If you’re tired of slogging through endless spreadsheets and LinkedIn tabs to find your next customer, you’re not alone. Manual prospect research is a slog. Sales teams, founders, recruiters—anyone who needs a steady stream of new contacts—knows the pain. The good news: tools like Flashintel can automate a big chunk of this grunt work, especially if you know how to use advanced filters. This guide shows you exactly how to do it—step by step, minus the marketing fluff.
Why Automate Prospect Research Anyway?
Let’s be honest: most people don’t love prospecting. It’s repetitive, error-prone, and kills your motivation. Automation tools promise to fix this, but only if you set them up right. The real trick isn’t just dumping a bunch of keywords into a tool—it’s using filters well enough that the results are actually useful (not just bigger lists of randoms).
What you get by automating with advanced filters: - More time for actually talking to people, not just searching for them. - Less human error—no more missing obvious leads. - Repeatable, consistent lists you can hand off or build on.
But don’t expect miracles. Garbage in, garbage out still applies. So let’s get practical.
Step 1: Define Your Ideal Prospect—For Real
Before you touch any software, get clear on who you’re actually looking for. Otherwise, you’ll just automate chaos.
Don’t skip this. Seriously. Even the best filters won’t save you if you’re vague. Ask yourself: - What industry or vertical are you after? - Is company size important? (Employee count, revenue, funding stage, etc.) - Where are they located? (Country, region, remote, etc.) - What job titles or roles matter? (Don’t just say “decision-maker”) - Are there tech stacks or tools they must use?
Write this down. Not in your head, not “we’ll figure it out.” You’ll use this cheat sheet for every filter you set.
Pro tip: If you’re not sure, look at your last 10 best customers. What do they have in common?
Step 2: Get Set Up on Flashintel
Log into Flashintel or create an account. (It’s SaaS, so nothing to install.) The dashboard can feel overwhelming at first, but you’ll mostly live in the “Prospect” or “Leads” sections.
What’s worth setting up: - Your company’s info (so you don’t end up targeting competitors) - Integrations with your CRM or outreach tools, if you want to sync leads directly - Save your search filters for later—you don’t want to redo this every time
Ignore for now: Fancy dashboards, AI scoring, or “insights” that don’t tie directly to your outreach. Focus on building a reliable filter first.
Step 3: Use Advanced Filters (Not Just Basic Search)
Here’s where most people go wrong. They type “VP Marketing” and call it a day. You can do way better.
Flashintel’s advanced filters let you mix and match criteria, so your lists are laser-targeted. Here’s how to use them well:
1. Company Filters
- Industry: Start broad, then narrow down. “Software” is huge; “Healthcare SaaS” is better.
- Size: Filter by employee count or revenue. If you want startups, set upper limits.
- Location: Use regions, countries, or cities. If you sell only in the US, filter out the rest.
- Funding: Target recently funded companies if you sell growth tools.
- Technologies Used: Filter for companies using Salesforce, AWS, or specific software.
Skip: Over-filtering. If you make your segment too narrow, you’ll run out of prospects fast.
2. People Filters
- Job Title: Use variations. “VP Marketing,” “Head of Marketing,” “Marketing Director”—all different people in different orgs.
- Seniority: Combine with title to avoid interns and entry-level folks.
- Department: Sometimes it’s easier to filter by “Marketing” department and sort through the titles manually.
Pro tip: Don’t get cute with Boolean logic unless you really know what you’re doing. “AND” and “OR” will make your head spin if you overdo it.
3. Trigger Events & Intent Data
Some advanced filters let you target companies showing “buying intent” (like recent tech stack changes or job postings). Be skeptical here: intent data is often noisy or outdated. Use it as a bonus, not a foundation.
Step 4: Build, Save, and Test Your Search
Once you’ve set your filters, review the list. Don’t just trust the numbers—spot-check the results.
- Are these actually your ICP? If you see random companies, tweak your filters.
- Too many results? Add one more filter (like company size).
- Too few? Loosen up on something less critical.
Save your search! Flashintel lets you save filter sets, so you don’t have to rebuild every time.
Pro tip: Create a few versions—one strict, one broad—so you can adjust volume based on your needs.
Step 5: Automate Exports & Integrations
Now that you have a solid list, get it where it needs to go. Flashintel supports: - Export to CSV (good for manual review or upload elsewhere) - Direct sync to major CRMs (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.) - Some outreach tools (like Apollo or Outreach)
What matters: - Check for duplicates, especially if connecting to your CRM. - Make sure fields map correctly (emails, names, company info). - If you’re getting a lot of “bad” data (like bounced emails), dial back your expectations. No tool has perfect info.
Skip: Auto-adding every contact to a sequence. Personalize first, at least on your first few runs.
Step 6: Schedule Regular Prospecting (Don’t “Set and Forget”)
Automating research doesn’t mean you never look at it again. Set up a recurring task (weekly or monthly) to review and update your filters.
- Markets change. People change jobs. Filters that worked last quarter might suck now.
- Use saved searches to run fresh lists regularly.
- Review and prune bad leads—automation multiplies mistakes if you don’t spot them early.
Pro tip: Share your best filter sets with your team, but don’t assume what works for you works for everyone.
What Flashintel Does Well (and Where It Falls Short)
What works: - The advanced filters are genuinely flexible. You can slice and dice your target market in ways most tools can’t. - Data coverage, especially on mid-market and enterprise companies, is solid. - Integrations with CRMs and outreach tools are straightforward.
What doesn’t: - Quality of contact data is hit or miss, especially for smaller businesses or international leads. - “Intent” signals are sometimes laggy or too broad to be useful. - Over-filtering leads to very small lists—great for focus, bad if you need volume.
Ignore: - Any promise of “perfect data.” No prospecting tool has it. - Overly complex scoring models. Your gut + a solid filter is usually enough.
Staying Sane: Keep It Simple and Iterate
If you overcomplicate this, you’ll just trade manual searching for manual troubleshooting. Start with a clear ICP, build a simple filter, check your results, and improve over time. Don’t expect automation to fix a bad process—it just makes the mistakes faster.
The real win? Once your filter is dialed in, you’ll spend way more time talking to real prospects and way less time hunting them down. That’s what automation is supposed to do. Now get your hands dirty and see what works for your market. If it’s not perfect, tweak it—don’t start over. Keep it simple, and you’ll actually use it.