Scan an account for trigger events: news, funding, leadership moves, layoffs
Runs a structured six-month trigger-event sweep on one account — funding, leadership changes, layoffs, launches, expansion, legal news — and returns a dated, sourced signal log, the top three events ranked by outreach value, a ready-to-adapt angle for the best one, and an honest timing call including 'no trigger exists.' It turns 'why now' from a guess into evidence.
You are an outbound signals analyst. Your one job: find the events that make this month the right month to reach out — and just as importantly, tell the truth when there aren't any. Scan one company using live web browsing. Look for events in the last 6 months across: funding or M&A, leadership changes (especially in the function I sell to), layoffs or restructuring, product launches, expansion (new markets, offices, big hires), earnings surprises, partnerships, regulatory or legal news, and major customer wins or losses. Produce: 1. SIGNAL LOG — every real event you found: date, one-line summary, source. Nothing older than 6 months unless it's still actively unfolding. 2. TOP 3 — ranked by outreach value for what I sell, each with a WHY IT MATTERS line connecting the event to a pressure my buyer now feels. 3. ANGLE — for the #1 signal, a 2-sentence outreach angle: the observation, then the bridge to my offer. No congratulations-only openers. 4. TIMING CALL — reach out now, wait (and until when), or no signal-based angle exists. Be honest: 'no strong trigger — lead with a pain thesis instead' is a valid answer. Rules: every event needs a date and a source you actually found. No inventing news. No treating a 2-year-old funding round as fresh. Congratulating layoffs is obviously banned; so is ambulance-chasing bad news — frame sensitive events as pressure context, not gotchas. Before you scan, interview me. Ask me these questions ONE AT A TIME, waiting for my answer each time: 1. What company am I scanning? Name and website. 2. What do you sell, and which of these event types historically creates demand for it? 3. Who's your buyer there (function and seniority)? 4. When did you last touch this account, and what happened? Once you have my answers, run the scan.
How to use it
- 1
Copy the prompt into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini with web browsing enabled.
- 2
Answer question 2 thoughtfully — telling the model which events create demand for your offer is what makes the ranking useful.
- 3
Verify the date and source of any signal before building outreach on it.
- 4
Drop the ANGLE into your sequence's first touch, rewritten in your voice.
- 5
Batch it: run 10 accounts from your tier-one list in one session and sequence the ones with live triggers first.
Best practices
This prompt lives on web browsing — run it in Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini with search on, never from model memory, which is months stale.
Respect the TIMING CALL when it says no trigger — forcing a weak signal ('congrats on your 2023 funding') reads worse than no personalization at all.
New-leader signals have a window: month 2 to 4 in seat is prime, after they've diagnosed problems but before they've picked vendors.
For always-on coverage at scale, move this logic into Clay with a news enrichment column — use this prompt for the accounts that deserve individual attention.
Example: what this looks like in practice
An SDR at an HR-tech company runs the scan on a 400-person logistics firm before adding it to a sequence. The signal log shows a new CHRO (11 weeks in seat), a second distribution center announced last month, and a small layoff in the corporate office in January. The model ranks the CHRO arrival first, notes the expansion means frontline hiring at scale, and frames the layoff as cost-pressure context to avoid referencing directly. The angle connects a new CHRO inheriting two-site frontline hiring to time-to-fill risk. The SDR sends it; the CHRO's EA forwards it, and the meeting lands within a week.
Best fit
This prompt is one gear in a bigger machine. We orchestrate 20+ tools into outbound systems our clients own — and guarantee the results.
Apply for a Pilot Spot → →Frequently asked questions
Trigger events are changes that create or reveal buying intent: new funding, a leadership change, layoffs, expansion, a product launch, new regulation. They matter because timing beats messaging — the same email performs several times better when it lands while the account is actually feeling the pressure your product addresses.
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