Let’s be honest: building a targeted account list is one of the most painfully tedious (but absolutely crucial) parts of outbound sales. If you’re just blasting emails at a giant, unfiltered list, you’re not doing effective outreach—you’re burning time and reputation. This guide is for sales teams, SDRs, or founders who want to use Salesbolt to make prospecting less of a slog and more of a system.
Forget the hype. You don’t need a “growth hack” or AI fairy dust. You need good data, a clear process, and a tool that doesn’t get in your way. Here’s how to actually do it.
Step 1: Get Clear on Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Don’t roll your eyes—skipping this is why most outbound flops. If you try to reach everyone, you’ll reach no one.
Quick sanity check: - What industries are you actually closing deals in? - What company sizes (revenue, employees) do you win with? - Who inside those companies signs the contracts or champions your product?
Pro tip: Pull your last 10 closed/won deals. Look for patterns. That’s your ICP, not what the marketing deck says.
What to skip: Don’t get lost in hypothetical “personas.” Use real data from your own pipeline.
Step 2: Set Up Salesbolt and Connect Your CRM
Before you start building lists, get the plumbing right. Salesbolt works best when it’s syncing with your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.). If you don’t connect it, you’ll be stuck copy-pasting, which is how mistakes happen.
To do: - Log in to Salesbolt and connect your CRM using the built-in integrations. - Set permissions so you’re not accidentally overwriting good data. - If you’re worried about duplicates, set up deduplication rules in your CRM before importing anything.
Honest take: Don’t trust any prospecting tool to “magically” clean your data. Garbage in, garbage out.
Step 3: Build Search Filters That Match Your ICP
This is where most people get lazy. Don’t just filter by “industry: SaaS” and call it a day.
In Salesbolt, you can filter by: - Industry (get specific—“cybersecurity SaaS” beats “tech”) - Company size (employees, revenue—pick one that matters for you) - Geography (if you can’t sell in France, don’t waste time on French companies) - Tech stack (useful if your product integrates with specific tools) - Funding rounds or recent news (if you target fast-growing companies) - Keywords in company descriptions
Pro tip: Layer filters. The more specific, the less junk you’ll get. But don’t overdo it—you want a list, not a unicorn hunt.
What to ignore: Vanity filters like “Fortune 500.” Unless you actually sell to the Fortune 500, this just pads your list with impossible targets.
Step 4: Use Salesbolt’s Chrome Extension for On-the-Fly Prospecting
Here’s where Salesbolt’s browser extension actually saves you time. When you’re on LinkedIn or a company website, you can pull up the extension and add accounts or contacts directly to your list in a couple of clicks.
How to use it: - Visit a LinkedIn company page or Crunchbase profile. - Click the Salesbolt extension. - Review the data it pulls in (double-check names, domains, etc.—it’s not always perfect). - Add to your target list or CRM with one click.
Why this works: It lets you build lists as you’re researching, not in some clunky export/import workflow. You can spot-check quality instead of blindly trusting bulk data.
Watch out for: Data accuracy. No tool has perfect info, so always verify before you hit “add.”
Step 5: Prioritize the Accounts That Actually Fit
You’ve got a raw list—but not every company on it will be a good target. Time to trim the fat.
Ways to qualify accounts: - Check for recent hiring or funding (growth signals) - Look for signs they use competing or complementary tech (via LinkedIn, BuiltWith, etc.) - Review their website/news for relevant initiatives - Exclude accounts you already tried (and bombed) in the last 6 months
Pro tip: It’s better to have a list of 50 solid targets than 500 randoms.
What doesn’t work: Blindly trusting “intent data” or engagement scores. They’re often just noise unless you have a ton of historical data.
Step 6: Save and Organize Your Lists in Salesbolt
Don’t just dump everything in one bucket. Use folders, tags, or naming conventions in Salesbolt to keep things tidy.
Smart ways to organize: - By campaign (e.g., “Q3 SaaS CEOs US”) - By vertical (e.g., “Fintech prospects UK”) - By stage (e.g., “To Contact,” “Contacted,” “No Response”)
Why bother? When it’s time to run a campaign, you want to pull up the right list in seconds—not spend an hour searching.
Pro tip: Make it a habit to update statuses after each campaign. Future-you will thank you.
Step 7: Enrich Your Accounts With Contact Data (Carefully)
Once you’ve got the right companies, get the right people. Salesbolt can pull contact info, but don’t just blast every name it finds.
How to get useful contacts: - Target decision-makers (director-level and up) - Avoid generic emails (info@, hello@) - Double-check emails against LinkedIn or company bios
What to skip: Mass-importing every contact at the company. You’ll just end up annoying a bunch of people who have no say.
Reality check: Data accuracy is always a bit of a gamble. Expect a 10-20% bounce rate on emails, even with the best tools.
Step 8: Export or Sync Lists to Your Outreach Tool
Now you’ve got a tight, targeted list. Push it to your outreach tool (like Outreach, Salesloft, or even a plain spreadsheet) from Salesbolt.
Checklist before exporting: - Remove obvious duplicates - Make sure you have all needed fields (name, role, company, email) - Double-check for weird formatting issues
Don’t: Export 10,000 contacts and start a mail merge. You’ll get blocked by email providers and spam filters in a heartbeat.
Instead: Start small, see what messaging works, and scale up carefully.
Step 9: Track Results and Tweak as You Go
Nobody gets their targeting perfect the first time. After your first campaign, look at what actually worked.
What to track: - Reply rates (not just opens—replies mean interest) - Positive responses and meetings booked - Bounce rates (if too high, your data needs cleaning) - Which industries or roles respond most
Pro tip: Set aside 20 minutes a week to review and refine your lists. The best outbound teams do this consistently.
Ignore: Vanity metrics. A 60% open rate means nothing if nobody replies.
Keep It Simple. Iterate Often.
Building targeted account lists in Salesbolt isn’t rocket science, but it does take discipline. Start with a clear ICP, use filters that actually matter, and don’t trust any tool to do all the thinking for you. The best lists are built, trimmed, and rebuilt over time.
Keep it simple. Focus on quality over quantity. If in doubt, cut your list in half and reach out with a message that shows you’ve actually done your homework. That’s how you get replies—and meetings that matter.