Neglecting The Low Hanging Fruit

In today's sales environment, 94% of outbound never gets a response. Yet while reps focus on generating new opportunities, many are sitting on a goldmine of potential deals—hiding in plain sight within their CRM.

The average sales organization has 42% of their potential revenue sitting dormant in their CRM in the form of past opportunities, stalled deals, and previous engagements that never reached their full potential.

While signal-based outbound prospecting remains the cornerstone of predictable pipeline generation, strategic CRM mining creates the perfect complementary approach—ensuring no opportunity falls through the cracks while maximizing your return on previous investments.

The Complementary Nature of CRM & Trigger Event Prospecting

Trigger event lead sourcing and CRM mining work like two sides of the same coin—each addressing different parts of the opportunity spectrum, and together creating a comprehensive approach to pipeline generation.

How They Work Together

Trigger event lead sourcing excels at identifying new opportunities through external signals like funding rounds, executive changes, strategic job postings, or acquisitions. It's about finding companies experiencing change that creates openings for your solution.

CRM mining, on the other hand, focuses on recovering previous touchpoints—leads that have already shown some level of interest or engagement with your company but haven't converted yet. These prospects already know your brand and have some context about your solution.

When combined, these approaches ensure you're capturing both net-new opportunities and maximizing the value of your previous prospecting investments.

The Data Advantage of Your CRM

Your CRM contains a wealth of information that gives you a head start with these leads:

• Historical context of past interactions and conversations
• Documented objections and pain points from previous engagements
• Timing information about when they might be ready to revisit
• Stakeholder insights about decision-makers and influencers
• Competitive intelligence about their evaluation process

This pre-existing data allows you to craft more relevant, personalized outreach with less upfront research—making CRM mining highly efficient when done systematically.

[[Banner]]

Five Gold Mines Within Your CRM

Not all CRM data is equally valuable.

Some high-potential categories to look for are:

1. Prior Inbound Activity

These leads have already shown interest by engaging with your content or website:

• Website visitors who spent significant time on product pages
• Content downloaders who accessed relevant resources
• Webinar attendees who participated but never took next steps
• Demo requesters who didn't show up or convert to opportunities

These prospects demonstrated intent but fell out of the funnel—making them prime candidates for re-engagement with the right approach and timing.

2. Prior Outbound Activity

These prospects engaged with previous outreach attempts but never advanced to serious opportunities:

• Email responders who exchanged messages but didn't take meetings
• Meeting takers who had initial conversations that stalled
• Active engagers who opened/clicked consistently but never replied
• Interested-but-unqualified leads who weren't ready during previous touches

These prospects showed some level of engagement, suggesting potential interest that proper timing and messaging might convert.

3. Prior Opportunities

These are perhaps your highest-value targets—prospects who entered your sales process but didn't close:

• "Not now" decisions that had clear future timelines
• Budget-constrained opportunities that may now have funding
• Authority-lacking prospects who couldn't get executive buy-in
• Competitive losses where you were a strong contender
• Need-uncertain prospects who weren't fully convinced of value

These prospects have the highest contextual awareness of your solution and often just need the right timing or addressing of specific objections to convert.

4. Prior Customers

Former customers represent another valuable segment for re-engagement:

• Churned accounts who left for specific, addressable reasons
• Limited deployments that never expanded to full potential
• Acquired companies whose parent might be a target
• Champion departures where relationships moved to new organizations
• Competitive switches who selected another solution

These accounts have deep familiarity with your solution and category, making them easier to reengage with the right approach.

5. Target Account List (TAL) Mismanagement

These leads fell through organizational cracks:

• Orphaned accounts from rep transitions or departures
• Reassigned territories where leads were lost in the shuffle
• Inactive accounts that lost ownership due to no activity
• Misrouted leads that went to the wrong sales team

These leads never received proper follow-up, making them essentially untapped opportunities despite being in your system.

Crafting CRM Queries

The key to effective CRM mining is crafting precise queries that surface the highest-potential opportunities.

The Anatomy of High-Converting CRM Searches

Every high-quality CRM search combines three key elements:

• Engagement indicators that show previous interest or interactions
• Timing factors that suggest readiness for reengagement
• ICP alignment that confirms they match your ideal customer profile

The most powerful searches layer these elements to find prospects who showed interest, match your target profile, and are likely ready to reengage.

Setting Up Your Search Parameters

When building your searches, include these critical parameters:

• Date ranges to focus on relevant timeframes (e.g., engagement 6-12 months ago)
• Activity metrics like email opens, meeting attendance, or content downloads
• Lead status to filter by specific pipeline stages
• Last touch date to identify neglected opportunities
• Reason codes like "lost - budget" or "lost - timing" to target specific objections
• Industry and company size to maintain ICP alignment

Most CRMs allow you to combine these parameters using AND/OR logic to create highly targeted searches.

Real-World CRM Mining Examples

Let's look at five specific, high-converting CRM queries you can implement today:

Example 1: Inbound Resurrection Query

Search Parameters:

• Prior inbound activity within past 6 months
• Non-responsive to SDR follow-up
• Fewer than 5 total touches
• Not worked in 3+ months
• Matches core ICP criteria

Why It Works: These leads showed genuine interest through an inbound action but didn't receive adequate follow-up or fell through the cracks. The recency of their engagement means your company is still likely top-of-mind, and their lack of response may have been due to timing rather than disinterest.

Example 2: Executive Engagement Revival

Search Parameters:

• Prior meeting with a C-suite/VP contact
• PE/VC backed company
• Last touched 4+ months ago
• No current open opportunity
• In high-conversion industries

Why It Works: These high-level decision-makers already dedicated time to learn about your solution but didn't move forward. Their PE/VC backing suggests growth imperatives and available capital, while the 4+ month gap creates a natural reason to reconnect.

Example 3: Timing Turnaround Opportunity

Search Parameters:

• Lost opportunities disqualified due to "timing" in past 9-12 months
• Original opportunity value >$50K
• Untouched for 9+ months
• In high-conversion industries

Why It Works: These prospects had genuine interest and need but weren't ready when previously engaged. The 9-12 month window is often when annual planning cycles reset or when previously mentioned future initiatives become current priorities.

Example 4: Competitor Comparison Re-opening

Search Parameters:

• Prior customers with contract value >$60K
• Lost 2-3 years ago to specific competitor(s)
• Untouched for 12+ months
• In industries with high win-back rates

Why It Works: These former customers have now experienced your competitor's solution for a significant period, likely discovering limitations or gaps compared to your offering. The 2-3 year mark often coincides with contract renewal evaluations.

Example 5: Unclaimed Opportunity Capture

Search Parameters:

• Leads where rep ownership changed due to territory shifts
• No touches in last 30 days
• Previously engaged (opened emails, responded, or took meetings)
• Match current ICP criteria

Why It Works: These leads fell through the cracks during organizational changes but had already shown engagement. The lack of recent touches means they're essentially "fresh" opportunities despite being in your system.

Enhancing Your CRM Results with External Tools

While your CRM contains valuable historical data, combining it with external tools creates an even more powerful approach.

The Export-Import Workflow

Follow this process to enhance your CRM mining with external data:

1. Export your targeted CRM list as a CSV file
2. Import this list into your prospecting tool (e.g., LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo)
3. Apply additional filters to further refine your targeting
4. Re-engage the most promising prospects based on these additional insights

This approach combines the historical context from your CRM with fresh intelligence from prospecting tools.

CRM + ZoomInfo Approach

ZoomInfo can add critical layers to your CRM data:

• Technographic enrichment to identify relevant tech stack changes
• Intent signals showing research in your category
• Scoops and news revealing growth, hiring, or strategic shifts
• Buying committee mapping to identify new stakeholders
• Growth indicators like employee expansion or new locations

For example, export a list of opportunities lost to "no budget" from your CRM, then use ZoomInfo to filter for those showing recent funding events or executive hires—which signals that budget constraints may have changed.

CRM + LinkedIn Sales Navigator Technique

Sales Navigator provides complementary insights:

• Job change tracking to identify if key contacts have new roles
• Content engagement showing topical interests
• Connection opportunities through mutual relationships
• Growth indicators like hiring patterns
• Shared groups and interests for relationship building

For instance, export stalled opportunities from your CRM, then use Sales Navigator to identify which companies have hired new decision-makers in relevant roles—creating a fresh opportunity to restart conversations.

Leveraging NextRep to Convert CRM-Sourced Leads

NextRep's systematic approach combines your CRM mining with a signal-based outreach strategy:

1. Input high-priority CRM leads as internal signals in NextRep's system
2. Add any relevant notes from your CRM about their situation
3. NextRep generates deep context based on this information
4. NextRep uses that context to create personalized, high-converting messages across channels

The Complete Prospecting System: Leaving No Opportunity Untapped

By combining systematic outbound prospecting with strategic CRM mining, you create a comprehensive approach that leaves no opportunity untapped:

• Outbound prospecting captures new opportunities from companies experiencing relevant trigger events
• CRM mining recovers value from previous sales investments and engagements
• Both together ensure you maintain a full pipeline regardless of market conditions

The most successful sales professionals don't choose between outbound and CRM prospecting—they leverage both as complementary components of a complete pipeline generation system.

Ready to transform both your outbound prospecting and CRM-sourced leads into meaningful conversations? Try NextRep with 100 free credits today and see how our signal-based approach creates personalized outreach that actually converts.