You know this situation: it's 5 PM, you need to present your prospecting plan tomorrow morning, and your contact file looks like a 1998 directory. While you spend hours on LinkedIn laboriously collecting a few contacts, your competitors may have found a more efficient method.

Google Maps references more than 200 million businesses with their complete contact details, updated in real-time by the businesses themselves. This gigantic database remains largely underexploited by most salespeople who don't know how to exploit it quickly.

In 10 minutes flat, you can generate a file of hundreds, even thousands of qualified prospects in your business sector. No special technical skills needed, no complex software installation, just a proven method that we detail step by step.

This approach works because it relies on public data that businesses have voluntarily put online to be contacted. You're just automating what a salesperson would do manually, but 200 times faster.

Ready to transform your prospecting approach? Time yourself and follow this step-by-step guide. In 10 minutes, you'll have in your hands a prospect file fresher than any paid database.

Prerequisites: what you need

Before starting the timer, make sure you have the following elements at hand:

Necessary equipment:

• A computer with stable internet connection
• A recent web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari)
• Spreadsheet software (Excel, Google Sheets, or equivalent)

Mental preparation:

• Your target business sector clearly defined
• Your prospecting geographic area delimited
• Your approximate budget (count between €10 and €50 for 1000 prospects depending on tool chosen)

Recommended tools: For this guide, we'll use Génération-Prospects if you're targeting France (advantage of automatic SIRET registration), or Scrap.io for international. These tools require no installation and work directly from your browser.

Create an account on your chosen tool while reading this article. Most offer free trial credits, perfect for testing the method without initial investment.

Important: Keep a notepad handy to note search parameters that work best. You can reuse them for your next extractions and save even more time.

Step 1: Precisely define your target (2 minutes)

⏱️ Start your timer now!

Your targeting precision determines your final file quality. Two minutes suffice to define a workable target, provided you stay focused.

Choose your business sector: Avoid terms too generic like "commerce" or "service". Google Maps works better with specific keywords. Prefer "Italian restaurant", "auto repair shop", "hair salon" to "catering", "automotive", "beauty".

Mentally test your keyword: if you typed it in Google Maps, would you get the type of businesses you want to contact? If the answer is no, refine your term.

Examples of effective targeting:

• ❌ "Commerce" → ✅ "Bakery"
• ❌ "Health" → ✅ "Pharmacy"
• ❌ "Construction" → ✅ "Plumber"
• ❌ "Beauty" → ✅ "Beauty salon"

Define your geographic area: Be realistic about your catchment area. For local prospecting, limit yourself to your department or region. For a national approach, you can target the entire country, but expect large volumes.

Google Maps accepts several formats:

• City: "Lyon"
• Department: "Rhône" or "69"
• Region: "Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes"
• Country: "France"

Pro tip: For large metropolises, avoid targeting the entire city at once. "Paris" will give thousands of results difficult to exploit. Prefer "Paris 15th" or "North Paris" to start.

Quick validation: Does your target fit in a simple sentence? "I'm looking for bakeries in Rhône" is perfect. "I'm looking for all businesses that could need my services in southern France" is too vague.

⏱️ Time elapsed: 2 minutes. Is your target clear?

Step 2: Choose the right extraction tool (1 minute)

⏱️ Minute 2 to 3

To respect our 10-minute timing, go for turnkey online tools. No time to waste on installations or complex configurations.

For the French market: Génération-Prospects

• ✅ Automatic SIRET registration (SIRET number, workforce, revenue)
• ✅ No subscription, credit payment
• ✅ French interface
• ✅ Possibility to search entire country
• ? About €0.02 per extracted contact

For international: Scrap.io

• ✅ More than 195 countries covered
• ✅ 7-day free trial
• ✅ Very precise advanced filters
• ✅ More than 4000 business categories
• ? About €0.03 per extracted contact

Quick configuration:

1. Go to your chosen tool's website
2. Create your account (30 seconds with Google/LinkedIn)
3. Check your available trial credits
4. Head to extraction interface

Time-saving tip: If you hesitate between several tools, choose Génération-Prospects for France and Scrap.io for abroad. These two references will save you time on learning.

Don't have an account yet? Create it now while reading the rest, registration takes 30 seconds.

⏱️ Time elapsed: 3 minutes. Is your tool ready?

Step 3: Launch extraction (3 minutes)

⏱️ Minutes 3 to 6 - The heart of the process

This is when the magic happens. Follow these steps in order, without skipping steps.

On Génération-Prospects:

1. Select your country (10 seconds)

• Choose "France" to benefit from SIRET registration
• Other countries available without SIRET data

1. Enter your business keyword (20 seconds)

• Type exactly the term defined in step 1
• Example: "bakery", "pharmacy", "auto repair shop"
• Avoid plurals, Google Maps prefers singular

1. Define your geographic area (30 seconds)

• Type your city, department, or region
• Tool offers autocompletion
• Validate when correct area appears

1. Configure data to extract (60 seconds)

• ✅ Company name (mandatory)
• ✅ Complete address (recommended)
• ✅ Phone (essential)
• ✅ Website (if available)
• ✅ Email (if found)
• ✅ SIRET + workforce + revenue (French specificity)
• ✅ Google rating and number of reviews (for qualification)

1. Launch extraction (10 seconds)

• Click "Start extraction"
• Tool displays result estimate
• Confirm if volume suits you

Monitoring during extraction (50 seconds) Extraction runs in background. Take advantage to:

• Prepare your Excel reception file
• Think about your first prospecting message
• Check emails for completion notification

For Scrap.io (similar procedure):

1. Choose your country and language
2. Type your keyword in "What are you looking for?"
3. Specify location in "Where?"
4. Check desired information (Name, Phone, Email, Website...)
5. Add filters if necessary (rating, review count...)
6. Click "Start Extraction"

Success indicator: You should see an incrementing counter or progress bar. If nothing happens after 30 seconds, check your parameters.

⏱️ Time elapsed: 6 minutes. Is your extraction running?

Step 4: Retrieve and clean data (3 minutes)

⏱️ Minutes 6 to 9 - Raw data transformation

Your extraction is finished? Perfect! Now let's transform this raw data into a workable prospecting file.

File download (30 seconds)

• Click "Download" or "Download CSV"
• Choose Excel format (.xlsx) if available, otherwise CSV
• Save in an easily accessible folder
• Name file with date: "prospects_bakery_rhone_2025.xlsx"

Opening and first check (60 seconds) Open your file in Excel or Google Sheets. Quickly check:

• Total number of lines (excluding header)
• Data consistency in first lines
• Presence of essential columns: name, address, phone

Quick duplicate removal (90 seconds) Duplicates are inevitable, here's how to eliminate them quickly:

In Excel:

1. Select all your data (Ctrl+A)
2. "Data" tab → "Remove duplicates"
3. Check "Company name" and "Address"
4. Click "OK"
5. Excel tells you how many duplicates were removed

In Google Sheets:

1. Select your data
2. "Data" menu → "Data cleanup" → "Remove duplicates"
3. Choose reference columns
4. Click "Remove duplicates"

Basic verification (30 seconds) Quickly browse first 20 lines:

• Are phone numbers consistent? (10 digits for France)
• Are addresses complete?
• Are there closed businesses (mentioned "permanently closed")?

Delete problematic lines (30 seconds) Immediately delete:

• Lines with "permanently closed"
• Businesses without phone AND without email
• Obvious duplicates the tool missed

Pro tip: Don't waste time cleaning perfectly. An 85% quality file used immediately is worth more than a perfect file delivered late.

⏱️ Time elapsed: 9 minutes. Is your file cleaned?

Step 5: Enrich and qualify (1 minute)

⏱️ Minutes 9 to 10 - Finishing touches

The last minute to transform your file into a real commercial tool.

Add qualification column (20 seconds) Create a new "Priority" column and quickly assign:

• A = Large businesses (> 4 stars, many reviews)
• B = Medium businesses (3-4 stars)
• C = Small businesses or new ones (< 3 stars)

Sort by priority (15 seconds) Sort your file by "Priority" column to have A prospects first.

Add key information (20 seconds) If tool extracted SIRET (Génération-Prospects), you already have workforce and revenue. Otherwise, mentally note to check this info for your A prospects.

Final export (5 seconds) Save your final file. You now have a qualified prospect file ready to use.

⏱️ FINAL TIMER: 10 minutes! ?

Congratulations! You just generated in 10 minutes what would have taken hours of manual research. Your file probably contains between 100 and 2000 prospects depending on your sector and geographic area.

Optimizations to go even faster

Now that you master the basic method, here are pro tips to divide this time by two:

Create reusable search templates Note your effective parameters: keywords, geographic areas, filters used. Next time, you'll save 2 minutes on configuration.

Automate cleaning Create an Excel template with cleaning formulas already configured. Just paste your new data to get a clean file instantly.

Prepare your segmentation Define in advance your qualification criteria (company size, Google rating, website presence). You'll apply these criteria mechanically without thinking.

Use advanced filters Tools like Scrap.io allow filtering directly during extraction: only businesses with websites, or with rating above 4 stars. You save cleaning time.

Ultimate tip: Launch several extractions in parallel on different sectors or areas. While one extraction runs, configure the next one.

Errors that waste time

Avoid these classic traps that transform your 10 minutes into 2 hours of trouble:

Too broad targeting from start "All French businesses" generates 50,000 unusable results. Start small, refine later. Better 3 targeted extractions than one massive unmanageable extraction.

Excessive perfectionism on cleaning Don't spend 30 minutes correcting each poorly formatted phone number. Your time is worth more than these details. An 80% quality file used today beats a perfect file delivered next week.

Tool multiplication Resist temptation to test 5 different tools. Choose one, master it perfectly, then eventually test other solutions. Efficiency comes from repetition, not diversity.

Extraction without preparation Defining your target during extraction wastes tremendous time. Always have your sector and area clearly defined before opening the tool.

Systematic manual verification Don't check each prospect individually before use. Trust extracted data and only verify if recurring problems during your calls.

What to do with your file once generated?

Your file is ready, but how to transform it into revenue? Here's the immediate action plan:

First actions within the hour:

1. Segment your A prospects: isolate the 20 best prospects (high rating, large workforce, growth sector)
2. Prepare your pitch: adapt your commercial message to extracted sector
3. Schedule your first calls: plan 5 calls for tomorrow morning on your A prospects

Quick segmentation by contact channel:

• Prospects with email → Personalized email campaign
• Phone-only prospects → Call sequence
• Prospects with website → LinkedIn decision-maker search

Contact planning Don't contact everyone the same day. Spread over 2-3 weeks:

• Week 1: A prospects (maximum priority)
• Week 2: B prospects (A follow-up + new B contacts)
• Week 3: C prospects + A prospect recalls

Tracking and measurement Create a "Status" column in your file:

• "To contact"
• "Contacted - interested"
• "Contacted - not interested"
• "Appointment scheduled"
• "Converted customer"

This method allows measuring your conversion rate and refining your next extractions.

Conclusion

Mission accomplished! In 10 minutes flat, you just mastered a method that revolutionizes commercial prospecting. While other salespeople spend hours searching for a few contacts on LinkedIn, you now have a file of hundreds of qualified prospects.

This approach radically transforms your commercial efficiency. Instead of suffering prospecting as a time-consuming chore, you control it. Need prospects in a new sector? 10 minutes suffice. Expansion to a new region? 10 minutes as well.

The numbers speak: A salesperson who generates 200 qualified prospects in 10 minutes has a decisive competitive advantage. Their competitors will spend 20 hours obtaining the same result through traditional methods.

Your next action: Test this method within the hour following reading this article. Choose a small geographic sector, launch an extraction of 50 prospects, call 5 tomorrow. You'll be convinced by the results.

The era of manual artisanal prospecting is ending. Companies adopting these new methods take a decisive lead. While you hesitate, your competitors may already be building their prospect files.

Google Maps contains coordinates of your future best customers. 10 minutes suffice to transform them into concrete commercial opportunities. It's your turn to play now.