How to Find 500 Local Leads by Describing Them in Plain English

Table of Contents

1. The Problem With Building Big Lead Lists
2. What AI Lead Search Does
3. Step by Step: 500 House Painters in California
4. Writing Prompts That Work
5. What AI Can and Can't Filter On
6. FAQ

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The Problem With Building Big Lead Lists

One Google Maps search only shows around 120 businesses. If you need 500 house painters, you have to search city after city: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento, and on down the list. Then you have to set the same filters every time and keep count until you have enough.

That's slow, and it's easy to get wrong. AI lead search does that work for you.

What AI Lead Search Does

You describe the leads you want in plain English. PinLeads AI then:

• Writes the Google Maps searches. Each one is a business category plus a location, like "house painters in San Diego, California".
• Sets the filters. It reads requirements like "with an email" or "highly rated" from your description and turns them into PinLeads filters.
• Asks when something is missing. If you didn't say where to search, it asks for a city or area before it starts.
• Keeps going until it reaches your target. For more than 120 leads, it spreads the search across up to 25 cities or areas, largest first, and stops as soon as your target is reached.

The filters it applied are listed under the search, so you can see exactly what it did.

Step by Step: 500 House Painters in California

1. Open the AI Query tab on the PinLeads dashboard.
2. Type: "house painters in California with an email address".
3. Set Max leads to 500.
4. Click Find leads with AI.

AI plans searches for California's largest cities and requires an email on every lead. PinLeads searches the first city, checks each business's website for an email, and moves on to the next city. It continues until it has 500 painters with emails, or until it runs out of areas.

You can watch the progress as it goes. When it finishes, the leads are ready to export to CSV, send to HubSpot or Zapier, or save in your Lead Dashboard.

Writing Prompts That Work

Good prompts name three things: who, where, and what they must have.

• "Roofers in Dallas, Texas with at least 4.5 stars and 50 reviews"
• "Homebuilders in Austin, Texas without a website"
• "200 dental offices in Florida that list a phone number"
• "Commercial cleaning companies in Chicago with a LinkedIn page"

A few tips:

• Be specific about the business. "Kitchen remodelers" finds better leads than "contractors".
• Use a state or region for big targets. "California" gives AI room to search many cities. One small town may not have 500 painters.
• Only ask for what you need. Every requirement removes leads. If an email is all you need, don't also require LinkedIn.

What AI Can and Can't Filter On

AI lead search can filter on what Google Maps and business websites show:

• Has a website, or has no website listed
• Minimum Google rating
• Minimum number of reviews
• Must have an email, phone number, LinkedIn page or address

It can't filter on things Google Maps doesn't show, like revenue, employee count, or whether a business is ready to buy. If you ask for one of those, AI tells you what it can filter on instead.

One thing to know: emails and LinkedIn pages come from a business's own website. If you search for businesses without a website, PinLeads finds their phone numbers and addresses, but not emails.

FAQ

Which plans include AI lead search? Every paid plan. You can run 5 AI searches per minute and 20 per day. See plans.

Does it use my hours? Yes. An AI search uses your plan's hours like any other search.

Is it always right? No. AI can make mistakes, so check the filters it applied and your results before you use them.

Where does my description go? Your description is sent to OpenRouter and its selected model provider to plan the search.

Learn more on the AI lead search feature page.