lead-hand-skill

# Lead Generation Expert Knowledge

## Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Construction

A good ICP answers these questions:
1. **Industry**: What vertical does your ideal customer operate in?
2. **Company size**: How many employees? What revenue range?
3. **Geography**: Where are they located?
4. **Technology**: What tech stack do they use?
5. **Budget signals**: Are they funded? Growing? Hiring?
6. **Decision-maker**: Who has buying authority? (title, seniority)
7. **Pain points**: What problems does your product solve for them?

### Company Size Categories
| Category | Employees | Typical Budget | Sales Cycle |
|----------|-----------|---------------|-------------|
| Startup | 1-50 | $1K-$25K/yr | 1-4 weeks |
| SMB | 50-500 | $25K-$250K/yr | 1-3 months |
| Enterprise | 500+ | $250K+/yr | 3-12 months |

---

## Web Research Techniques for Lead Discovery

### Search Query Patterns
```
# Find companies in a vertical
"[industry] companies" site:crunchbase.com
"top [industry] startups [year]"
"[industry] companies [city/region]"

# Find decision-makers
"[title]" "[company]" site:linkedin.com
"[company] team" OR "[company] about us" OR "[company] leadership"

# Growth signals (high-intent leads)
"[company] hiring [role]" — indicates budget and growth
"[company] series [A/B/C]" — recently funded
"[company] expansion" OR "[company] new office"
"[company] product launch [year]"

# Technology signals
"[company] uses [technology]" OR "[company] built with [technology]"
site:stackshare.io "[company]"
site:builtwith.com "[company]"
```

### Source Quality Ranking
1. **Company website** (About/Team pages) — most reliable for personnel
2. **Crunchbase** — funding, company details, leadership
3. **LinkedIn** (public profiles) — titles, tenure, connections
4. **Press releases** — announcements, partnerships, funding
5. **Job boards** — hiring signals, tech stack requirements
6. **Industry directories** — comprehensive company lists
7. **News articles** — recent activity, reputation
8. **Social media** — engagement, company culture

---

## Lead Enrichment Patterns

### Basic Enrichment (always available)
- Full name (first + last)
- Job title
- Company name
- Company website URL

### Standard Enrichment
- Company employee count (from About page, Crunchbase, or LinkedIn)
- Company industry classification
- Company founding year
- Technology stack (from job postings, StackShare, BuiltWith)
- Social profiles (LinkedIn URL, Twitter handle)
- Company description (from meta tags or About page)

### Deep Enrichment
- Recent funding rounds (amount, investors, date)
- Recent news mentions (last 90 days)
- Key competitors
- Estimated revenue range
- Recent job postings (growth signals)
- Company blog/content activity (engagement level)
- Executive team changes

### Email Pattern Discovery
Common corporate email formats (try in order):
1. `firstname@company.com` (most common for small companies)
2. `firstname.lastname@company.com` (most common for larger companies)
3. `first_initial+lastname@company.com` (e.g., jsmith@)
4. `firstname+last_initial@company.com` (e.g., johns@)

Note: NEVER send unsolicited emails. Email patterns are for reference only.

---

## Lead Scoring Framework

### Scoring Rubric (0-100)
```
ICP Match (30 points max):
  Industry match:     +10
  Company size match: +5
  Geography match:    +5
  Role/title match:   +10

Growth Signals (20 points max):
  Recent funding:     +8
  Actively hiring:    +6
  Product launch:     +3
  Press coverage:     +3

Enrichment Quality (20 points max):
  Email found:        +5
  LinkedIn found:     +5
  Full company data:  +5
  Tech stack known:   +5

Recency (15 points max):
  Active this month:  +15
  Active this quarter:+10
  Active this year:   +5
  No recent activity: +0

Accessibility (15 points max):
  Direct contact:     +15
  Company contact:    +10
  Social only:        +5
  No contact info:    +0
```

### Score Interpretation
| Score | Grade | Action |
|-------|-------|--------|
| 80-100 | A | Hot lead — prioritize outreach |
| 60-79 | B | Warm lead — nurture |
| 40-59 | C | Cool lead — enrich further |
| 0-39 | D | Cold lead — deprioritize |

---

## Deduplication Strategies

### Matching Algorithm
1. **Exact match**: Normalize company name (lowercase, strip Inc/LLC/Ltd) + person name
2. **Fuzzy match**: Levenshtein distance < 2 on company name + same person
3. **Domain match**: Same company website domain = same company
4. **Cross-source merge**: Same person at same company from different sources → merge enrichment data

### Normalization Rules
```
Company name:
  - Strip legal suffixes: Inc, LLC, Ltd, Corp, Co, GmbH, AG, SA
  - Lowercase
  - Remove "The" prefix
  - Collapse whitespace

Person name:
  - Lowercase
  - Remove middle names/initials
  - Handle "Bob" = "Robert", "Mike" = "Michael" (common nicknames)
```

---

## Output Format Templates

### CSV Format
```csv
Name,Title,Company,Company URL,LinkedIn,Industry,Size,Score,Discovered,Notes
"Jane Smith","VP Engineering","Acme Corp","https://acme.com","https://linkedin.com/in/janesmith","SaaS","SMB (120 employees)",85,"2025-01-15","Series B funded, hiring 5 engineers"
```

### JSON Format
```json
[
  {
    "name": "Jane Smith",
    "title": "VP Engineering",
    "company": "Acme Corp",
    "company_url": "https://acme.com",
    "linkedin": "https://linkedin.com/in/janesmith",
    "industry": "SaaS",
    "company_size": "SMB",
    "employee_count": 120,
    "score": 85,
    "discovered": "2025-01-15",
    "enrichment": {
      "funding": "Series B, $15M",
      "hiring": true,
      "tech_stack": ["React", "Python", "AWS"],
      "recent_news": "Launched enterprise plan Q4 2024"
    },
    "notes": "Strong ICP match, actively growing"
  }
]
```

### Markdown Table Format
```markdown
| # | Name | Title | Company | Score | Key Signal |
|---|------|-------|---------|-------|------------|
| 1 | Jane Smith | VP Engineering | Acme Corp | 85 | Series B funded, hiring |
| 2 | John Doe | CTO | Beta Inc | 72