By Kim Leary
The short version
- The research is the bottleneck. Spotting the moment, finding the right person and getting their details takes days of work by hand.
- Finding out late costs you the conversation, not just the time.
- The usual answers either add volume or add work.
- We built a system that reads the news for mergers, finds the right director, checks their address through Companies House, sends a personal letter and connects on LinkedIn.
- It works when you can name the moment a business needs you. If you can’t, start there instead.
- Agree the moment that means a business needs you, then build a system that spots it and makes the introduction.
A merger closes. A new marketing director starts. A competitor’s client moves premises, wins funding or opens a new office. Any of these could mean they need exactly what you do. If you’d known that week, you’d have been the first call.
Instead you hear about it months later, usually because a competitor got there first. Trigger-based prospecting is how you hear about it in time.
Why it happens
The research is the bottleneck. Spotting the moment, finding the right person and getting their details takes days of work by hand.
So it only happens when someone has a quiet week, and nobody has a quiet week. Your best people end up doing admin instead of conversations, or the research simply never gets done.
We had the same problem. Businesses going through a merger often need what we do, but finding them at the right moment was taking days each time.
What it’s costing you
Finding out late costs you the conversation, not just the time.
What doesn’t fix it
The usual answers either add volume or add work.
“Hire someone to do the research.” Expensive, slow, and the work is the same whoever does it.
“Buy a data tool.” It gives you more names. It doesn’t tell you which ones need you this week.
“Set up an email sequence.” Nine automated nudges to the wrong person at the wrong time is how outreach gets ignored.
“Rely on referrals.” They’re the best leads you’ll get. They just don’t arrive often enough to grow on.
How we fixed it for ourselves
We built a system that reads the news for mergers, finds the right director, checks their address through Companies House, sends a personal letter and connects on LinkedIn.
When the connection is accepted, it hands back to us, with everything we need to know. Days of research, done automatically. The human work starts where it should: at the conversation.
Is trigger-based prospecting right for you?
It works when you can name the moment a business needs you. If you can’t, start there instead.
It’s a good fit if:
- You can say what changes in a business just before it needs you.
- That change shows up somewhere you can see it: the news, Companies House or your own website.
- Each new customer is worth enough that a personal introduction makes sense.
- Your team has time for the conversations, just not the research.
It’s not the first step if:
- Your team gives different answers to who you’re for.
- You can’t yet say why a buyer would choose you over the alternatives.
If it’s the first list, the prospecting day is where to start. If it’s the second, a system will only find the wrong people more reliably. Start with growth consultancy or a strategy workshop.
What fixes it
Agree the moment that means a business needs you, then build a system that spots it and makes the introduction.
Prospecting systems does for you what we did for ourselves. One day with your team to pick the trigger and name the people you need to reach. Then we build it, connected to the tools you already use: your CRM, LinkedIn, your inbox and public sources like Companies House. It’s built to UK data protection rules, and it belongs to you. £2,800 for the day, build quoted separately.
If you’re not sure which moments matter most for your business, that’s part of growth consultancy.
What happens on the day, and after
The day is where the thinking happens. The build follows from it.
- Pick the trigger. Your team in a room. We agree the moment that means a business needs you, and who you need to reach when it happens.
- We build it. We connect your tools to each other and to AI, so the system finds the company, finds the right person, checks the details and makes a personal introduction by letter, LinkedIn or email.
- It hands over. When someone responds, it goes to a person with the full context. Your team’s time goes on the conversation, not the research.
You leave the day with your trigger agreed, the people you need to reach named, and a plan for what we build. The build is quoted then, once we know what’s worth building.
Keep reading
- A list of names isn’t a lead
- Why a letter beats nine emails
- Should you build your own software now AI makes it easy?
Questions about trigger-based prospecting
Reaching out when something happens in a business that means it’s likely to need you, such as a merger, a new director or a funding round, instead of working through a list.
No. Each introduction is personal and prompted by something real in the buyer’s business, and there are only a few of them.
Whatever you already use: your CRM, LinkedIn, email and public sources like Companies House.
Something that happens in a business that means it’s likely to need you, and that you can spot without asking. A new marketing director, a funding round or a visit to your pricing page are common ones. Picking the right one for your business is what the prospecting day is for.
Each system we build is built to UK data protection rules. We talk through which sources it uses and who it contacts on the prospecting day, before anything is built.
£2,800 for the day. The build is quoted separately, once we know what’s worth building.
Free resource
Build the business case. Put your own numbers on what reaching buyers at the right moment is worth, then get your MD to say yes.
The one thing to do next
Prospecting systems
We built one for ourselves first. A day to agree your trigger and the people you need to reach, then a system that makes the introduction. £2,800 for the day, build quoted separately.
