The short answer. Connect Claude to a go-to-market data source, then ask for the job in plain English with a credit budget. We ran six prospecting prompts: companies hiring sales right now, a one-page call brief, buyers complaining about a rival, every sales leader on a busy LinkedIn post, the sales lead at five named accounts, and which people on a list to contact first. All six came back with work you could act on the same day, for 336 credits in total.
How do you use Claude for sales prospecting?
To use Claude for sales prospecting, connect it to live sales data, then ask for the result you want in a normal sentence, with a budget on the end. Claude does the searching, the reading and the throwing-away. You get the shortlist.
We wanted to know how far that goes, so we gave six everyday prospecting jobs to a fresh Claude with no instructions beyond the prompt. It had one data source: Layrcake, which plugs into Claude as a connector through MCP (Model Context Protocol) and covers people and company search, work emails and verification, company research, and public LinkedIn, X and Reddit activity. Connecting it takes about two minutes, and the API reference lists every tool these prompts used.
Then we watched what it did. Some of it was what a good SDR does on a good day. Some of it was better, because it never gets bored of reading 563 LinkedIn headlines.
- 6 Jobs, one prompt each
- 336 Credits for all six ($3.36)
- 563 Headlines read in one go
- 0 Emails sent behind your back
1. Which companies are buying right now?
A company that's hiring salespeople has just admitted, in public, that it needs more pipeline. That's about as close to a buying signal as job boards get.
Claude
Find UK software companies with 50 to 500 staff that are showing buying signals right now: hiring for sales roles, or raised funding recently. Give me the 5 strongest, with the signal, its date and a one-line reason each is worth contacting this week. Budget: 35 credits.
Claude turned that into one search: UK, software, 50 to 500 staff, open sales roles posted in the last month. Four companies came back, and every one had posted a sales job in the previous two days. It ranked them by how hard they were hiring. The winner had posted 15 jobs in a month and was building a sales development team from scratch. Another was hiring for a region it hadn't sold into before.
Workflow 1 · companies hiring sales: 4 UK software companies building their sales teams this week
4 Companies · ≤ 2 days Since the job post · 15 Jobs in 30 days, top pick · 24 Credits
- 01: Workforce-scheduling software, 60 staff (SDR role · 15 posts in 30 days) · New team
- 02: Identity-verification software, 155 staff (Senior AE · new region) · New territory
- 03: Compliance software, 250 staff (Senior Client AE · 7 open roles) · Scaling
- 04: Contract software, 122 staff (Senior AE) · Hiring
Names and job-post links in the real answer · Charged per company returned
Swap the ask for "find me 5 companies like our best customer" and Claude matches on the same traits instead: country, size, a sales team that's growing. That version cost 30 credits.
2. Walk into a sales call already briefed
Everyone means to research before a call. Then the call before it overruns. This is the version that fits in the two minutes you have.
Claude
I have a call tomorrow with the head of sales at Pleo (pleo.io). Give me a one-page brief: what the company does and how it's doing, anything recent worth mentioning, who I'm likely speaking to and what they've been posting about, and three smart questions to ask. Budget: 35 credits.
The first thing Claude did was price its options. The deluxe one, a full picture of company and person, would have eaten 33 of the 35 credits. It took one look and went for the cheaper route: research the company, find the sales leaders, read what they'd posted.
The brief that came back read like it was written by someone who'd done their homework the night before. Funding to date, and a revenue figure clearly marked as an estimate. Two moves from the last four months, an AI launch and a new accounting partnership, each with a date and a source. The three people who run sales, by region, and a recent post from one of them about hiring. Then three questions that only make sense if you've read all of the above. Our favourite:
One of the three questions
With the June AI-agents launch, how has the buyer conversation shifted from card and expense tooling to the strategic finance story? Does your team sell it differently now?
Total: 11.5 credits.
3. Find buyers who are fed up with a competitor
People don't post when their software works. They post when it doesn't. And now and then, someone posts the whole shopping list.
Claude
We sell a sales engagement platform for B2B teams. Find recent posts on LinkedIn, X or Reddit from people frustrated with the sales engagement tool they use today (Outreach, Salesloft, Apollo or similar). Show me the 5 best, why each is a good lead, and how you'd open a conversation without being pushy. Budget: 20 credits.
Claude searched one rival at a time, and its checks threw out most of what it found: vendor marketing, tips, people being perfectly happy. What survived was a short list of the real thing. Top of it: a Reddit thread from the only salesperson at an 80-person company, openly shopping for a replacement, with their current stack, their budget worries and a wish list all spelled out, and nine comments already underway. Second: a LinkedIn post from someone ranking the tools in your category.
Claude's advice for the Reddit thread was the best line in the whole run: answer the question they asked, and leave the pitch at home.
Why this one is quieter. Public complaints that name a specific tool are rare, so expect a handful of strong leads a month. The ones you find are often mid-decision. The whole run cost 11 credits.
4. Turn one popular LinkedIn post into warm leads
If your buyers follow someone, the people reacting to that someone are your buyers, sitting in one place, and they've all just told you what they find interesting.
Claude
Gong's CEO Amit Bendov posts a lot about sales leadership, and heads of sales follow him. Look at his recent LinkedIn posts (his profile is https://www.linkedin.com/in/amitbendov/), pick the one with the most reactions and comments, and find everyone who engaged with it whose headline says head of sales, VP sales, sales director, CRO or VP revenue. Don't just sample it, I want all of them. Those are my warm leads. Budget: 280 credits.
Claude lined up the CEO's last seven posts and picked the clear winner: 563 people had reacted or commented. It took a quick sample first. That came back with a price for reading everyone (254 credits) and an estimate of three minutes. It set a 260-credit cap and sent the full read to run in the background.
Three minutes later: 563 people read, 26 sales leaders kept. Heads of sales, sales directors, VPs of sales, CROs. Six of them had titles that didn't use the exact words in the prompt (four were Chief Commercial Officers), and a title check kept them anyway, because a CCO is who you'd want. Each of those six is marked, so you can see exactly why it's there.
Workflow 4 · warm leads from one post
563 Engaged with the post → 548 People, after duplicates → 26 Sales leaders kept
- Sales Directors: 7 (1 added by the title check)
- Chief Revenue Officers: 5
- VPs of Sales: 5 (1 added by the title check)
- Chief Commercial and Sales Officers: 4 (4 added by the title check)
- Other revenue leaders: 4
- Heads of Sales: 1
Read in the background in about two and a half minutes, for 232.2 credits. Every person comes back with a profile link and what they did on the post.
Tool calls · the run (about 3 minutes)
-
find_posts· author: the CEO's profile · last 30 days → 7 posts · 4.5 cr -
find_posts· engagers_of: top post · title filter · sample → 563 engaged · quote 254 cr · 4.1 cr -
find_posts· same · read_all · budget 260 → background read -
get_operation· until finished → 563 read · 26 kept · 232.2 cr
Twenty-six warm sales leaders, all with a profile link and a reason to talk to you, for 241 credits. That's the most expensive job in this guide, and probably the best value.
5. Find the right person at each account
You know the accounts. You don't know who to email or whether the address will bounce. Here are five companies, from an expense platform to an AI video startup.
Claude
Who runs sales at each of these companies? I want one person per company with a verified work email: pleo.io, syskit.com, jobadder.com, helpthemove.co.uk, d-id.com. Budget: 40 credits.
Claude found every company's sales leaders in a single search, then picked one per company. Where there was a choice, it said so: one company had a sales director, a head of sales and a regional head, and Claude told us which it chose and why, so we could swap. Five companies, five people from Head of Sales to CRO, five work emails, and all five came back valid. 31 credits.
Workflow 5 · the right person at each account: One sales leader per company, every email verified
5 / 5 Companies covered · 5 / 5 Emails valid · 1 People search · 31 Credits
- [name removed]: Sales Director (expense-management platform) · Valid email
- [name removed]: Head of Sales (Microsoft 365 governance software) · Valid email
- [name removed]: Chief Revenue Officer (recruitment software) · Valid email
- [name removed]: Chief Revenue Officer (home-moving services) · Valid email
- [name removed]: Chief Revenue Officer (AI video platform) · Valid email
Names removed · 3 credits to search · 5 per email found
6. Decide who on your list to contact first
Everyone has a list of names. The trick is knowing who to call this week.
Claude
Here are 6 people on my list. Who's been active on LinkedIn lately, and what about? Rank them by who I should contact first this week, with a suggested first line for each. Budget: 20 credits.
- [Name], [Company], [LinkedIn profile URL]
- [Name], [Company], [LinkedIn profile URL]
- … (one line per person)
Claude checked what all six had been up to on LinkedIn. Every one of them had something. One had posted that morning, thanking their team for a record quarter: the easiest call of the week. Another had posted three times in five days. A third had only reacted to a webinar invite, which Claude rated medium: a small signal, but about exactly what they sell.
It ranked them on how fresh and how relevant each signal was, wrote a first line for each that refers to it, and read past anything personal to find the work post. 18 credits; anyone with nothing recent would have been free.
Workflow 6 · who to contact first: Six people, ranked by what they did on LinkedIn this month
- 01: Posted that morning: a record quarter, new customers (home-moving services) · First
- 02: Reacted to a webinar on their own product area (Microsoft 365 software) · This week
- 03: Three posts in five days on AI in recruitment (recruitment software) · This week
- 04: Posted on AI in business development (print-management software) · This week
- 05: Reacted to someone else's post (design-system software) · Later
- 06: Reacted to someone else's post (AI video platform) · Later
Names removed · Each comes with a first line that refers to it · 18 credits
What makes a prospecting prompt work?
Look back at the six prompts. Each one says four things, and the runs went best when all four were there. Want all six in one place? Download the prompt pack, with the parts to change in [brackets].
The result you want. "The 5 strongest." "A one-page brief." "One person per company." Claude plans backwards from it.
The filters you'd use yourself. Country, size, titles, a competitor's name. Each word becomes a search filter, so vague in means vague out.
What you want next to each result. "With the signal and its date." "Why each is a good lead." "A first line." That's the difference between a list and a to-do.
A budget. Claude checks the cost of every call and stops before it runs out. Searches that find nothing are free, so being ambitious costs little.
What does it cost?
All six jobs together came to 336 credits, about $3.36 at $0.01 per credit (at the prices on the days we ran them, 2–3 October 2026). The full read of 563 people was most of that. The other five cost between 11 and 31 credits each, so somewhere between a coffee and half a coffee.
| What | Price |
|---|---|
| Companies hiring, or like a customer | 11 credits per hiring company, 13 per lookalike |
| Company research | 9 credits |
| People search | 0.25 credits per person (3 minimum) |
| Work email | 5 credits when found, free when not |
| Recent activity for a list | 3 credits per person with activity |
| People who engaged with a post | 0.5 credits per person kept, plus 0.4 per person read with a title filter |
Nothing sends on its own. These prompts research and draft. Creating a campaign is a separate step, and launching it asks a signed-in person to approve before a single email leaves.
FAQ
Can Claude do sales prospecting?
Yes, once it's connected to live data. With a go-to-market data connector, Claude can find companies and people, look up and verify work emails, research a company and read public LinkedIn, X and Reddit activity. In our tests six plain-English prompts each came back with results you could act on the same day.
What is a good Claude prompt for prospecting?
Say the outcome you want, the filters you would use yourself, what you want next to each result, and a credit budget. For example: find UK software companies with 50 to 500 staff hiring for sales roles, give me the 5 strongest with the signal and its date, budget 60 credits.
How much does prospecting with Claude cost?
In our runs, five of the six workflows cost between 11 and 31 credits (11 to 31 cents). Reading everyone who engaged with a 563-person LinkedIn post cost 241 credits. Searches that find nothing are free.
Does Claude send emails to prospects by itself?
No. These prompts only research and draft. Creating a campaign is a separate step, and launching it asks a signed-in person to approve before anything sends.
Download: Prompt pack
Layrcake is go-to-market infrastructure for AI agents: one MCP server and API that lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Codex find leads, verify emails, read buying signals and run approved campaigns. Agents: see https://layrcake.dev/agents.md
Originally published at layrcake.dev.
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