The Prospect Research Reboot — 60-Min Training

Direct Answer

Section 1 — The Two-Speed Problem (5 min)

Open by reading two voicemails out loud: one where the rep clearly never opened the prospect's LinkedIn, and one where the rep recites the prospect's resume back at them like a stalker. Both lose the deal. Trish Bertuzzi (The Bridge Group) calls this the "lazy vs.

Creepy" trap, and the cure is a two-speed system — fast for inbound, deep for outbound. Aaron Ross's *Predictable Revenue* assumed dedicated SDRs could afford 5+ minutes per outbound; Becc Holland's *Flip the Script* tightened that to a sub-5-minute personalization sprint with a single specific hook.

Tell the room: we are choosing one speed per lead, not splitting the difference.

Section 2 — The 4-Source Research Stack (15 min)

Whiteboard the stack in order of signal strength, then walk one live account through each layer. Keep it ruthless — one tab per source, no rabbit holes.

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator — your *human-layer* source. Pull title changes in the last 90 days, recent posts by the buyer, and "TeamLink" warm intros. Sales Nav's filter for "Posted on LinkedIn in past 30 days" is the single highest-conversion signal most reps ignore.
• Company news and the company's own blog/newsroom — your *narrative-layer* source. Search Google News for the company name plus "announces", "launches", "hires", "raises" in the last 60 days. The company's own blog tells you what they want the market to believe — quote it back to them.
• 10-K, 10-Q, S-1, or funding docs — your *truth-layer* source. For public targets, search SEC EDGAR for the latest 10-K and pull the Risk Factors section; that is literally the CFO writing down what keeps them up at night. For private targets, Crunchbase or Pitchbook gives the round size, lead investor, and stated use of funds.
• Crunchbase + Apollo (or ZoomInfo) — your *firmographic-layer* source. Employee count, growth rate, tech stack via BuiltWith or Apollo's tech filter, and direct dials. Bombora intent data, if your team has it, plugs in here to tell you which topics the account is already researching.

Pin this rule on the wall: if a source did not change a sentence in your call opener, it was wasted research.

Section 3 — The 60-Seconds-or-Less Rule for Inbound (10 min)

Inbound leads are time-sensitive: Jason Bay (Outbound Squad) and InsideSales research both peg the *5-minute speed-to-lead* window as roughly 9x more likely to convert than a 30-minute response. You cannot do a 5-minute research dossier inside a 5-minute speed window — so research has to fit in 60 seconds, max.

The drill: open Sales Nav, glance at title and tenure, glance at company headline news, dial. Three data points, one breath. Run a stopwatch live in the room and have two reps demo back-to-back; the second rep does it blindfolded except for the screen, to prove it can be done.

The 60-second checklist, verbatim:

• Title and tenure (Sales Nav) — are they new to seat? Under 6 months = curiosity opener; over 3 years = credibility opener.
• One recent company headline (Google News, top result, last 30 days only) — funding, layoffs, launch, exec hire.
• One personal signal (their most recent LinkedIn post or repost) — only if it loads before the dial.

Section 4 — The 5-Minute Deep for Outbound (10 min)

Outbound named accounts get the full stack, but on a timer. Becc Holland's discipline is the model: pick one specific hook, not five generic ones. Walk the room through a 5-minute clock on a real target account:

• Minute 1 — Sales Nav profile of the buyer plus two peers on the same team.
• Minute 2 — Company news scan, 60-day window, save one headline URL.
• Minute 3 — 10-K Risk Factors (public) *or* latest funding announcement (private) — copy one literal sentence.
• Minute 4 — Apollo or ZoomInfo for tech stack and employee growth rate; note one tool that integrates with yours.
• Minute 5 — Synthesis into the talking-points template (Section 5).

If a rep blows the timer, they ship what they have. Perfectionism is the enemy here.

Section 5 — Research-to-Talking-Points Extraction Template (15 min)

This is the heart of the training. Distribute the template below verbatim, then run a live extraction on a shared screen using a real account from each rep's territory. Anything that does not slot into the template gets cut.

``` ACCOUNT: ______________________ BUYER: ______________________ DATE: __________ RESEARCH MODE: [ ] 60-sec inbound [ ] 5-min outbound

HOOK 1 (specific, current, public): "I saw that [company] [verb + specific fact from news or 10-K]..."

HOOK 2 (buyer-personal, optional for inbound): "I noticed you [posted / shared / moved into role] about [topic]..."

QUESTION 1 (open, tied to Hook 1): "How is [that change] affecting [the function this buyer owns]?"

QUESTION 2 (outbound only — tied to a Risk Factor or stated use of funds): "Your latest [10-K / funding announcement] called out [risk or priority] — is that landing on your desk?"

RISK / TRIGGER (outbound only — one sentence): "Their [10-K risk / funding doc / layoff / exec hire] suggests [pain]."

DISQUALIFIER (one line — what would make me walk away): "If they say ______________, this is not a fit right now." ```

Bold rule on the wall: bold the specific fact, never the adjective. "I saw you just raised a $40M Series B led by Bessemer" beats "I saw you had exciting news" every time.

Section 6 — When AI-Assisted Research Helps vs. Hurts (5 min)

Close with the AI rules of the road. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and built-in tools like Apollo AI or LinkedIn's account IQ are useful — but they hallucinate, especially on private-company specifics. Walk through the helps/hurts list, then end the training.

• AI helps — summarizing a 200-page 10-K into a 5-bullet Risk Factors list, drafting a first-pass opener you then rewrite, triaging which of 50 accounts to research deeply based on intent data (Bombora, 6sense, Demandbase).
• AI hurts — naming executives (frequent name hallucination — always verify on LinkedIn), citing funding rounds or revenue figures (cross-check Crunchbase or SEC), and any direct quote (assume fabricated unless you found the URL yourself).
• The rule — AI is allowed for summarization and triage, never for naming or quoting. If it has a name or a number in it, it gets verified before it goes in the template.

End the meeting by having every rep paste one completed template into the team channel before EOD. No template, no dials tomorrow.

FAQ

Q: Should SDRs and AEs use the same template? A: Yes, with one tweak — AEs add a second pass before discovery calls that pulls 10-K Risk Factors and the last two earnings call transcripts. SDRs stop at the 5-minute mark.

Q: What if we do not have Sales Navigator or ZoomInfo budget? A: Free LinkedIn plus Google News plus SEC EDGAR plus Crunchbase Pro ($49/mo) covers about 80% of the signal. The template does not change.

Q: How do we enforce the 60-second rule on inbound? A: Make the CRM call-notes field required before the dial logs as completed, and have managers spot-audit five logs per rep per week. Speed-to-lead dashboards in Salesforce or HubSpot make this trivial.

Q: When does AI-assisted research save real time? A: Triage at the top of the funnel (which 10 of 200 accounts to research deeply this week) and Risk Factor summarization on long 10-Ks. Both save 20-30 minutes per rep per day with low hallucination risk.

Q: How often should we re-run this training? A: Once on hire, refresher every 90 days, and a live shadow-and-grade session monthly where a manager scores three live research-to-talking-points sessions per rep.

Sources

1. Trish Bertuzzi, *The Sales Development Playbook* (The Bridge Group, 2016) — research discipline and the "lazy vs. Creepy" framing.
2. Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler, *Predictable Revenue* (PebbleStorm, 2011) — dedicated SDR model and outbound personalization economics.
3. Becc Holland, *Flip the Script* personalization framework (Flip the Script, 2020-present) — one-specific-hook discipline for outbound.
4. Jason Bay, Outbound Squad — speed-to-lead and inbound personalization research, outboundsquad.com.
5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator documentation, "Lead and Account Filters" — business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/sales-navigator.
6. SEC EDGAR full-text search for 10-K Risk Factors — sec.gov/edgar/search.
7. Bombora Company Surge intent data methodology — bombora.com.
8. ZoomInfo and Apollo.io product documentation on tech-stack and direct-dial enrichment — apollo.io, zoominfo.com.