AI Prospecting Isn’t Magic, without work.

AI doesn’t write great prospecting emails.

You do.

t’s a tool. Like a wrench.

If you hand it to a plumber, they fix the leak.

If you hand it to someone who watched a plumbing tutorial once, they flood the basement.

That’s what’s happening in SaaS right now.

Teams are tossing half-baked prompts at ChatGPT and expecting relevance to fall out the other end.

What they get sounds like it was written by a polite intern who’s never sold a thing.

Here’s how to make it useful:

1. Constrain the Prompt Like You’d Scope a Project

Asking AI to “write a cold email to a VP of Sales” is like telling a contractor to “build something useful.”

You’ll get a shed when you needed a kitchen.

Instead:

“Write a 100-word email to a VP of Sales at a 200-person PLG SaaS company. Assume they’re dealing with post-trial conversion drop-off and messy Salesforce data. Mention attribution, sales handoff, and poor SDR visibility.”

The more specific the scenario, the sharper the copy.

2. Give It Examples Like You’d Train a New Rep

Don’t expect magic from a blank slate.

Feed it your real emails—the ones that got replies.

Then say:

“Reframe this for a RevOps lead. Keep the tone. Adjust the CTA. Swap pain points based on ownership.”

Think of it like training muscle memory. Give it winning tape.

3. Use Real Context, Not Job Titles

The best emails sound like you’ve been in the room.

Not:

“As Head of Growth, you’re probably looking for scalable acquisition channels…”

Try:

“You likely rolled out 3 new tools this quarter. One of them wrecked your attribution, and now finance is asking why paid search spend looks like a black hole.”

You’re not pitching software. You’re naming their Tuesday afternoon.

4. Pull Prospect Backgrounds to Feed the Prompt

This is where most people stop. Don’t.

Take 3 minutes and upload their LinkedIn profile into ChatGPT (paste text or use web browsing if enabled). Then ask:

“What stands out about this prospect’s career path? Any triggers for a RevOps problem?”

You’ll get gold like:

• They’ve moved from SMB to mid-market roles (scaling pain)

• They recently joined (90-day window for quick wins)

• They’ve posted about tech debt or pipeline gaps

Then build prompts like:

“Write a 90-word email to a newly hired VP of Sales who came from an enterprise background but is now at a 120-person Series B SaaS startup. Assume they’re struggling with forecasting accuracy because their CRM wasn’t built for their current stage. Offer a teardown of their pipeline structure.”

That’s how the better AI prospecting tools work under the hood.

They pull the bio, look for patterns, and structure a scenario that feels one inch from the truth.

Final thought:

If you wouldn’t send it manually, don’t automate it.

If you wouldn’t say it to their face, don’t send it to their inbox.

AI can help you move faster. But it still needs your judgment, your taste, and your sales instincts.

Start there. Then plug in the machine.