Build a list of 25 companies your prospect could sell to this month

What it does

If your prospects sell to businesses, the most useful thing you can hand them is a list of their own next customers. Not a list of everyone in their market: 25 companies that something just happened to, with the date, the source and the person to talk to. It shows you did the work, and it’s useful even if they never reply.

What you need

• What your prospect sells and who buys it, from their site and their customer logos
• Free news sources: funding trackers, hiring pages, trade press, people-move announcements
• Their buyer at each company (see find the people who buy what you sell)
• A spreadsheet

How it works

1. 1

   Write down who your prospect sells to, and what makes those buyers ready

   Read their site, their customer stories and their logos. Then name the moment that makes a company need them: a funding round, opening stores, a new leader, a price change, a big hire.

2. 2

   Collect 40 to 60 companies with that moment

   Use sources with dates: funding trackers, trade press, job posts, announcements of new hires. Keep only the last 60 days if you can. Each row gets the date, what happened and the link.

   Prompt for Claude or ChatGPT: what makes their buyers ready

   Here is a company: [PROSPECT NAME AND WHAT THEY SELL, FROM THEIR SITE].
   Their customers look like: [THREE OR FOUR CUSTOMERS FROM THEIR SITE].
   
   1. What events make a company suddenly need what they sell? List five, most likely first.
   2. For each event, where would I find dated public news of it?
   Don't name any companies yet, and don't guess at facts.

3. 3

   Cut to the best 25

   Drop companies that already use your prospect, are too small or too big for them, or are their competitors. Then rank by how fresh the moment is.

4. 4

   Name the right person at the top 5

   The person who’d buy from your prospect, not the CEO by default. Check each name, as in the playbook above.

What good looks like

A sheet of 25 companies, each with a date, a one-line reason, a source link and, for the top 5, the person to talk to. Your prospect could start working it the same day.

Mistakes to skip

• Handing over a list without dates or sources. They can’t trust it, so they won’t use it.
• Padding to 25 with companies that don’t fit them. Twelve good ones beat 25 so-so ones.
• Putting their competitors on it.