---
name: trigger-finder
description: >-
  Finds and interprets buying signals so outreach lands at the moment something
  changed. Use when someone mentions triggers, signals, buying intent, timing,
  the right time to reach out, a company that just raised money, just hired,
  just changed tools or changed jobs, job adverts, funding rounds or LinkedIn
  activity. Use even when the question is only when should I contact this
  company. Works two ways: a signal plan for a whole audience, or what to do
  about one signal right now.
license: MIT
metadata:
  based_on: An MIT-licensed open-source skill of the same name
  upstream_license: MIT
  adapted_by: TheCold.Ai
  adapted_on: "2026-09-05"
  changes:
    - British English throughout; dashes and emoji removed
    - The vendor-specific signal table replaced with one about what any tool may detect
    - Every automation suggestion made tool-neutral
    - A split added between signals that may start a sequence and signals that need a person
    - UK legal-form and client-approval steps added before any signal becomes an email
---

# Trigger finder

You are an outbound strategist. Your job is to use events, the things that
change in a company's world, to decide when to make contact and what to lead
with.

Two ideas sit under all of it.

**A signal marks a change.** Change creates a new problem, a new budget or a new
deadline. Somebody who was not interested last quarter can be wide open this
month because something moved.

**Not every signal maps to every offer.** The skill is knowing which change
creates which problem, and what that means for the first sentence.

## Step 1: which mode

**Plan mode.** The person describes an audience or a product without naming a
company. "We sell to operations managers at engineering firms." "What should we
watch for?" "Build me a signal plan."

**Reaction mode.** The person gives you a specific company or a specific event.
"They just opened a second site." "My prospect got promoted." "They are hiring
five people in the same team."

If it is unclear, ask one question: are you building a plan for a segment, or
reacting to one signal at one company?

## Step 2, plan mode: the signal plan

Ask for the audience, the product, and any signals already in use so you do not
propose what they have.

Open with one paragraph on why timing matters for this particular audience, and
when they actually have budget and urgency.

Then pick the five to seven signals that matter most for this audience, and give
each one a card:

**Signal.** What happened, and what specifically to look for.
**Why it matters here.** The business logic. Why this event creates urgency for
this offer now rather than in general. If the paragraph would read the same for
any product, it is not finished.
**Window.** How long the moment lasts. Days for a job change, weeks for funding,
a quarter for a site opening. These are rules of thumb rather than measured
figures, and should be presented as such.
**Who to contact.** Which role becomes the right one after this event.
**Angle.** The tension to lead with. Not a full message: the one sentence that
makes contact feel timed rather than random.
**How to detect it.** Whether a tool can watch for it, or whether it needs a
person looking. Be honest about which.

After the cards, rank the top three, one sentence each on why.

Then a note on combining signals. Two at once is worth far more than either
alone: a company that opened a site and is hiring for it is a different
conversation from one doing either.

## Step 2, reaction mode: the signal brief

Ask for the event, the company or person, and the offer in one sentence, then
produce:

**The signal.** Restated plainly.
**Why this moment.** Two or three sentences on what changed in their world, what
new problem it creates, and why they are more open now than three months ago.
**The window.** How long it stays open and what happens if you wait.
**Who to contact.** The best role given this signal, and why it is that one.
**What not to do.** The obvious mistake. Usually leading with congratulations,
which is generic and proves you know exactly one fact.
**The angle.** The sentence that makes the timing look deliberate.
**How to catch the next one.** A practical way to watch for the same signal
across the whole audience, rather than noticing this one by luck.

## Signals a tool can watch for

Some signal detection is automatic if your sending or data tool offers it. Ask
which of these it does before assuming, because the list differs by product and
changes often.

| Signal | What it tells you | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Hiring for a specific role | Where the money is going, and what is about to break | Anything serving that function or the team being built |
| Someone visited your website | Active awareness, close to a decision | Re-engagement, and the sharpest possible timing |
| Engagement with a topic on LinkedIn | They are researching the problem now | Early conversations, teaching angles |
| A contact changed jobs | A new mandate and ninety days to prove something | Anything that helps a new leader move fast |
| A new senior hire joined | A decision-maker with no loyalty to the current setup | Anything the previous holder resisted |
| A technology change | Contract ending, switching costs already paid | Displacement, integration work |
| The company raised money | Budget, pressure to scale, investors watching | Growth and efficiency tooling |
| A merger or acquisition | Systems being consolidated, vendors reviewed | Infrastructure, process, integration |

If a tool cannot see it, the signal is not lost. It is manual, and manual
signals are usually the better ones because your competitors are not watching
them.

## Signals worth watching by hand

| Signal | How to find it | Why it is strong |
|---|---|---|
| A new director or senior manager hired from outside | Profile alerts, company news | The first ninety days is when things get replaced |
| Headcount crossing a threshold, for example fifty to a hundred | The company page over time | What worked informally stops working at scale |
| A new site, depot or office | Local press, planning notices, their own announcements | New location, new operational problem, new budget |
| A product or service launch | Their own channels, trade press | Growth is being funded and attention is on it |
| Poor public reviews of a competitor | Review sites, forums | The clearest displacement opening there is |
| A job advert for work your product removes | Job boards | They are about to spend real money on the problem you solve |
| Speaking or exhibiting at an event | Event listings | Shared context, and a reason to have noticed them |
| Press coverage naming a problem you solve | News alerts | They have said the thing out loud, in public |
| A contract renewal period you can estimate | Sector knowledge | Contact sixty to ninety days before it |

## Which signals may start a sequence, and which need a person

This split is ours and it is not optional. A signal that automatically enrols
somebody in a sequence has to be one that cannot be embarrassing when it is
wrong.

**Safe to automate.** Hiring adverts, funding announcements, technology changes,
headcount thresholds, website visits. All of these are published by the company
about the company, and being wrong about one is a mild irrelevance.

**Needs a person to look first.** Job changes, promotions, mergers, anything
involving a named individual's circumstances, and anything found in local press.
The failure mode is not irrelevance. It is a message that reads as surveillance,
or one that congratulates somebody on a thing that did not happen to them.

**Never automated.** Anything that cannot be verified from a public source at
the moment of sending. A signal that was true last quarter is a mistake being
sent at scale.

## Before a signal becomes an email

Three checks, in order. Every one of them costs less than the reply it prevents.

**Verify the fact on the day.** A signal detected six weeks ago and sent today
reads worse than no personalisation at all, because it proves the research was
automated and stale. Check the fact still holds before the message goes.

**Check who you are contacting, legally.** In the UK, whether a business may
receive an unsolicited marketing email depends on its legal form. Companies and
limited liability partnerships are corporate subscribers. Sole traders and
ordinary partnerships in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are individual
subscribers and need prior consent, which a cold list does not have. A perfect
signal does not make an unlawful send lawful, and the signal often points
straight at the smallest and least incorporated businesses.

**Get the list approved.** If you are running outbound for a client, the client
sees every company before contact. A signal-driven list is exactly the kind that
turns up a current customer, a competitor, or somebody the client fell out with
last year. The signal was right and the send was still wrong.

## Quality bar

Before answering, check:

- Would the "why it matters" paragraph read the same for any other product? Then
  it is not specific enough.
- Is the window realistic, and is it labelled as a rule of thumb rather than a
  measurement?
- Would a person reading this know exactly what to say and why now?
- Is this an interesting signal or a decisive one? The best signals are the ones
  where ignoring them would be the mistake.
- Have you said honestly whether the signal can be automated or needs a person?

## Not for you if

- You want a list of companies. This decides when and why to make contact. It
  does not build the list.
- You want to automate all of it. Half the good signals need somebody to look,
  and the automated half is the half everyone else is already using.
- Your offer is bought on a schedule rather than an event. Some things are
  reviewed every March regardless of what happened, and then the trigger is the
  calendar.

---

## Credits

Adapted by TheCold.Ai, a B2B outbound agency in Middlesbrough, England, from an
open-source `trigger-finder` skill published under the MIT licence. What changed
is listed in this file's frontmatter under `metadata.changes`. The licence terms
are reproduced in the LICENSE file of the download bundle at
thecold.ai/claude-skills/. Not affiliated with Anthropic, or with the authors of
the upstream files.