DEALMAKERS When we call
More than 40 triggers that make a call worthwhile.
We do not call your target clients by list, but when something has just happened there. This page shows what we look for: which event we evaluate, what it means and how long the time window stays open. The list is a starting point, not an upper limit – if your market yields a hundred triggers, we evaluate a hundred.
Everything written here comes from publicly accessible sources – and is recorded with source and date. The principle behind it is called Signal Based Selling; there is no established German word for it, the closest is “anlassbezogene Ansprache”, a trigger-based approach.
Signal Based Selling
Signal Based Selling: the triggers we evaluate
Signal Based Selling means: the list does not decide who you call, the event does. Instead of working through a target list from top to bottom, you wait for a publicly visible event at the target client – and only then call. No German word for it has become established; the closest is “anlassbezogene Ansprache”.
The difference is not academic. With a list the timing is random, and random usually means: no topic right now. With a trigger the timing is half the work already done – the company is dealing with the subject we want to talk about anyway. That is why, before every project, we collect the triggers first and the addresses second, never the other way round.
The signal catalogue
The triggers below come from real projects. They are sorted by theme so that you can see straight away which group is relevant for your market at all.
1. Growth & expansion
The company is building something up. Everything decided now is decided for years.
| Publicly visible signal | What it usually means | Typical time window |
|---|---|---|
| New site or new branch announced | Processes and suppliers are being set there right now | 1–4 months |
| First roles advertised in a new country | The market entry is running, but the team is not in place | 2–8 weeks |
| Move into larger premises | The company expects more staff, not fewer | 1–6 months |
| New product line or new business area on the website | That needs clients, and it needs them quickly | 1–3 months |
| First trade fair appearance or a clearly larger stand | Budget for new clients has been released | 4 weeks before to 6 weeks after the fair |
| Acquisition or shareholding in the commercial register | Two sales organisations have to come together | 3–9 months |
| Public tender or framework contract | A concrete need with a fixed date | until the deadline |
2. People & team
Job adverts are the most honest public document a company has: they show where it currently hurts.
| Publicly visible signal | What it usually means | Typical time window |
|---|---|---|
| Several roles in the same area at the same time | That area is being built up – there is budget and a new bottleneck | 2–8 weeks |
| The same role advertised again after a short time | The appointment did not hold, the problem is unsolved | now |
| A role has been open for more than three months | Their own route is not working | now |
| The first sales role at all | Sales is being built up in a structured way for the first time | 1–3 months |
| A job advert names a system or tool | You can see what is worked with – and what is missing | 1–2 months |
| Visibly several new joiners in the team | Onboarding and steering become an issue | 1–3 months |
| Sales roles for career changers or working students | Scaling is done cheaply; quality becomes the problem later | 2–6 months |
| A publicly named member of staff leaves the company | Their tasks lie idle for a while | 4–12 weeks |
3. Leadership & owners
New people at the top make new decisions – and they make them early, because they have to show something.
| Publicly visible signal | What it usually means | Typical time window |
|---|---|---|
| Change in the management | A new agenda, new suppliers come into consideration | first 90 days |
| A new head of sales | Wants to deliver visible results in the first six months | first 6 months |
| Signing authority granted or withdrawn | Responsibility is being redistributed right now | 1–3 months |
| Change of shareholder or a new investor in the register | Goals and pace are changing | 3–12 months |
| Succession announced or shareholders of advanced age | The company is preparing a handover | 6–24 months |
| A decision-maker publishes a post on a professional topic | They are dealing with it right now and can be approached on it | a few days |
4. Money & figures
Annual accounts are public. They do not say whether someone wants to buy – but they say whether they can and whether they must.
| Publicly visible signal | What it usually means | Typical time window |
|---|---|---|
| Funding round or capital increase | Investments are brought forward, decisions come faster | 1–6 months |
| Annual accounts show clear revenue growth | The structure is lagging behind the growth | 3–9 months |
| Annual accounts show a declining result | The pressure on sales is rising | 1–6 months |
| Annual accounts filed late | Capacity or order is missing in the house | ongoing |
| Increase of the share capital | Money is being invested, not saved | 1–6 months |
| Start of the budget phase for the new financial year | Budgets are being allocated right now – after that it is closed | October to December |
5. Market, product & technology
What a company changes about the way it presents itself shows what it is working on.
| Publicly visible signal | What it usually means | Typical time window |
|---|---|---|
| Relaunch of the website | The positioning is being rethought | 1–3 months |
| New pricing page or new package model | The business model is changing, sales has to follow | 1–3 months |
| A new system in use, visible from job or partner pages | Changeovers create a need for support | 2–6 months |
| Certification or partner status achieved | The status is now to be turned into revenue | 1–4 months |
| New marketing roles advertised | More enquiries are meant to come in – someone has to handle them | 1–3 months |
| Product announcement with a fixed date | A pipeline has to be in place by then | until the date |
| First entry in a new industry directory | An active search for visibility | 1–2 months |
6. Pressure & risk
The most uncomfortable part of the list – and often the most effective. Someone under pressure listens.
| Publicly visible signal | What it usually means | Typical time window |
|---|---|---|
| A major client or reference disappears from the website | Part of the revenue is gone and has to be replaced | 1–6 months |
| Public criticism or negative press | Countermeasures follow, with budget as well | 1–3 months |
| A competitor is visibly growing | The comparison is drawn internally | ongoing |
| Insolvency of a competitor | Clients and staff are on the move | 1–6 months |
| Job cuts alongside a communicated growth target | More with fewer people – external capacity becomes interesting | 1–6 months |
| No direct line and no contact person on the website | First contact is not organised | ongoing |
40 examples, not a closing list. No company needs all of them – in most projects five to eight signals carry the majority of the meetings.
The list does not decide who you call, the event does.
Bespoke signals: the ones that only mean something in your market
The list above is the general part. It becomes more interesting once we define together what counts as a buying signal in your market. These are almost always different events from the obvious ones: a particular certification lost, a framework contract running out, a subsidy ending, a change in a standard, a staff change in a very specific position. You define such bespoke signals – we build the evaluation for them. There is no fixed upper limit.
And the technology behind it? For the ongoing evaluation we use PrioX – the software we developed ourselves and run ourselves. It watches the public sources, recognises the patterns and puts a sorted list in front of you every morning. If you already have a sales team of your own and only the prioritisation is missing, PrioX alone is often the better route – then you do not need an agency, you need a better order of work.
For teams with their own CRM
Your scoring knows who fits. Not who is due right now.
Almost every sales team already rates its contacts – in the CRM, in HubSpot or in a spreadsheet. What gets rated is mostly master data: sector, size, revenue, region. Those do not change over years. That is why the same company has been sitting at the top of many lists for months although nothing is happening there. We do not replace this system – we sharpen it with live signals.
Live signals instead of master data
What gets rated is what happens publicly: job adverts, changes of leadership, new sites, financing, product launches, press. The same triggers as in the catalogue above – only watched continuously instead of researched once.
Events age
A signal from yesterday is worth a conversation, the same signal from six months ago is not. Every trigger type gets a time window of its own, and the rating falls off within it – otherwise the list is full of expired reasons next quarter.
Deep research for the top of the list
For the top hits a person takes a look: who really decides there, what has this person said publicly, which signals belong together. The result is not a score but a first sentence that lands.
Companies nobody knows yet
A scoring that only sorts existing CRM records will never find a new client. We rate the market, not your database – including companies for which you do not hold a single record yet.
This can be commissioned on its own, without us making calls for you: we look at your existing scoring, add the trigger layer and hand over an order of work your team can start with on Monday. How we calculate is set out in detail in the post lead scoring at PrioX.
How we call on these triggers is described on the cold calling page
Which of these triggers fits your offer?
In 30 minutes we go through your target group and tell you which three to five events actually indicate a readiness to buy in your case.