AI for Sales Prospecting: A Weekly Trigger-Watch Prompt

What you'll get

3 copy-ready blocks
3 min read

Weekly trigger watch
First line pattern
Filled in (illustrative, not a real company)

How to use it

The hack

once a week, give your AI assistant the names of your top accounts and ask for dated, linked changes only. Then open the links.

The hack: once a week, give your AI assistant the names of your top accounts and ask for dated, linked changes only. Then open the links.

The prompt

Use an assistant that can search the web. One without search will answer from memory and invent the dates.

Weekly trigger watch

Search the web for changes at the companies below in the last [30] days. Report only what you can link to.

For each company, look for: senior hires or departures, new sites or markets, funding, acquisitions, results or annual reports, large contracts or partnerships, regulation the company has said affects it, and open roles in [function].

For each item give: the company, what happened in one sentence, the date, the link, and the role inside the company it most affects.

Rules: if you find nothing dated inside the window, write "nothing found" for that company. Do not guess. Do not include anything without a link. Newest first.

Companies:
[paste up to 10 account names with their websites]

Ten accounts a run keeps the output short enough to check. Run it again for the next ten.

Read the output in two minutes

Open every link. If the page does not say what the assistant says, delete the line.
Check the date on the page, not the date in the answer.
Keep one trigger per account, the one closest to the problem you solve.
Write the role next to it. A new site matters to operations and IT. A new finance chief matters to finance.

From trigger to first line

The pattern: what you saw, where you saw it, the question it raises for that person's job.

First line pattern

I read in [source] that [company] [what happened]. For [their function] that usually raises [question]. How are you handling that?

Filled in (illustrative, not a real company)

I read in your March announcement that Northfield is opening a second distribution centre. For supply chain that usually raises how stock is slotted across two sites from day one. How are you handling that?

One trigger can open more than one door. The same announcement gives the Head of IT Applications a different question: how the second site connects to the warehouse system.

When it finds nothing

"Nothing found" is a result. Do not ask the assistant to try harder; that is how invented news appears. Check the company's own newsroom and careers page yourself, then leave the account until next week. Not every account has a reason to call every month.

Three mistakes to avoid

Sending the trigger without opening the link. One wrong fact in a first line ends the conversation.
Pasting 200 accounts. The output gets longer and nobody checks it.
Using the trigger as flattery. "Congratulations on the funding" is not a reason to talk. The question it raises is.

Make it a habit: the same half hour each week, the same ten accounts first, and one line added to each account's notes, even when the line is "nothing found".

Why this works on named accounts

Nobody can watch five thousand companies for news, with or without AI. A search across that many names returns noise, and no one opens the links. Ten named accounts are different. An assistant can check each one in a few minutes, you can open every link it returns, and you already know who inside the company the change affects. That is the practical case for a short list: it turns timing from luck into a weekly routine. The prompt below is only useful because the list above it is short and chosen.

How account-based selling works →

More from the Academy

20-minute trigger sweep (every Monday)

1. Open the Tier 1 list. For each account, check: news page, LinkedIn company page, careers page.   (10 min)
2. Write down every change with its date and link. No link, no trigger.                             (5 min)
3. For each trigger: who does it land on, and do we know them?                                      (3 min)
4. Pick the three accounts with the freshest trigger. They get this week's research hours.          (2 min)

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Set-up prompt (run once)

You are helping me research one company so I can have a useful first conversation with people there. I sell [what you sell, in one sentence] to [type of company]. The problem we solve is [problem, in the customer's words].
 
Rules for this whole conversation:
- Use only the sources I paste, or web results you can link to. Cite the source for every factual claim.
- If something is not in the sources, write "unknown". Do not guess names, numbers or dates.
- Keep facts and your own inferences separate, and label inferences as "inference".
- Write in plain English and keep answers short.

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Weekly Trigger Watch: An AI Prospecting Prompt That Checks Your Key Accounts for a Reason to Call