Prospecting is when you identify someone as a good target based on your lead generation criteria. Prospecting lead generation can take many forms, such as Web research, Off line research such as magazines and newspapers, Business directories and more.
One of the things you like to do when prospecting is to identify the need and the budget so that you can assess if the prospect has the ability and desire to potentially buy your product.
One short cut for easier prospecting is to build a lead generation website that generates leads with white papers that would only be of interest to your target market.
When you do this, you will only need to see if your new prospect has the budget to match your product. The prospect has prequalified himself for the rest of the things if you have done a good job of targeting and writing a free offer to draw qualified leads to you.
Qualified sales leads can be generated from a simple lead generation website, but it does take some effort to set up and you have to keep fresh content on the site if you expect search engine optimization to kick in.