Research

Prepare a customer research framework for sales outreach

Organize verified account information into relevant hypotheses and questions without pretending to know the buyer

9 min setupTested with:ChatGPTReviewed: 2026-08-28

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Account informationOffer and fitSales motion and rules

Your prompt

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Prepare an evidence-bound customer research framework for a sales conversation.

Verified account, team, role, event, technology, and interaction facts with dates and sources:
[account]

Product capabilities, limits, evidence, customer fit, price context, and approved claims:
[offer]

Goal, stage, channel, region, privacy, compliance, prohibited inference, and next decision:
[motion]

Create a fact ledger with source, date, locator, relevance, and freshness. Separate observed facts, reasonable hypotheses, unknowns, and prohibited inferences. Do not infer a person's priorities, budget, authority, pain, performance, intent, private data, or technology use from title or company alone. Map possible stakeholders by decision role only where evidenced. Connect each account signal to a product capability through an explicit, qualified relevance hypothesis; include evidence against fit and exclusion signals. Rank research gaps by their effect on the next decision. Propose neutral discovery questions and outreach angles that acknowledge uncertainty rather than stating hypotheses as facts. Flag stale, secondhand, sensitive, or conflicting information. End with a go, investigate, or do-not-personalize recommendation and a checklist for human verification.

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From input to outcome

A worked example

See how concrete context turns this recipe into a usable result

Actual input

Account information: Company site, Aug 18 2026: Northstar Studio is a 42-person UK design agency offering brand and web projects. Careers page lists remote project coordinators. LinkedIn company post, Jul 30: opened a Manchester office. Contact is Operations Director; no public statement of priorities or tools. CRM: attended our workflow webinar Aug 12 and downloaded a handoff checklist; no reply or meeting history.
Offer and fit: Product maps requests, owners, accepters, evidence, and escalation. Supports Slack and Microsoft Teams, not email-only workflows. Case study: one 35-person agency reduced overdue handoffs 18% over 10 weeks; single case, no guarantee. Typical annual price GBP 4,800-8,000 based on seats. Best fit: 20-100 person project teams with recurring cross-role handoffs. Exclude teams requiring on-premise hosting.
Sales motion and rules: Prepare for a 20-minute first discovery call requested after the webinar. UK. Goal is determine whether a workflow evaluation is relevant, not close. Do not use scraped personal data or infer growth pressure from the new office. Human seller verifies all facts before use.

Example output

Recommendation: proceed with discovery, but personalize only around verified company structure and the prospect's webinar/checklist actions.

Verified signals: 42-person UK project agency and services are current as of Aug 18 from the company site; remote coordinator roles appear on its careers page; Manchester-office announcement is dated Jul 30; the CRM records webinar attendance and checklist download on Aug 12. None proves a workflow problem, growth pressure, purchase intent, budget, authority, or tool stack.

Fit hypotheses: recurring brand and web projects plus coordination roles may involve cross-role handoffs; medium relevance, unverified. The contact's Operations Director title may make workflow evaluation appropriate, but decision authority is unknown. Webinar and checklist actions show topic engagement, not buying intent. The product-size range fits the published headcount, but workflow mode, hosting requirement, and price viability are unknown.

Discovery questions: “What prompted you to request this conversation after the workflow session?” “Could you walk me through one recurring handoff from request to acceptance?” “Where are owner, accepter, and completion evidence recorded today?” “What happens when acceptance is delayed or disputed?” “Which collaboration channels must a solution support?” “Who would need to evaluate workflow, security, and commercial fit if this proved relevant?”

Safe opening angle: reference the requested follow-up and checklist topic, then ask which part was relevant. Do not say the new office created coordination pain. Hold the 18% case study until a comparable problem is established, and present it as one agency's result with its 10-week context. Verify URLs, dates, contact identity, consent basis, hosting needs, and CRM history before the call.

Why this works

1
Fact-hypothesis separation prevents superficial personalization from becoming false familiarity.
2
Contrary fit signals reduce pressure to force every account into the pipeline.