
Where to go next
The work that carries this step further.
The rest of prospecting
Or read the whole sales process in order.