marketingskills/skills/prospecting/references/local-prospecting.md

Local SMB Prospecting Reference

For when the user sells to local small businesses — shops, gyms, restaurants, salons, clinics, professional services, contractors, real estate, fitness studios, dental practices.

Adapted from and generalized beyond the local-client-prospector pattern (browser-assisted discovery + website status classification + proximity scoring).

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ICP Signals That Matter (Local SMB branch)

Operational signals

• Active business — Google Business Profile updated, recent reviews, recent hours updates
• Recent activity — open right now, regular hours posted, recent photos uploaded by owner
• Customer engagement — owner responding to reviews, posts on social, active calendar (for service businesses)

Online presence signals (the core SMB qualification axis)

The reference local-client-prospector skill uses website status as the primary qualification — port this directly. Four classifications:

Status	Definition	Typical outcome
No site found	No credible standalone website after cross-checked search	Hot prospect for web/marketing service
Social only	Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Linktree, booking portal, marketplace page only — no standalone site	Hot prospect for web/marketing service
Weak site	Standalone site exists but outdated, broken, very thin, non-mobile-friendly, or missing clear contact/conversion flow	Warm prospect for refresh / rebuild service
Has site	Credible, modern standalone site exists	Low prospect unless other signals apply (e.g., poor SEO, weak conversion design)

Proximity signals

• Distance from the user's location or service area
• Density — clusters of similar businesses in one area = neighborhood targeting opportunity
• Travel time — useful when in-person discovery, install, or service delivery is required

Decay signals

• Closed permanently (Google Maps banner)
• Reviews paused or business listing reported as closed
• Last activity (review, post) >12 months ago

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Discovery Sources (Local SMB branch)

Primary

• Google Maps (browser, manual) — search "category near [location]" and walk the visible results. Cross-check details. Don't bulk-extract.
• Yelp — secondary verification; complementary categories
• Bing Local / Apple Maps — different coverage on smaller businesses
• Facebook Pages search — many SMBs are Facebook-only

Cross-verification

• Business's own website (if any)
• Industry directories (e.g., Healthgrades for medical, OpenTable for restaurants, Avvo for legal)
• Local Chamber of Commerce listings
• State business registries for incorporation status
• Search results for "[business name] [city]" to discover non-Maps presence

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Browser Research Workflow

1. Open a browser and search Google Maps for the category near base_location
2. Build a candidate list from visible local results, search results, and public directories
3. For each candidate, inspect public sources to fill required fields
4. Search the exact business name plus city/town to check whether a standalone website exists
5. Classify website status per the table above
6. Mark confidence: High (2+ sources), Medium (1 source + consistent evidence), Low (incomplete/ambiguous)

When the user explicitly asks for subagents AND subagents are available, split candidates into non-overlapping batches and ask each subagent to verify only website/social/contact status. Don't use subagents for the primary search if it slows progress.

Optional: programmatic verification with Firecrawl or Browserbase

Once you have a candidate's website URL (found via manual Maps/Yelp discovery), you can speed up website-status classification by hitting the URL programmatically:

• Firecrawl for simple "is this site live, modern, mobile-friendly, conversion-flow-equipped" reads — returns clean markdown you can inspect
• Browserbase when the candidate site requires JS rendering, has a cookie consent dialog, or you need session state

Strict line: use these on the individual business's URL. Don't point them at Google Maps, Yelp, or any platform whose ToS prohibits bulk extraction — discovery stays manual.

See data-sources.md for setup details.

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Qualification Checklist (Local SMB branch)

• Business is active (recent reviews or activity in last 6 months)
• Category matches user's service offering
• Distance / proximity within target radius
• Website status classified
• Phone or contact channel verified
• At least one cross-source confirms business operates at the listed address
• Not a duplicate / chain location / out-of-scope category
• Not closed permanently

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Lead Scoring (Local SMB)

Use this simple rubric (matches local-client-prospector pattern):

Score	Criteria
Hot	No site found OR social-only + phone present + active business + within target radius
Warm	Weak site, poor online presentation, or marketplace/booking-page only
Cold	Good website already present OR low confidence
Skip	Closed, duplicate, outside radius, irrelevant category, or not a business prospect

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Output Columns (Local SMB branch)

Chat table (≤15 rows):

| Score | Business | Category | Area | Distance | Website status | Website/Social | Phone | Why it's a prospect | Confidence |

CSV:

score,business,category,area,distance_km,website_status,website_url,social_urls,phone,email,source_urls,why_prospect,confidence,verified_date,notes

Rules:

• Keep "Why it's a prospect" short and actionable
• Use Not found instead of leaving blank fields
• Include source links sparingly, not all of them
• After the table, add Best first outreach targets with the top 3 leads and one practical reason each
• If confidence is low, state exactly what remains uncertain

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Top Outreach Targets Selection (Local SMB)

Prioritize for the top 3 hot leads:

1. No site / social only + phone present = clearest service opportunity
2. High review count = active, established business with real customers
3. Owner-responded reviews = engaged owner = more likely to evaluate a vendor
4. Industry alignment with your service specialty beats generic category match

Each top target rationale should be one sentence naming the gap and the signal: "No standalone website (cross-checked); 80+ Google reviews with owner replies; 2 km from target area."

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Compliance Notes (Local SMB-specific)

The local branch is the most scraping-sensitive of the three motions. Specifically:

• Google Maps Terms of Service prohibit bulk extraction. Treat browser visits as research, not as data acquisition.
• Don't store full Google Maps Place IDs in your CRM — the ToS limits storage of Maps data.
• Public business contact channels only: published phone, contact form, info@ email. Don't reach individual employees through their personal channels.
• Owner/operator name when published on the business's own site is OK to use. If you only got it from LinkedIn, mark the source.

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Common Mistakes (Local SMB)

1. Bulk-scraping Google Maps — fastest way to violate ToS and lose the research channel.
2. Treating Google Maps data as truth — listings go stale. Cross-check hours, status, and reviews.
3. Skipping the website status cross-check — finding "no site" on Maps doesn't mean no site exists; do an exact-name web search before classifying.
4. Targeting only the largest businesses — they're already covered by other providers. The 2–5 employee SMBs are the under-served opportunity.
5. Generic outreach to all hot leads — local SMBs respond better to outreach that names their specific gap ("I noticed your menu isn't visible on mobile") than generic pitches.
6. Ignoring chains and franchises as Skip — sometimes the franchisee is the buyer and they have local marketing authority. Verify before skipping.