The quickest way a founding team booked more meetings was emailing 328 fewer companies.
They sell workforce scheduling software, had 380 companies on their list, and their emails were pretty decent.
In about 60 days, that list booked them 1 meeting.
So you’d think we’d start by fixing the emails, right?
Wrong. We left them alone, and went through their best closed deals instead, asking one thing:
What was going on inside these companies when they bought?
Then we binned the old list and rebuilt it around those moments, and ended up with 52 companies instead of 380.
With emails about what was happening at each company, that little list booked 3 qualified meetings in 4 weeks.
It all came down to 3 questions.
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1️⃣ WHO has the problem?
Industry, size, job title. Everyone starts here, and loads of teams stop here too.
The thing is, fitting your ICP just means a company might need you someday.
It tells you nothing about now, and the B2B Institute reckons about 95% of B2B buyers aren’t in the market at any given time.
2️⃣ WHY now?
This is where it gets interesting, because the pain itself is usually invisible. Nobody’s posting “our shift scheduling is a mess of spreadsheets” on LinkedIn.
But pain inside a company leaves marks on the outside, like a new location, a jump in headcount, or the same job posted again and again.
So look at your last 3 deals and ask yourselves what broke right before they signed.
Then go looking for that sign, as long as it’s under 90 days old.
For this team, it was a newly opened warehouse, plus shift coordinator roles that kept getting reposted.
3️⃣ WHERE does that sign show up?
Job boards, local news, industry directories, funding announcements, LinkedIn.
Whatever your WHY NOW is, it’ll tell you where to look, and it’s rarely a filter in some database.
And remember that a sign has a shelf life.
A warehouse that opened last month is a reason to reach out today, while the same warehouse a year later is just a building.
So re-check every sign right before you send, not when you built the list.
🛠️ Try it now
Open Claude with web search turned on, and paste this in.
It’ll ask you about your last 3 deals, work out your WHY NOW, and come back with 10 companies showing that sign right now.
Help me rebuild my lead list around what my best customers
had in common when they bought.
## STEP 1: WHO
Ask me, one question at a time:
- What I sell, and the problem it solves
- The industry, company size and job title I sell to
## STEP 2: WHY NOW
Ask me about my last 3 closed deals, one deal at a time:
- What was going on inside the company right before they
signed? What broke, changed or grew?
- What could someone outside the company have seen at
that moment? A new location, a hire, a job post that
kept coming back, funding, a new contract?
Then tell me, in one sentence each:
- The pattern across the 3 deals (my WHY NOW)
- The public sign that travels with it
If the 3 deals have nothing in common, say so, and ask
me about 2 more deals instead of forcing a pattern.
## STEP 3: WHERE
Tell me where that sign shows up publicly (job boards,
local news, funding news, directories, LinkedIn), and
which source to search first.
## STEP 4: FIND 10 COMPANIES
Search the web for 10 companies that fit my WHO and show
that sign right now. For each one:
company | the sign | the date it appeared | the link |
one sentence on why it matches my WHY NOW
Rules:
- Only include a sign from the last 90 days
- Every row needs a date and a link I can open
- Never guess a date, a fact or a company detail. If you
can't confirm it, leave the company out
- Fewer than 10 solid rows beats 10 shaky ones
End with one line: which of these 10 I should contact
first, and why.A list of companies that fit your profile isn’t the same as a list of companies ready to buy, and these 3 questions are how you get from one to the other.
PS: Want to build that list this week?
The Company List Builder reads your closed deals, works out your WHY NOW, and builds you 30 to 50 scored companies, with the evidence right next to each one. It’s exactly what I used for the rebuild above.
