Sales prospecting plan: how to build one and find customers

How do you create your sales prospecting plan?#

Each block follows from the previous one. The goal determines how many contacts to reach, the target defines which ones, and the list brings them together. For the list, our guide to the B2B prospect list compares building it yourself and buying it.

A prospecting plan succeeds because of the work done before the first call, not during it. Here is what that means in practice:

1. Goal: a number of new customers, meetings or a revenue figure, with a deadline.
2. Target: the companies you talk to, and the ones you rule out.
3. List: the list of prospects, checked before the first contact.
4. Channels: two ways to reach the target, chosen based on the contact details it makes available (number, address, profile).
5. Indicators: the results you measure at each stage to adjust the plan.

France Num, the French government service that helps very small, small, and medium-sized businesses (TPE-PME) use digital tools, splits the process into seven steps (page updated June 10, 2026). It adds the market, the offer and the buying journey. All five blocks above appear in it.

An example prospecting plan to adapt#

Here is a template filled in for a fictional case: a supplier selling to independent auto repair shops in one département (a French administrative area, roughly a county). The figures are illustrative; the calculation is explained in the next section.

• Goal: 30 new customers in twelve months, which is €120,000 in revenue if each new customer buys €4,000 on average over the period.
• Target: independent shops providing general auto repair in the département; check how many there are before confirming the goal. Exclusions: shops that are already customers, shops that do only bodywork, and closed locations.
• List: a list large enough to reach 1,200 locations, allowing for those you cannot reach, with a written reason for each entry and no duplicates within the list or against existing CRM records.
• Channels: phone first, visits for the meetings booked.
• Calendar: divide the 1,200 locations you need to reach by the number of prospecting weeks, then by the number of sales reps, to determine how many locations each rep must reach per week. Use the first week to measure how much time the calls take, then block off the corresponding time on each sales rep's calendar. Count attempts separately: multiple calls to the same shop do not count as multiple contacts. After each conversation, the outcome and the date of the next action are logged in the CRM.
• Indicators: meetings booked, quotes sent, sales, tracked every week.
• Review: change one element each month and record the change in the action plan.

You can adapt this sales action plan to any industry: the five parts remain the same, while the target criteria, channels, and figures change.

Set sales goals starting from revenue#

France Num recommends setting a target number of meetings, sales, or customers, or a revenue target. Then specify "within what time frame." A goal without a date can't be managed.

The calculation works backward, starting from revenue:

• revenue goal ÷ average revenue per new customer over the same period = number of new customers;
• new customers ÷ close rate (the share of meetings that lead to signed deals) = meetings needed;
• meetings ÷ meeting-booking rate = contacts to reach.

Let's take illustrative figures, to be replaced with your own rates.

For €120,000 of new revenue and €4,000 of purchases per new customer over those twelve months, you need 30 customers. With one signed deal for every four meetings, you need 120 meetings. With one meeting for every ten contacts reached, you need to reach 1,200 contacts.

That last figure counts locations you actually talk to, not calls: some won't answer, others will take several attempts. You therefore need a larger list; adjust its size after your first weeks of calls. France Num suggests estimating "the number of customers you need to contact per week, month or quarter." This turns your prospecting strategy into a specific number of actions for each sales rep, rather than just a statement of intent.

Define your target customers and exclusions#

The target describes your ideal customer: a trade, an area, a size. Your exclusion criteria define whom you do not contact: businesses outside the area, businesses that are too small, existing customers, and closed locations. Writing down both keeps a sales rep from spending a morning on prospects who will never sign.

For B2B prospecting aimed at stores or workshops, focus on individual business locations. A location is the physical place where the activity takes place, identified by its SIRET number (the French ID of a business location), which has fourteen digits. One company can have several, and it is often the location that your sales rep calls or visits. Scalon's October 14, 2026, test covered 2,420 companies in France found on Google; for 18% of them, or more than 1 in 6, the SIRET number of the location we were looking for differed from that of the headquarters (finding a company's SIRET number). This rate describes that test, not your list: check the SIRET number of the place your sales rep will call or visit.

The NAF code (the French activity classification code, also called APE code) is not enough to define the target. Assigned by Insee (France's national statistics office), it identifies the company's main activity, not everything the location actually does. An auto repair shop registered under repair may do only bodywork.

Then estimate how many locations fit your target before committing to it. The local addressable market calculator counts the locations of a trade in an area. If there are too few for the goal in the previous block, widen the area or the trade before launching the prospecting campaign.

A qualified prospect list before the first call#

How many prospects does the list need? There is no universal number: it is derived from your goal. What matters is that every row deserves a call.

The Sirene database (the French registry of companies and their business locations), published on data.gouv.fr under the Licence Ouverte 2.0 (France's open government license), provides publicly available prospecting data. The dataset was updated on October 1, 2026.

But a raw file is not a prospecting list. Since 1973, it has listed companies still in business and others that have closed: before calling, check that the location is still open and that it matches your target.

Before you contact anyone, prepare the list in three steps:

• deduplicate, including against the customers already in your CRM;
• exclude closed locations and those that meet your exclusion criteria;
• qualify row by row: a verdict (contact or rule out) and a written reason.

The written reason is for the sales rep. They know why they are calling this location and not the one next door. In the fictional example above: "call: independent auto repair shop offering general repairs in the département" or "rule out: bodywork only."

Thinking of buying a prospect list? Check three things before you pay: where the data comes from, how recent it is, and how duplicates are handled. A database with no source and no date can't be verified.

This is the step Scalon takes on: a file of business locations where each row carries a verdict, a written reason and its source, compared with your CRM records to remove duplicates. Scalon is neither a CRM nor an outreach platform: you send the messages, run the sequences, and make the calls. The page Scalon for Heads of Sales (sales directors) offers a sample of 100 qualified locations, free and with no commitment.

Focus on two prospecting channels rather than spreading your effort across five#

What is the best channel? None in the abstract: it depends on your target. To choose the right prospecting channels, look at how you can reach your target customers:

• the phone requires a number, and phone prospecting remains the most direct channel;
• email requires a valid address;
• LinkedIn and social networks require an active profile, the basis of social selling (prospecting through your online network);
• in-person visits require an address and travel time.

You are more likely to reach a local business by phone or at its address than through an online profile. For an auto repair shop or a restaurant, phone and field visits come before digital prospecting.

Also check the legal framework of each channel. Since August 11, 2026, soliciting a consumer by phone without prior consent is prohibited (article L223-1 of the Code de la consommation). The burden of proving consent falls on the business.

For email, the CNIL (France's data protection authority) accepts that prospecting aimed at business contacts can rest on the company's legitimate interest. The subject of the message must relate to the profession of the person contacted. The person must also be informed and be able to opt out simply and free of charge.

Before the first call, check whether your target is a consumer or a business contact: the rule for phone prospecting differs accordingly.

Which prospecting tools do you need to run the plan?#

There is no universally best set of prospecting tools; choose one tool for each function:

• store and track: the CRM (customer relationship management software);
• reach: phone and messaging;
• supply contacts: the qualified list from the previous block;
• measure: a dashboard.

Before setting up a CRM, check that it can import prospect lists and flag duplicates. It must also include a field for the qualification reason. What each family of tools does, and does not do, is covered in our guide to B2B prospecting tools.

Automated prospecting (scheduled follow-ups, email sequences) saves time on sending. It doesn't tell you whom to contact.

For each prospect, record their status, the outcome of the last conversation, and the date of the next action in the CRM. Every morning, you should be able to see whom to call or follow up with.

Measure and adjust your prospecting plan#

France Num lists the indicators to track: "Meetings booked, quotes sent, sales." Track conversion rates between stages: contacts reached to meetings, meetings to quotes, and quotes to sales.

Every week, record each sales rep's locations reached, meetings booked, quotes sent, and deals signed, and compare those results with the goals. Few conversations? First look at how many calls were made and whether the numbers work. Conversations, but few meetings? Review the reasons prospects gave for declining, then decide what to test.

Set the review cadence before you launch. At each review, change only one element: the target, the list, or the channel. Otherwise, you won't know what caused the results to change. A prospecting schedule keeps day-to-day emergencies from taking over the time set aside for prospecting.

Frequently asked questions#

What is a cold prospect?#

It is a company you have had no contact with. It doesn't know you and hasn't asked for anything. Every row of a new list is a cold prospect: the written reason on each row gives the reason for the first call.

Should you adapt your prospecting plan to the industry?#

Yes, but the five parts stay the same. What changes is who makes decisions at the location, which channel reaches that person, and how to identify them. A restaurant isn't targeted like an accounting firm.

After how many attempts should you give up on a prospect?#

There is no universal benchmark for the number of attempts. Set the rule before launching, the same for the whole team: a number of attempts, over a set period, at different times of day. After a refusal, stop following up. With no answer after the planned attempts, put the record on hold. When you remove a prospect from the plan, record the reason in the list so you can use it in the next campaign. At the review, decide whether the rule should change.

Method#

The headquarters figure comes from the test Scalon published on October 14, 2026 in Finding a company's SIRET number. We looked up 2,420 companies in France found on Google, whose correct SIRET number we knew, in the Annuaire des entreprises (the French government's free business directory). For 18% of those companies, the SIRET number of the location differed from that of the headquarters. The other figures in the article come from the sources below or are illustrative examples.

Sources#

• Prospection commerciale : comment trouver des clients avec le numérique ?, France Num
• Base Sirene des entreprises et de leurs établissements, data.gouv.fr
• Article L223-1 du Code de la consommation, Légifrance
• Find a company's SIRET number by its name, for free, Scalon (October 14, 2026 test)
• La prospection commerciale par courrier électronique, SMS, MMS et automate d'appel, CNIL