In the dynamic sales environment of 2025, the days of pure cold calling are numbered. What counts is modern prospecting - a strategic approach to not only reach potential customers, but to successfully lead them to purchase through personalized communication and data-driven processes. In the latest episode of "CIXON Boosts Your Business", hosts Dominik Enzler and Stefan Wendt discuss the latest trends and the intelligent use of AI tools in prospecting.
Modern prospecting is the evolution of traditional cold calling. It is not about approaching a large mass of people in an unstructured way, but about establishing personalized and structured processes in order to pick up the target customer at the right time via several "touchpoints" and lead them to a conversation. The overriding motto is: quality before quantity.
Success in prospecting is a predictable numbers game: 100 targeted inquiries can result in around 10 business opportunities that can lead to 1-2 deals. The key lies in targeted research and a deep understanding of your own product, your target group and your ideal customer profile (ICP).
The first contact, the "first touch", is crucial. It begins before the actual contact is made with "sourcing" - the selection of suitable target accounts and people. Dominik Enzler emphasizes that it is important to acquire background knowledge in order to not just send generic emails, but to meet on a different level and create relevance.
Identify target accounts: Use tools like Sales Navigator or Surfe to find target accounts based on industry, position, company size, revenue and even technologies used.
Website analysis: Look at the websites of potential customers to identify opportunities for improvement.
People analysis: Research the target person - their history, role, whether they are new to the company or have run similar businesses before. Stefan Wendt adds the tip of also using changes in people or companies (e.g. job changes, financing) to find the right time to approach them. Dominik Enzler points out that this can also work with former customers who move to new companies.
Personalized approach: Instead of generic messages, use voice messages or videos in LinkedIn messages. Dominik Enzler has found that this interests recipients and can increase the open rate to over 20%. Generic content, even if it is generated by AI, is less appreciated. A personal message after accepting contact on LinkedIn is often more effective than an In-Mail.
AI tools are not a panacea, but they can significantly increase efficiency, especially in preparation and data enrichment.
Data enrichment: automated list generation and filtering of suitable target contacts.
Analyzing the customer profile: AI can analyze existing customer profiles and find similar target customers.
Preparation: Summaries of calls or meetings, creation of tasks.
Buyers intent: Recognizing buying interest based on actions (e.g. website visits, email openings).
Deep research: AI can process huge amounts of publicly available information about people and companies in a matter of seconds, providing deep research that would take days or weeks to do manually.
Fully automated AI outreach: mass outreach by AI has been proven to have no effect and is often perceived as generic or ends up in spam.
Unchecked pre-formulation of emails: Use AI for ideas and templates, but always individualize them manually. The personal element remains crucial.
The experts present three tools that you can use intelligently in modern prospecting:
Function: The Prospecting Agent enriches data, recognizes needs and generates email templates. It can be fully or semi-automated.
Area of application: Good for data-heavy preparation and automated email outreach in certain target groups.
Current status: Currently only works in English. Stefan Wendt compares the current status with a "trainee level", which handles administrative preparation tasks well.
Co-Pilot: Supplements the agent as a personal assistant for summaries and tasks.
Buyers Intent: Can recognize when a customer is ready to buy based on actions.
Function: First Touch analyzes target persons and companies in a matter of seconds, delivers "deep research" from a vast amount of publicly available data.
Area of application: Ideal for individualized contact based on comprehensive information about the person and the company. Can generate e-mail templates or call templates.
Integration: Has a Chrome extension for LinkedIn and integrates well with HubSpot, enabling automation of outreach and sequences. First Touch and Breeze can be used together for improved outreach.
Function: Surfe is a tool that is similar to LinkedIn's Sales Navigator, but is offered at a significantly lower price. It enables a one-click link to HubSpot and enriches contact data directly in the CRM.
Area of application: For searching and filtering target contacts and companies based on various parameters.
Special feature: Seamless integration into LinkedIn, where a separate search field opens directly in the LinkedIn profile and displays all relevant CRM information. Contacts can be synchronized directly into the CRM via bulk action. You can immediately see which contacts are already in your CRM.
HubSpot plays a central role in your modern prospecting and serves as a comprehensive digital command center.
The global start page in HubSpot is a new feature that acts as a digital command center. This home page is specifically tailored to the role of the individual employee or user. For you as a sales employee or account executive, this means that you can see at a glance all your tasks for the day, your appointment calendar, information on email openings that you can respond to and the status of your sequences. It also shows you what the last day has brought, various evaluations and automations, allowing you to make the necessary preparations for the day. This clear display provides new input to help you in your day-to-day work and is a good function for a central starting point in HubSpot.
In the field of omnichannel communication, it is crucial to store all unstructured communication data, such as call notes and transcripts, centrally in HubSpot so that they can be processed there. This also includes telephony, SMS and WhatsApp.
The Aircall integration is considered the frontrunner for more sophisticated telecom and general communication use cases in the HubSpot App Marketplace. Although HubSpot offers a basic telephony set for smaller companies, Aircall is the more professional platform, especially for companies from 10-20 employees upwards that need a very performant platform with deeper insights and a wider range of features. Stefan Wendt confirmed at an Aircall Partner Day that Aircall is still the best integrated solution with HubSpot, with both the product market fit and the integration fit being very good. In addition to telephony, Aircall also supports SMS via the new interface and now even offers WhatsApp communication. This is particularly exciting for B2C and some B2B use cases.
Modern prospecting in 2025 is a structured and personalized further development of cold calling that aims to lead target customers to a purchase across multiple touchpoints. The focus is clearly on quality rather than quantity and an individual approach, often via platforms such as LinkedIn, supported by personal videos or voice messages. AI tools such as Breeze, First Touch and Surfe play a central role in increasing efficiency by significantly simplifying and accelerating data enrichment, target customer profile (ICP) analysis and the preparation of personalized content. Although these tools offer a great starting advantage and make everyday work more efficient, fully automated AI outreach is not yet recommended, as the human factor and individual persuasion are still indispensable for success in the "people's business".
Do you have any questions about modern prospecting or would you like to see a demo of the tools presented? Then make an individual appointment.
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