Finding new B2B clients and qualifying leads before the offer

In short: to find new B2B clients start from public sources: ATECO 2025 codes to define the sector, lists of companies extracted from the Registro Imprese through Telemaco, trade fairs and professional registers. Before making an offer, and above all before granting instalments, qualify the lead: age, financial statements, protests and procedures, beneficial owner and estimated operating credit line. A lead that does not pay costs more than one that is lost. For contacts, respect art. 130 of the Privacy Code and consult the public Register of Oppositions before calling.

Where do I find new B2B clients from public and legal sources?

In four places, from the most structured to the most dependent on your fieldwork.

• Registro Imprese lists: a Telemaco function lets you extract a list of companies by selection criteria (see the dedicated section below).
• ATECO codes: you need them to describe precisely the sector of your ideal clients.
• Trade fairs and sector events: the list of exhibitors and visitors is a list of companies with a declared interest. The people you meet give you the contact directly.
• Professional registers, associations and chambers of commerce: many professional and productive categories publish their members. Always check the terms of use of the data on each site.

The advantage of public sources is that you know where the data comes from and you can demonstrate it. It is the basis for working in compliance with privacy rules (see below) and for avoiding bought lists whose origin you do not know.

How do I use ATECO 2025 codes to define the sector of my clients?

Search by code and not by keyword: two companies in the same sector describe their activity in different ways, but the code is the same. According to the ISTAT joint information note, ATECO 2025 has been in force since 1 January 2025, has been operationally adopted from 1 April 2025 and is consistent with the European classification NACE Rev. 2.1. The Chambers of Commerce reclassify the Registro Imprese ex officio, and the company extract shows, for a transitional period, both the new codes and the previous ones.

For your work this means two things: use the 2025 codes when you build lists and, if you compare lists from different years, remember that the same code may no longer describe the same activity. The code the company has in the Register is the one it declared: you understand the actual activity from its website and product.

How do the company lists of the Registro Imprese work?

According to the Registro Imprese page, "Lists of companies" is a function of Telemaco that extracts a list of companies using various criteria and returns a CSV file that can be processed in the Documents area. It concerns registered offices, not local units.

• Filters: territory (region, province, municipality, postcode), activity, status, capital and turnover, class of employees, insolvency procedures in progress, legal form, dates of registration or cancellation.
• List types: "Company addresses" (business name, registered office address and, if declared by the company, website, telephone and email; the PEC is excluded) and "Extended companies" (in addition, tax code, REA number, employees, share capital, activity, status and economic data where available).
• Costs (VAT exempt): 5 euro flat plus 0.02 euro per position for Addresses and 0.12 euro for Extended. Example from the page: 100 positions cost 7 euro with Addresses and 17 euro with Extended. Each extraction contains up to 10,000 positions, and you see the quote before purchase.

The service is accessible to Telemaco users. The terms of use of the data and the privacy policy are published in the footer of the Registro Imprese website: read them before using the list, because the service page does not report them in the text. Some Chambers of Commerce also offer extractions on request with a quote, with their own rates.

How do I qualify a lead before making an offer?

With six checks, from the quickest to the most in-depth. Not all are needed for every lead: they are needed in proportion to how much you want to sell and on what terms of payment.

1. Identity: do the VAT number and business name match? See how to verify whether a company exists and is active.
2. Age and legal form: a company formed a few months ago has no payment history; a minimum capital is a limit on asset guarantees (srl with share capital of 1 euro: risks for those who work with it).
3. Turnover and financial statements: is the size of the company consistent with your order? A very large order relative to its turnover is an exposure to assess with more caution. See how to find a company's turnover.
4. Protests and insolvency procedures: these are the clearest signals of insolvency. See what protests, prejudicial records and insolvency procedures are.
5. Beneficial owner, partners and directors: who really controls the company and what history it has. See how to verify who really controls a company.
6. Sector: does the company behave like its peers or is it out of scale? A comparison with the sector tells you whether its financial statements are normal for its market.

At the end of these checks you need a figure: how much you can grant without putting the company at risk. How you arrive at a credit line is explained in how to calculate a client's trade credit line.

Why does a lead that does not pay cost more than a lost one?

Because a lost lead costs you the margin you did not make. A client that does not pay costs you the goods or work already delivered, the time for reminders and recovery and, if it has gone bankrupt, the wait for a procedure. The arithmetic does not change with the channel from which the lead came: what matters is only whether the client pays.

The practical consequence: the salesperson who brings in the lead does not decide the instalments alone. The first contact can be quick; the instalments are granted after the checks. With a new client with no history, start from a prudent credit line and you will grow with payments: see how much credit to grant a new client with no history.

What does privacy law say about commercial contacts: email and telephone?

The reference is art. 130 of the Privacy Code (Legislative Decree 196/2003). These are the points I have checked against the text and the pages of the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (Italian Data Protection Authority).

• Email, SMS, MMS, fax and automated calls (paras. 1 and 2): for advertising, direct selling, market research or commercial communication, the prior consent of the contracting party or user is required. The Garante has clarified that consent must be free, specific and documented in writing, and cannot be imposed as a condition for obtaining a service.
• Soft spam (para. 4): if you have sold your own product or service, you can use without consent the email address collected in that sale to promote similar services, provided the data subject was informed and has not refused. In every communication they must be able to say no in a simple and free way.
• Telephone with an operator and paper mail (para. 3-bis): they are permitted towards those who have not exercised the right to object and are not registered in the public Register of Oppositions.
• Always prohibited (para. 5): concealing the identity of the sender or not providing a contact address to exercise the rights provided by the GDPR.

The public Register of Oppositions is extended, according to the Garante, to all reserved national numbers, including mobile phones; registration is free and can also be made by a legal person holding a telephone contract. Registration cancels previous consents to telemarketing, with two exceptions: active contracts (or contracts ceased no more than 30 days earlier) and consents given after registration. Those who do telephone marketing must consult the register before campaigns and in any case every month.

For violations of the right to object, the Garante refers to the sanctions of art. 83, para. 5 of the GDPR, up to 20 million euro or, for companies, 4% of the total worldwide annual turnover if higher.

Two points remain open in the sources I have read: the Garante texts I consulted do not expressly state whether the rules on consent apply in the same way to emails addressed to legal persons, and the Registro Imprese page on lists does not describe the limits on the use of the extracted contacts. Before an email or telephone campaign on a list, have your privacy advisor check the specific case.

How do I organise the process, from lead to order?

1. Extract or collect the lead from a source you can document.
2. Contact it while respecting consent, objection and the Register of Oppositions.
3. Before the offer with instalments, do the minimum qualification: identity, protests and procedures, estimated operating credit line.
4. If the order is large, move on to the complete picture.
5. Record the date and source of the checks and decide when to review them: you will find it in onboarding a new B2B client: checks and client record.

For accountants. If you help a client introduce itself to new clients or decide to whom to grant instalments, you can use Veryfy without a subscription and without registration: the rating and operating credit line at 9.90€ for the single lead, the 19€ Verification for the client that really matters. You pay for the check you need, when you need it.

Sources

• Registro Imprese, Lists of companies (accessed 11/11/2026)
• ISTAT, Joint information note on the ATECO 2025 classification (accessed 11/11/2026)
• Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, Telemarketing (unwanted calls) (accessed 11/11/2026)
• Public Register of Oppositions (accessed 11/11/2026)
• Garante privacy, provision of 20 December 2012 on unsolicited promotional emails (accessed 11/11/2026; refers to the Privacy Code in the text then in force)
• Brocardi.it, Privacy Code, art. 130 (accessed 11/11/2026; the official text is the one in the Gazzetta Ufficiale: check the text in force)

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