Find clients
Where to find prospects without buying a list.
Most of what you need is already public, or already sitting in your own inbox.
In short
Four sources cover almost every need: the public company register in your country (identity, activity, address, size, free), your own past contacts (the most profitable and most neglected source), your network and referrals, and trade directories. Paid lists really add one thing: named contact details.
Public registers, and their limit
Every company is listed in a public register: Companies House in the UK, and an equivalent in every European country. You will find the legal name, the activity code, each site's address, the incorporation date and often a size band.
The limit is sharp: these registers contain no email address, no mobile number and no name of the person who actually decides. They tell you who exists and where, not who to talk to. An excellent starting point and a non-existent address book.
What you get
Name, activity code, address, size band, age, secondary sites.
What you do not
Named email, direct phone number, the operational decision maker, recent turnover.
Your own base, the most profitable source
Before chasing strangers, look at what you already have. Quotes not signed in the last twelve months, inbound enquiries that went nowhere, former clients who have not ordered in two years. These contacts know you, have already expressed a need, and cost nothing to reach again.
A rejected quote is rarely a permanent no: often the budget was not approved, the contact changed, or the project slipped. A call six months after a lost quote converts better than ten cold calls.
What paid lists really add
A commercial list sells you time, not exclusive data. What you pay for is the link between a company and a reachable person, plus a check that the email address still works.
The maths is easy to do: if a list costs £500 for 500 contacts, you convert 1% and your average deal is £5,000, it pays for itself many times over. If you convert 0.2% on an £800 deal, it does not. Do that calculation before buying, not after.
In detail
The topic, broken into concrete questions.
Read next
- Prospecting planDecide who you are after, how many contacts you need, and at what pace.
- Cold callingWhat happens in the first twenty seconds, and how to hold a run.
- Cold emailSubject line, length, follow-up sequence and the legal frame.
- Following upWhen to follow up, how often, and what to say to silence.
Frequently asked questions
Is it legal to contact a company without consent?
In B2B, marketing email to corporate subscribers is generally permitted without prior consent provided the sender is identifiable and an easy opt-out is offered. Rules differ by country and are stricter towards individuals: check what applies where your prospects are.
How do I know how many companies are in my target?
Public registers let you count by activity code, area and size band. That count is the single most useful number when deciding whether a segment is worth working.
Are online directories worth anything?
They are worth something where listing is a deliberate, paid act: presence then signals commercial intent. They are worth much less where listings are generated automatically, since the entry may no longer correspond to anything.
Keep track of every follow-up
Lea CRM keeps your contacts, deals and reminders in one place, and shows you every morning what needs doing today.