How to Find Your Prospect’s Phone Number

One of the keys to effective prospecting is learning how to find direct dial phone numbers to reach your prospects. Finding direct dials is often easier said than done. But, tracking down a direct line phone number is worth the effort, and Funnel Clarity has data to prove it. 

Funnel Clarity conducted a research study on the impact of calling a prospect where the direct dial phone number is known for the prospect versus calling the switchboard and being transferred:

• Time to Dial: 80 seconds (switchboard) vs. 45 seconds (direct dial).
• Dials to Connect: 20 dials/prospect (switchboard) vs. 12 dials/prospect (direct dial).
• 147% more likely to have a conversation with a VP using a direct dial.

Consider the impact of having direct dial numbers on a seller’s efficiency. In one hour of calling purely switchboard numbers, it will take sellers about 24 minutes to reach a prospect. By the end of that hour, they will have only reached around 3 prospects. Using purely direct dial phone numbers, sellers will reach a prospect about every 5 minutes; that’s 12 prospects per hour.

The easiest way to find prospect phone numbers is to partner with a B2B database provider. But this quick-read article will help you find some free hacks to find prospects’ phone numbers and share how you can do it at scale with a partner.

Ways To Find The Prospect’s Phone Number

When we start to find anything, we start with the free options available. So, here are five ways to find the prospect’s phone number.

1. Explore Online Business Listings

General contact information may be found on business directory websites.

There are niche business listing sites that specialize in regional companies, small to medium-sized enterprises, software firms, B2B businesses, international businesses, and other types of businesses.

These websites can help you find email address, direct lines, department numbers, or the main line that will get you closer to speaking with your prospect.

If you need help finding a direct phone number for your prospect, call the firm using the numbers publicly posted in the directory.

2. Find Contact Details on Social Media

Most social media companies gather phone numbers from their users to safeguard their accounts and make it simpler for individuals to communicate online.

Users can select whether to display their personal or business phone numbers on their social media. If you have the whole name of the person whose phone number you want, you may look for their social media pages. If you’re lucky, you can locate their phone number right in front of you.

3. Use Phone Number Finder Tools

When you visit the relevant websites or LinkedIn profiles, chrome extensions can provide you with direct call numbers. You may also employ background check service tools that will ask you for information and then provide you with direct dialing based on that information.

Use a free Chrome extension like RevDriver, an intuitive, free Chrome extension to easily retrieve business contact data as you prospect across LinkedIn profiles and company and account web pages. We offer a free tier, allowing users to add more credits based on their needs. Along with direct-dial phone numbers, RevDriver gives you access to email addresses, company technographic data, and firmographic data.

Download RevDriver

4. Combine Additional Details with Google

There’s a reason why “Google” is a verb. With the correct search phrases, you can locate almost anything using Google or your preferred search engine.

It’s vital to supply as much information as possible when utilizing an online search engine to discover a phone number.

In addition to the name of your prospect, qualify the search by providing the location in which they live, their job title, industry, and any other relevant information that you have access to.

5. Go to Their Company’s Website

Examine your prospect’s website’s Contact Page. Some companies prefer to make direct lines or department numbers available to their employees.

If the best phone number you can locate is a generic corporate number, contact it to speak with the operator or access the company directory. Note the person’s extension for future reference once you have contacted them.

Given the above free options available, except for the phone finder tool, you have to compromise on the time and effort it takes to use the rest of the options. You cannot find the phone numbers quickly and must work each number. 

And this is where SalesIntel has helped B2B businesses to access phone numbers at scale.

Find Prospect’s Phone Number at Scale

Several businesses have realized the inefficiencies of manually prospecting for phone numbers and have begun partnering with B2B database providers to speed up and optimize the process. The apparent restriction here is that your data partner must provide you with both correct and appropriate numbers, i.e. work mobile numbers.

Unfortunately, work mobile numbers are still difficult to locate, especially when targeting B2B organizations. Because direct-work mobile numbers are difficult to get, most B2B data partners limit access to desk phones and business switchboards. If they have work mobile numbers, they charge a premium for them above and above the minimum contract conditions. Even if B2B data partners offer cellphone numbers, the data you purchase is almost always machine-processed. Moreover, because machine-processed data needs more human verification, you cannot rely on its correctness.

But, the best B2B data provider have found a method for efficiently collecting work cellphone numbers. SalesIntel includes an extra degree of human verification for all contact data. SalesIntel provides the most human-verified work mobile number coverage on the market. 

In addition, our research team reverifies all human-verified mobile numbers every 90 days to assure data accuracy. Also, you don’t have to pay for any extra tiers or services to get them because SalesIntel’s whole dataset is available to all clients.

If all you need are a handful of numbers each month, RevDriver or a similar tool is all you need. If you’re a larger team, consider trying SalesIntel to access all the phone numbers your team needs.