prospectA prospect sheet needs enough information to identify a business, explain its fit, and prepare the next action. Requiring every possible field from the start makes the list harder to maintain and encourages guesses.
Start with identity, location, contact route, source, fit reason, status, and next action. Add stable IDs and checked dates for maintenance, plus owners and due dates when records become active work.
The minimum fields change as a candidate moves from discovery to review and active work.
Separate identity from sales work
Identity fields tell you which business the row represents. Research fields explain what you know. Workflow fields tell you what should happen next.
Keep these groups distinct even when they sit on the same sheet. A phone number is a captured fact; Ready is your team's decision about the record. Mixing them makes it harder to correct details without losing sales context.
| Group | Starting fields | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | Record ID, company name, website, location | Recognize the right business |
| Contact | Phone, email or form URL, contact type | Identify an available route |
| Evidence | Source URL, checked date, fit reason | Explain and revisit the research |
| Workflow | Status, owner, next action, due date | Keep work moving |
This is a recommended schema, not a promise that a capture tool supplies every column automatically.
Make one row mean one thing
Decide whether each row is a company, branch, or contact. A list of branch locations should include Parent company ID and Location ID. A contact list needs a clear relationship to the relevant company or branch.
Avoid placing three people or several branches in one cell. That seems compact initially, but it makes filtering and ownership difficult. If you regularly need several contacts per business, use a separate contacts sheet linked by the business ID.
A stable ID can be a simple manually assigned value such as P001. Keep it unchanged when the company name is corrected. The ID ties later notes and activities to the same business.
Make fields required at the right stage
Do not require the same information from a new candidate and a ready-to-work prospect.
| Stage | Minimum useful information |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Stable ID, company identity, website or source, relevant location |
| Reviewed | Fit reason, evidence, checked date, disposition |
| Active work | Relevant contact route, owner, specific next action, due date or trigger |
For a solo researcher, Owner may remain your name throughout; for a shared list it becomes an assignment control. Email is optional when another suitable route exists. Parent ID is needed only when a confirmed parent relationship matters.
This staged approach avoids filling a wide table with guesses simply to satisfy a completion rule.
Include a fit reason that someone else can understand
Useful fit reasons are based on observations. Lists commercial equipment repair is stronger than Good lead. The first tells the next person what was seen and can be checked; the second leaves them guessing.
Put the evidence URL beside the fit reason when it differs from the homepage. A service page can support the observation directly. If the qualification depends on a fact you cannot establish, record the question instead of filling the gap with an assumption.
Keep estimated revenue, employee count, or purchasing need out of the basic sheet unless you have a source and a reason to use them. Extra precision is not useful when it is invented.
Use a small set of statuses
A workable starting set is New, Needs research, Ready, In progress, Deferred, and Excluded. Define each in a short legend. Ready should mean that the business meets your research requirements, not merely that its row is complete.
Use a separate suppression or Do not contact field if the list supports outreach. An excluded research candidate and a business that must not be contacted have different meanings.
Require a next action for active records. Check the branch service area is actionable; Follow up is incomplete unless the owner knows what to do and when.
Preserve blank fields honestly
Leave an unavailable email blank and describe the situation in a research note. Do not put guessed addresses, fake phone numbers, or placeholder dates into data fields to make the table look complete.
A checked date means someone reviewed the source on that date. It should not be filled automatically just because a row was copied into a new workbook. Keep capture dates and verification dates separate when both matter.
Add fields as the workflow develops
For territory work, add Region and Assigned rep. For agency research, add Service opportunity and Supporting observation. For multi-location accounts, add Parent ID and Purchasing authority.
Prospect can supply available company details for your starting collection; your qualification and follow-up columns belong in the working process you build around it. Begin with five real records, use the sheet for a session, and remove columns that do not help anyone decide or act.
Related Questions
Do I need a named contact before adding a company?
No. A company can enter a research queue before you identify a person. Keep company qualification separate from contact research, and do not treat a general inbox as evidence that you have found the decision-maker.
Should notes and status go in the same column?
Keep them separate. A defined status can be filtered consistently, while notes explain context. Use another field for the specific next action so the task does not disappear inside a paragraph of research observations.
Use the Excel prospect-list template for a starting layout and the list-management guide for ongoing maintenance.
Published by Stephen Modliszewski, publisher of Prospect — Sales Bookmarks. ProspectClip is the extension’s website. Fictional examples and illustrative calculations are teaching aids, not customer results.