sales-intent

What this skill does

# Read Buying Signals & Prioritize Accounts

Help the user interpret buying signals, score leads, and prioritize accounts for outreach based on signal strength. This skill is platform-agnostic but references Apollo.io (with Bombora/LeadSift intent data) as the primary tool. The same frameworks apply to ZoomInfo Intent, G2, 6sense, Demandbase, or any intent data provider.

## Step 1 — Gather context


If `references/learnings.md` exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. **What signals are you working with?**
   - A) Intent data (topics companies are researching)
   - B) Job change alerts (prospects who switched roles)
   - C) Funding/growth signals (recent raise, IPO, acquisition)
   - D) Hiring signals (job postings that indicate need for your product)
   - E) Technographic signals (adopted/removed a technology)
   - F) Engagement signals (website visits, content downloads, email opens)
   - G) All available signals — help me make sense of them
   - H) No signals set up yet — help me get started

2. **What's your goal?**
   - A) Prioritize my existing pipeline/list — who to contact first
   - B) Find new accounts showing buying behavior
   - C) Build a signal-based outreach workflow (automated)
   - D) Understand what my intent data is telling me
   - E) Set up intent/signal tracking for the first time

3. **What tools do you have for signal data?**
   - A) Apollo.io (Bombora/LeadSift intent)
   - B) ZoomInfo Intent
   - C) 6sense / Demandbase
   - D) G2 buyer intent
   - E) Bombora (direct)
   - F) CRM engagement data only
   - G) Multiple sources

4. **What do you sell?** (Brief description — this helps interpret which signals matter most for your product)

## Step 2 — Signal taxonomy and prioritization framework

**Read `references/platform-guide.md`** for detailed module documentation, pricing, integrations, and data model.

*You no longer need the platform guide details — focus on the user's specific situation.*

## Step 3 — Signal-to-action playbooks

### For each signal type, define the action:

**Direct intent detected** (company researching your category):
1. Identify the likely buyer (by title/role at that company)
2. Enrich contact info → `/sales-enrich`
3. Send personalized outreach referencing their challenge area (NOT "I see you're researching X" — that's creepy)
4. Messaging angle: lead with a relevant case study or insight about the problem they're researching

**Job change — former champion**:
1. Wait 30-60 days (let them settle in)
2. Send a congratulatory message — no pitch
3. Follow up 2-3 weeks later with a soft ask: "As you're getting set up, happy to share what worked at [their old company]"

**Job change — new leader**:
1. Research the new leader's background (LinkedIn, previous company)
2. New leaders make buying decisions in their first 90 days — timing is critical
3. Messaging angle: "New [title]s at companies like yours typically face [challenge]. Here's how we've helped others in your situation."

**Funding event**:
1. Act within 2 weeks of announcement (before competitors do)
2. Reference the funding specifically: "Congrats on the Series B"
3. Messaging angle: connect your product to what the funding is for (scaling team, entering new market, building infrastructure)

**Hiring signal**:
1. Identify what roles they're hiring for and why it matters
2. Messaging angle: "I noticed you're building out your [team]. Companies in that phase often need [your product] to [outcome]."

**Competitive evaluation**:
1. Highest urgency — they're actively comparing options
2. Lead with differentiation, not feature lists
3. Offer a rapid evaluation or proof of concept
4. Messaging angle: "If you're evaluating [category], here's what our customers say makes us different from [competitor]"

## Step 5 — Workflow automation

### Automated signal-to-sequence routing

Set up rules to automatically route signals into outreach:

| Signal trigger | Action | Sequence type |
|---|---|---|
| Intent score spikes (new) | Add to high-intent sequence | Aggressive — 5-7 touches over 14 days |
| Job change detected | Add to job change sequence | Warm — congratulations + soft pitch over 30 days |
| Funding announced | Add to funding sequence | Timely — reference funding, 4-5 touches over 10 days |
| Website pricing page visit | Notify rep in Slack | Manual follow-up — don't automate, too personal |
| Content download | Add to nurture sequence | Educational — 3-4 touches over 21 days |

### In Apollo.io
Use Apollo Workflows (Professional+ plan) to automate:
1. **Trigger**: Intent topic score increases, job change detected, or contact stage changes
2. **Action**: Add to sequence, create task, update field, send Slack notification
3. **Filter**: Only trigger for contacts matching your ICP criteria

## Gotchas

- **Don't treat all signals as equal.** Claude tends to list all available signals without weighting them. A Bombora intent spike is vastly more actionable than a LinkedIn post like. Use the signal strength ranking to prioritize.
- **Don't reference signals directly in outreach.** Never say "I saw you're researching sales engagement tools" or "I noticed you visited our pricing page." It's creepy and breaks trust. Use signals to inform your timing and angle, not your opening line.
- **Don't act on stale signals.** Intent data older than 30 days is context, not a trigger. A funding round from 6 months ago is not a reason to reach out "about your recent raise." Check signal dates.
- **Don't ignore ICP fit because a signal is strong.** A strong buying signal at a company that's too small, in the wrong industry, or in a geography you can't serve is still a bad prospect. Signal + fit = action. Signal alone ≠ action.
- **Don't automate outreach for high-value signals.** For direct intent, competitive evaluation, and champion job changes, manual personalized outreach dramatically outperforms automated sequences. Reserve automation for lower-strength signals (content downloads, website visits).

- **Self-improving**: If you discover something not covered here, append it to `references/learnings.md` with today's date.

## Before recommending a specific platform skill

This skill covers a strategy domain across many platforms. **Before pointing the user to any specific platform skill** (any `/sales-{platform}` listed in `## Related skills`, e.g., `/sales-mailshake`, `/sales-klaviyo`, `/sales-apollo`), read that platform skill's actual `SKILL.md` first. The 1-line description in `## Related skills` is enough to *identify* a candidate — it's not enough to *commit* to it or to write a prompt that invokes it well.

**How to read it:**
- If `~/.claude/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md` exists locally, `Read` it.
- For `sales-*` skills, `WebFetch` directly from this repo: `https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md` — e.g., for `sales-mailshake`: `https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/sales-mailshake/SKILL.md`.
- For non-`sales-*` skills (third-party), look up `{org}/{repo}` in `~/.claude/skills/sales-do/references/skill-sources.md` if installed and fetch the same `skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md` path under that repo.

**After reading,** ground your recommendation in something concrete from the SKILL.md (its scope, a sub-flow, its `argument-hint` shape, or a "Do NOT use for..." negative trigger). Align any generated invocation with the platform skill's `argument-hint`. If the platform skill turns out not to fit the user's situation, swap to another or handle the question here directly rather than recommending a poor fit.

## Related skills

- `/sales-qualified` — Qualified platform help (Signals buyer intent, Piper AI SDR for acting on intent)
- `/sales-prospect-list` — Build the prospect list to layer signals on top of
- `/sales-enrich` — Enrich signal-triggered contacts with verified contact info
- `/sales-cadence` — Design signal-specific outbound sequences
- `/sales-apollo` —