Trigger Finder

Trigger Finder

When to activate

Daily prospecting workflow when building event-triggered sequences, prioritizing who to contact in the next 24 hours, or operationalizing buying intent signals into a repeatable outreach cadence.

When NOT to use

Cold outreach where no trigger exists — use Personalization skill instead for static ICP outreach. Do not use Trigger Finder for warm inbound leads (they already have intent) or account-based sales where relationships are pre-established.

Instructions

The 4 Trigger Categories

1. Company Events — direct organizational shifts that create budget and urgency

• Funding rounds (Series A/B/C, seed) — capital influx triggers hiring, tool expansion, infrastructure overhaul
• Hiring spree (job postings 3+ roles in 90 days) — new team = new tool budgets, skill gaps, process bottlenecks
• M&A activity (acquisition or being acquired) — integration challenges, system consolidation, legacy platform replacement
• Leadership change (new CTO, VP Engineering, CMO) — new executives bring fresh vendor relationships and mandate to improve under their watch

2. Behavioural Signals — intent-revealing activities that indicate active evaluation

• Content downloads (whitepapers, guides, ROI calculators) — self-education phase, comparing options
• Webinar/demo attendance (your competitors' events, industry conferences) — shopping mode, benchmark gathering
• Review site activity (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot — site visits, comparison views, demo requests) — late-stage evaluation
• Job postings mentioning skill gaps or new initiatives — hiring for capabilities they don't have in-house

3. Tech Stack Changes — platform adoption and churn that reveal spend and priority shifts

• New tool installs (via BuiltWith, LinkedIn job postings that mention "experience with X") — active stack expansion, budget allocated
• Competitor tool removal/discontinuation announcements — active replacement search underway
• Competitor adoption by their peers (case study visibility, social proof erosion) — FOMO, fear of being left behind
• Stack consolidation or modernization initiatives (gleaned from job postings, LinkedIn content, engineering blogs) — platform rationalization = RFP window

4. External Events — macro triggers that shift buying urgency at scale

• Regulatory change (GDPR, SOC2, data residency laws, AI compliance) — forced compliance spend
• Competitor failure or market contraction — trust loss, alternative-seeking behavior
• Market shift or industry disruption (AI, API-first, serverless adoption) — category creation, new category adoption

Signal Sources: The Stack

Free or low-cost sources:

1. LinkedIn (free) — job postings, company updates, leadership changes, founder posts about funding
2. G2/Capterra (free) — competitor review activity, download counts, demo request spikes
3. Crunchbase (free tier, alerts via email) — funding announcements, hiring data, company news
4. BuiltWith (free/paid) — identify who uses specific tech, set up tracking for competitors or ICP profiles
5. Google Alerts (free) — set up alerts for companies, competitors, regulatory keywords, industry terms
6. Job posting aggregators (free: LinkedIn, Indeed, Ashby) — proxy for hiring velocity, pain points, budget direction
7. Company careers page (free) — active hiring sprees, new team formation
8. Zapier/Make templates (paid, $10–50/mo) — automate daily signal collection into your CRM

Premium sources (optional for at-scale operations):

• Apollo.io, Hunter.io, or ZoomInfo — trigger alerts, intent data overlays
• 6sense, Demandbase, Terminus — account-level intent signals

Trigger Scoring Framework

Assign each signal a score that determines speed of response:

High (Act within 24 hours)

• Active funding announcement (within 7 days)
• Job posting explicitly mentioning your product category or competitive gap
• G2 competitor review (demo request, moving reviews, follow-up activity)
• Leadership change in target role (CTO, VP Eng, CMO)
• Company news about product pivot, expansion, or M&A (acquired or acquiring)

Medium (Act within 1 week)

• Content download from your site or competitor's site
• Webinar attendance (your own or competitor events)
• Hiring 2+ roles that suggest capability gaps
• Tech stack change indicating modernization initiative
• Regulatory announcement affecting their industry

Low (Park for future sequence)

• General job posting (not role-specific pain point)
• Quarterly earnings mention of strategic initiative
• Peer adoption (interesting but not direct intent)
• Industry trend (macro, not company-specific) Score low signals and add to a nurture sequence; revisit if a higher-score trigger appears.

The Trigger Message Formula

Your opening message must contain exactly three elements in this order:

1. [Name the specific trigger] — Be explicit about what you observed

   • ✓ "I saw your Series B announcement last Tuesday"
   • ✗ "I noticed you're growing"

2. [Why it matters to them specifically] — Connect the trigger to a concrete business impact

   • ✓ "Series B typically means 2–3 new hiring goals, and that's where onboarding friction kills velocity"
   • ✗ "Series B companies need to scale"

3. [One question] — Open-ended, not a yes/no, that invites them to share their specific challenge

   • ✓ "What's the biggest pain in onboarding your new hires right now?"
   • ✗ "Are you interested in better onboarding?"

Example formula in action:

"Hi [Name], I saw that [Company] just closed your Series B — congrats. Most teams in your position struggle with onboarding new engineers quickly, which delays TTM. What's been the bottleneck for you?"

Building Your Trigger Monitoring Stack

Daily workflow:

1. Each morning, run queries across your sources (or set up Zapier/Make automations to run overnight)
2. Collect signals into a single intake document or CRM view
3. Score each signal (high/medium/low)
4. Route high-score signals to your daily outreach list
5. Add medium and low signals to your CRM with a 7–14 day follow-up date

Automation pattern (Zapier/Make):

• Trigger: "New job posting matching keywords [your ICP]" OR "Funding announcement for [company list]" OR "G2 review posted on [competitor]"
• Action: Create a new row in your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive) with signal type, score, date, and link
• Frequency: Daily 8 AM your time
• Cost: ~$20–50/month for a 3–5 trigger automation

Sample Zapier setup:

1. LinkedIn job posting trigger → Filter for keywords ("hiring," "engineer," "full-stack") + company ICP
2. Crunchbase funding trigger → Add "Series A, B, C" filter
3. Action: Create/update deal in HubSpot with pipeline "Trigger Queue," set score tag
4. Notification: Slack daily digest of high-score signals for your team

The 14-Day Decay Window

Critical rule: Most triggers lose relevance after 14 days.

• A funding announcement on Day 1 is fresh and urgent (budget is being allocated)
• By Day 14, procurement cycles have tightened; by Day 30, the window has closed
• Job postings peak in relevance during weeks 2–3 (active recruiting, unfilled positions = pain)
• Leadership changes are highest intent on days 1–7; after 30 days, they've settled into their role
• Regulatory announcements have a longer window (60–90 days) but stack with other signals

Implications:

• Do not sit on high-score triggers. Outreach on day 1 or 2
• Medium-score triggers can wait 3–5 days but not longer
• After 14 days, move a signal to "nurture" (lower cadence, add to email sequence)
• Track response rates by trigger age; you'll see sharp decline after day 10–14

Operationalization: From Signal to Sequence

1. Identify — Run your daily sources, capture signal
2. Score — High/medium/low framework above
3. Message — Use the trigger formula; personalize in 2 minutes
4. Time — High = today, Medium = this week, Low = nurture
5. Track — Log trigger type, date, score, and response in CRM for predictive scoring
6. Decay — Archive or nurture after 14 days if no response

Trigger Message Templates by Category

Company Events:

"I saw [Company] hired [Name] as [Title] last month. Leaders in that role typically reshape the [function] stack. What's been the mandate from your leadership around [theme]?"

Behavioral Signals:

"I noticed you downloaded our '[Resource]' guide last week. The teams using it most are tackling [specific pain]. Where are you most blocked right now?"

Tech Stack Changes:

"I saw [Company] added [Tool] to your stack recently. A lot of teams do that when [business reason]. Are you rebuilding [system] this cycle?"

External Events:

"With [regulation] coming into effect in [timeline], teams like you are reviewing [category] solutions. What's your priority—compliance or performance?"

Example

Scenario: You're selling developer onboarding automation to engineering teams at Series A/B startups.

Today's signal intake:

Result of one morning's work: 2 high-score conversations opened same day, 1 medium moved to follow-up, 1 warm inbound generated from email touch.

Key observation: The VP Engineering hire and Series B announcement moved the needle fastest because they signal fresh decision-maker + fresh budget. The onboarding guide download was lower velocity but indicated active evaluation. Job postings are lagging indicators (pain already existed; now they're hiring to fix it).

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