To find a prospect a database with leads is required.
To compile a lead database visit a website where e-mails and phone lists may be stored with names. Good websites that contain this information are association or conference websites. Some information may be missing but it can be supplemented with additional databases.
Example:
You are looking to sell a product that relates to a construction industry. A good place to start looking for leads is an association such as Canadian Constructions Association. Notice how in the directory it lists company, name and address. To complete my list I would try to supplement this list with additional data:
Linked IN - Will likely provide position and a title of a contact.
Search the name in a search engine - phone number/email may pop on another website.
If contact details are not found - guess an email.
If contact details are not found - call front desk and ask to get transferred to your lead.
One of the draw backs of creating prospect lists is time that it takes to organize the lists and scrape the websites for information. There are numerous companies that sell call lists. Be careful which lists you are purchasing because some are outdated, where as, others been resold multiple times and your prospect is being approached too often.
One of the places where manually compiled lists can be purchased is Fiverr freelancers. The quality will depend on a freelancer, however, many of them are of a good quality at an inexpensive price.
Obtaining a call list is recommended because for a small investment you can make more calls rather than spending days accumulating databases. You also have a flexibility of hiring an assistant that can scrape websites for you while you are making calls or sending email campaigns. We recommend using Fiverr freelancers for your call campaigns.
Another solution are web crawlers. While my personal experience with web crawlers was very positive, I cannot recommend this as a solution at this time. If done incorrectly, your IP address can get tagged and your computer will get blacklisted. Web crawlers work well for websites that contain large amount of data. It will quickly become cumbersome to set up if you continuously looking to scrape different websites.