The sales process · Lead generation
A company becomes a buyer on the day something changes at its end.
A trigger event is the change that turns a company from a name on your list into a buyer this quarter. New premises, a second plant, a licence, a tender win, a hiring push. This step decides which changes matter in your trade and how a small team spots them without a paid tool.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
A trigger event is the change that turns a company from a name on your list into a buyer this quarter. New premises, a second plant, a licence, a tender win, a hiring push. This step decides which changes matter in your trade and how a small team spots them without a paid tool.
Nothing about a company tells you when it will buy. Not its size, not its sector, not how neatly it fits the ideal customer profile you wrote. What tells you is a change. A firm that signed a lease on a second unit last month needs things it did not need in March.
Mutual connection sourcing, the step before this one, gets you through the door. This one tells you which week to knock. Together they are the difference between a cold call and a call that opens with a line about the unit behind the highway.
You do not need a subscription for any of it. The changes that matter are announced by the people making them. A board goes up. A job is advertised. A photograph of a ribbon being cut gets posted by somebody's cousin. The work is deciding what to watch, then watching it ten minutes a day.
Where this sits
Stage 4 of 10, lead generation. The routes an enquiry can arrive by, and what each one costs in money or in time.
- The stage before
- Prospecting
- The stage after
- Sales enablement
If you want this done for you
Walk into a first call knowing what a company makes, who runs it and why it might buy.
The work
What this step is actually like.
“Work backwards from your own invoices”
Take your last twenty orders. For each buyer, ask what had changed at their end in the three months before they rang. Two or three answers will repeat, and that short list is your trigger list. A borrowed list from another trade is worth nothing, because the change that precedes a bearing order is not the one that precedes a catering contract.
“Where a small team watches for free”
Job advertisements on a company's own careers page. The tenders and public notices column of the local paper. The boards outside buildings on your delivery route. Whichever public register your trade already deals with. A saved alert on the names of the companies on your list. Your driver sees more in a week than your CRM does.
“A trigger has a shelf life”
The window between a plant being announced and the orders being placed is short. After it closes you are talking to somebody who has already chosen a supplier. So the sheet carries a date, and somebody reads it every week. A change spotted in May and acted on in August is not a trigger. It is news.
“When it is not worth the trouble”
If you sell to households, the change you want is private. Nobody announces a wedding date for your benefit. If you sell a low-value repeat item, the minutes per order do not pay for themselves. Both are better served by search engine optimisation, the step after this one, where the buyer comes looking instead.
What we do
What you end up with.
The artefacts this step produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.
The trigger list
One page naming three to five changes that come before an order in your trade, each written so that two people would recognise the same thing. Hiring for a second shift, not growing. A licence granted, not doing well.
Result: Two people reading the same news agree on whether it counts, without asking you.
The watch sheet
Where each trigger shows up, who looks, and on which day. Ten minutes belongs to one named person, at a fixed time, or it belongs to nobody.
Result: The checking lands in somebody's diary instead of in everybody's good intentions.
The signal log
Company, the change spotted, the date, the source it came from, who is following up, what was said, and what happened. Seven columns, filled the day the change is seen rather than at the end of the month.
Result: You can drop the sources that have never once led to a conversation.
The opening line
One sentence per kind of trigger, naming the change plainly without sounding as though you have been watching. Congratulations on the new unit works. A recital of everything you found does not.
Result: The first ten seconds of the call are about them, and nobody asks where you got that.
Template
Trigger event watchlist
Events that make a company likely to buy, and where you will see them.
| Trigger event | Where to spot it | Who to contact | What to say | Date spotted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 1, prospecting and lead generation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2 · you are here
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
How do we tell a real buying signal from ordinary news?
Is this not just spying on companies?
Our industry has no news at all. What do we watch?
Who should own the ten minutes a day?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
How soon will we see results?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
Where to go next
The work that carries this step further.
The rest of lead generation
Or read the whole sales process in order.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.