How to Build a Lead List That Drives Real Sales Results (2025)

Most sales teams don’t have a lead generation problem…

They actually have a lead list problem.

You can have the best LinkedIn outreach message, the smoothest pitch, and the fastest sales funnel… but if your list is filled with the wrong people, none of it matters.

A high-quality lead list is the foundation of successful outreach campaigns. And too many teams still rely on outdated, bloated, or misaligned lists that waste time and money.

In this article, we’ll break down what makes a great lead list, how to build one that actually converts, and the biggest mistakes to avoid.

(And if you would like a more tailored approach, hop on a free 15-minute strategy session with the CEO of SalesBread, Jack Reamer.

SalesBread is known for building ultra-refined prospecting lists that get our clients 1 lead per day.

Here’s a case study that shows how we built a complex list that landed our client a deal with Smart Communications.)

Step by Step Strategy on how to build a qualified lead list

Step 1: Analyze your current buying customers

Take a look at WHO has purchased from you within the last 6 months. What do all your current paying customers have in common?

By looking for patterns and common characteristics, it’s going to be easier to build look-alike lists of prospects.

Say you’re targeting the healthcare industry because you sell practice management software.

Instead of going after every healthcare provider under the sun, you need to dig deeper and get specific.

Start by asking:

• What type of healthcare providers have already bought from us?

• Are they dental clinics, physiotherapy centers, urgent care practices, or specialist outpatient clinics?

• How large are these practices?

• Are you selling to multi-location clinics with dozens of staff, or solo practitioners running a small team?

• What kind of services do they offer?

• Are they focused on preventative care, rehabilitation, telehealth, or chronic condition management?

• Where are they based?

• Are your clients mostly in urban areas, rural regions, or a specific country or state?

• Who is making the purchase decision?

• Are you usually selling to an office manager, a clinical director, or someone in operations or finance?

Once you begin spotting these patterns in your current client base, you’ll be able to build look-alike lead lists.

This means that you will reach out to people and organizations that already resemble your best customers, not random healthcare contacts pulled from a generic database.

At SalesBread, we treat this process like science.

It typically takes a full week to craft a highly-targeted, 90%+ accurate lead list.

And we don’t stop at surface-level filters.

We go deep using over 34 data points, including:

• People-based filters: Job titles, team sizes, and department structures

• Financial filters: Annual revenue, insurance billing volume, or funding if it’s a VC-backed clinic network

• Timeline insights: Are they a newly opened practice or a well-established provider?

• Intent data: Are they actively searching for workflow solutions or practice management tools?

• Hiring trends: Are they expanding their administrative or billing teams?

• Social signals: Do they actively promote digital tools on platforms like LinkedIn or even industry forums?

The more context you layer into your lead list, the more laser-focused your outreach becomes, and the more likely you are to connect with decision-makers who are ready to talk.

Step 2: Consider events and attributes- Use Signals + Stats to Build Smarter Lead Lists

When you’re building a B2B lead list, there are two kinds of data you should be using to find qualified prospects:

• Events: These are things that a company does, for example, something that a company has gone through that you can track.

• Attributes: There are things that a company is, for example, looking for specific characteristics in a company.

Most people only look at traits, like company size or job title. But if you want to find leads who are more likely to convert, you need to track both.

Events = Real-Time Buying Clues

Think of signals as events that hint a company might need what you offer soon. These aren’t guesses, they’re clues.

Some common buying events/signals include:

• The company just launched a new product

• They’re expanding to a new market

• A key executive just left or was hired

• They’ve recently raised funding

• They’re hiring for roles related to your offer (e.g., an HR tech company noticing a spike in HR job posts)

These are all live indicators that the business is in motion and that motion often triggers new needs, pain points, or budget shifts.

Attributes = Static Firmographics

Attributes are the steady, structural details about a company, the things that help you match your ideal customer profile (ICP).

Useful traits to filter by:

• Company size (e.g., 50–200 employees)

• Revenue (e.g.,$5M–$25M annually)

• Location or region

• Technologies in use (e.g., Salesforce, WordPress, HubSpot)

• Online presence (e.g., website traffic, podcast subscribers, ad spend)

These attributes help you zero in on the right type of companies.

Where to find events and attributes

It’s important to think outside the box and be creative.

Don’t only use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to build lists, but look at third-party data providers.

We have even used Yelp to build lists for our clients.

At SalesBread we actually use 34 different filters to build targeted lists for our clients.

Step 3: Find the Right People at the Companies You Want to Target

Once you’ve got a list of companies you’d love to work with, the next step is figuring out who to contact.

So, how do you actually find those people?

You’ve got a couple of options:

You can use tools like Hunter.io to find email addresses, or you can try web scraping to pull data from websites automatically.

What’s Web Scraping?

Think of web scraping as a way to grab information from websites, like names, emails, or company details, without having to do it all manually.

And don’t worry, you don’t need to be super techy to use it.

There are many tools that can do this for you.

Web scraping can help you to collect:

• Phone numbers

• Company names

• Specific demographics

• Email addresses for email marketing

You could either hire a V.A to do this manually, but this can be expensive; This is why we suggest using web scraping tools instead.

There are tons of Chrome extensions and apps to use, but after trying a few, we find these two tools to be the best:

Data Miner

If you are new to list building, try using the most basic version of Data Miner.

This allows you to scrape 500 pages per month for only $19.99

PhantomBuster

PhantomBuster allows you to find specific data, from email addresses to contact information. You can even scrape social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. 

PhantomBuster has a free trial so that you can test it out, but their most basic package is $56 per month, paid annually.

Step 4: Refine your list even further

Lastly, you need to refine your list further.

Once you have the contact information of the individuals you would like to reach out to, you can feed that list into LinkedIn Sales Navigator and filter it by your second-degree network and by recently posted.

When you do this, you’re making sure that you’re reaching out to prospects who actually use LinkedIn, and stats show that people who are in your second-degree network are more likely to accept your connection request.

So your list might initially have 2000 accounts to reach out to, but once this entire process has been completed, you should have a couple of hundred absolutely ideal prospects to reach out to. Most of them will agree to a booked sales call.

And this is why, since 2019, SalesBread clients have averaged a 19.98% reply rate with our ultra-personalized LinkedIn lead generation services.

And… 48.14% of those replies were either meeting requests or qualified sales inquiries on their product or service.

Lead List Case Study: How SalesBread Helped Purple.ai Generate 294 Qualified Leads

Please read the case study for an in-depth look at how we built lead lists for Purple.

Challenge:

Purple.ai, which was known for winning deals with major venues like McDonald’s and the American Airlines Arena, wanted to scale partnerships with IT firms that specialize in guest WiFi services for large venues.

They struggled to find a lead generation agency that could build a highly targeted list based on very specific criteria.

Why Purple Chose SalesBread

Purple needed:

1. IT companies offering guest WiFi, analytics, or captive portal services.

2. Partners who serve large venues (e.g., hospitals, stadiums, campuses).

SalesBread stood out due to its custom, research-driven list-building process and offered a risk-free paid consult to prove its strategy.

SalesBread’s 3-Step List Building Process

Step 1: Build a Broad List

• Started with 20,000 potential IT and MSP firms in the U.S.

• Filtered by employee size (100–1,000) and job titles (CXO, partner, director, etc.).

• Tools used: LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, Clutch, and Crunchbase.

Step 2: Refine Using Web Scraping + Industry Fit

• Scraped websites for 29 target industries (e.g., hotels, venues, campuses).

• Verified if companies served these sectors and offered relevant services (guest WiFi, analytics).

• Only kept companies that matched both industry and service criteria.

Step 3: Find the Right Decision-Makers

• Used LinkedIn Sales Navigator to locate roles within each company.

• Applied filters: 2nd-degree connections and recent activity for higher connection rates.

Results

• Generated 294 qualified leads.

• Achieved a 41% average reply rate.

• Helped Purple close deals, including one with Smart Communications.

• The partnership lasted a year, transitioning from a “done-for-you” to a “done-with-you” model as Purple adopted the strategy in-house.

If you would like help with your lead list strategy, hop on a free 15-minute consultation.

Why Refined Lead Lists Are Important for B2B Lead Generation

In B2B sales, you’re not just selling a product, you’re building a relationship and earning trust. That’s why having a high-quality lead list is one of the most valuable assets any business can have.

Remember, B2B Sales have longer sales cycles and normally involve many decision makers, higher price points, and more risk.

It’s not like buying something simple, like a pair of shoes, or a low-priced SaaS tool for $50 a month.

Because of this, you need to start your outreach on the right foot, and you can do this by targeting the right people at the right companies.

A great lead list helps you avoid wasting time chasing unqualified leads who were never going to convert in the first place.

Quality lead lists are also way more important than quantity.

At SalesBread, we would rather reach out to 100 highly sales-qualified leads who will convert than 2000 leads and only have 5 prospects give you a thumbs up.

And yes, it might be tempting to think that more leads equals more results, but that’s not true in B2B. A smaller, well-targeted list will always outperform a large, generic one.

Here’s why:

• You can personalize messaging based on specific roles, industries, or pain points

• Relevance increases reply rates

• Sales reps can focus their time on leads who are more likely to say yes

Common Problems with Poor Lead Lists

When your list isn’t built strategically, you run into major problems that kill performance:

Ultimately, a poor list doesn’t just hurt your open and reply rates… It burns out your sales team and damages your brand reputation.

You don’t want this to happen.

The Biggest Mistakes Companies Make With Lead List Building

Building a lead list isn’t just about collecting names and emails, as you can see from the above strategy.

And yet, many companies make the same mistakes that tank their outbound campaigns before they even begin.

Here are the most common list-building mistakes to avoid:

Focusing on Quantity Over Quality

Many sales teams assume that a bigger list equals better results. But more leads doesn’t mean more revenue if they aren’t a good fit.

An untargeted list only wastes your SDRs’ time, and you could end up with a bad brand reputation.

A lean, high-quality list with laser-targeted prospects will always outperform a massive, generic one.

Buying Leads Instead of Building Them

Buying leads might seem like a quick fix, and maybe even waaaaay cheaper than hiring an agency to help you, but it’s one of the worst things you can do for your outbound strategy.

Purchased lists often contain outdated, irrelevant, or non-consenting contacts.

You risk:

• High bounce rates

• Low reply rates

• Damaging your domain’s reputation

• Violating privacy laws like GDPR or CAN-SPAM

Instead of buying leads, focus on building a custom lead list based on real intent signals and verified data.

The extra effort pays off in conversions.

Not using a human for manual verification

Automation is helpful, but it doesn’t replace human review.

Without manual verification, you’ll end up with bad data: wrong job titles, outdated companies, or duplicate records.

Always cross-check company websites, roles, and LinkedIn profiles before you hit send.

Ignoring Buying Signals

A common list-building mistake is ignoring event-based triggers.

Just because a company fits your firmographic criteria doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy.

Smart list builders track things like:

• Recent funding rounds

• Leadership changes

• Negative reviews

• Recent hires

These signals reveal timing, a critical element for improving your cold outreach.

Not using lead scoring

If you’re not going after HOT leads first, you run the risk of your campaign falling flat. Score your leads from hot to cold.

Reach out to hot leads first and add cooler leads to nurture campaigns.

This will also ensure that when cooler leads are ready to buy, they will remember you because you’re keeping in contact.

Whether it’s through a monthly email or interesting articles that you can share with them through LinkedIn.

FAQs about lead lists

What Is a Lead List?

Simply put, a lead list is a list of potential customers or businesses that you would like to reach out to.

This list should include important details like:

• Names

• Job titles

• Company names

• Email addresses

• Phone numbers,

• LinkedIn profiles

• Their replies – Whether positive or not…

And other information that helps you reach out to them effectively.

These are people who would be a good match for your product or service.

Why Lead Lists Matter in Sales and Marketing

The problem with many lead generation agencies or companies is that they use the spray-and-pray method.

They reach out to thousands of prospects, thinking that the more prospects they have on their list, the better.

But stats show that sales teams who use quality lead data are 33% more likely to exceed their targets.

If your list is filled with unqualified or irrelevant contacts, you’ll waste time, energy, and money chasing leads that never convert.

But if your list is well-targeted and properly aligned with your ideal customer profile (ICP), your chances of booking calls, starting conversations, and closing deals go way up.

In marketing, lead lists also help you personalize messages, segment campaigns, and target people based on behavior, interests, or buying signals.

You want to reach out to people who:

• Need what you’re selling

• Who have the budget

• And who have the buying power

If you obsess about building a robust lead list, you’re going to have a ton more qualified leads that convert. (Which means more money in the bank and less time wasted.)

What is the difference between a cold lead list and a warm lead list

A cold lead list includes people who haven’t interacted with your brand yet. You’re reaching out to them for the first time, usually via cold email or LinkedIn.

A warm lead list, on the other hand, is a list of contacts who have shown some interest in your company.

Maybe they visited your website, downloaded a resource, signed up for a webinar, or even commented on your LinkedIn posts.

But it can also mean a list of people who you know will be interested in your product/services.

Warm leads are more likely to respond or engage because they already know you exist or match your current buying customers.

What are some of the best list-building tools to use for the freshest data?

Here are some of our favorite tools to use for list building:

• Apollo.io

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator

• Crunchbase

• ZoomInfo

Need someone to help with your lead list?

Reach out to us for a risk-free consult below.

Our clients know that they can expect 1 lead per day with our ultra-refined list building and LinkedIn lead generation services.