# How to Find Companies That Need What You Sell > How to find companies that need what you sell: the public signals to watch, the line to keep, how to rank them and who to email. By hand or in Outscope. Canonical: https://outscope.co/how-it-works Last updated: 2026-11-11 Watch for the moments a company says in public that it's about to change something you help with: a job posting, a funding round, a new market. Keep the sentence that shows it, rank the companies by how strong and how recent it is, and write to the person who owns the change. Six steps, by hand or with Outscope. Outscope finds the companies that need what you sell right now. It reads public job postings every day, scores them against your buying signals, and shows the evidence in the company's own words, with the person to email. ## Six steps, by hand or in Outscope | Step | By hand | In Outscope | | --- | --- | --- | | 1. Write down what you sell and who buys it | Two sentences in a doc. Rewrite them until a stranger could name your buyer. | Enter your website. Outscope reads it, writes down what you sell and who buys it, and you correct anything it got wrong. | | 2. List the changes that make a company need you | Five to eight phrases, each with the words a matching posting or story would use, such as "outbound", "SDR" or "pipeline". | It suggests signals from your website. Weight each from one to five dots, add your own in plain words, or switch one to rule out. | | 3. Read the places companies say it | Search Google for a job board's address and a phrase, such as site:jobs.lever.co "cold email", set to the past month, then a news search for the companies you find. Repeat for each board. Results are patchy. | Every day it reads new job postings on the job boards companies run themselves (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable and Workday). Only postings that use your keywords are read. 33,323 open postings on 1,270 job boards, counted 8 Nov 2026. | | 4. Keep the sentence that shows the need | Copy the sentence and the link into your sheet. A company with no sentence to point at is a guess. | A language model reads each one against your signals and has to quote the line that matched. The quote is checked word for word against the source. If it isn't there, the match is thrown out. | | 5. Rank by how strong, how recent and how close a fit | Sort the sheet by your strongest signal, then by date. Open each company's homepage to check the fit. | Companies are scored from 0 to 10 in code: the strongest match, how many match, how recent they are, and the fit read from the company's homepage. The best come first, each with its reason. | | 6. Write to the person who owns the change | Find the person on the company's site or LinkedIn, guess the address pattern, and verify it before you send. | Pick a company and it finds people in the roles you choose, each with a verified work email: 1 credit when found, nothing when not. It writes a first line from the company's own words. Export a CSV for any sending tool, or send the draft to Ballast. Outscope never emails anyone itself. | ### 1. Write down what you sell and who buys it Start with two sentences: what you sell, and the team that buys it. "Cold email software for founders who do their own outbound" looks for different companies than "an outbound agency for Series A software companies". Add how big your buyers are and whether they sell to businesses or consumers. You'll need it later to tell a buyer from a lookalike. **By hand:** Two sentences in a doc. Rewrite them until a stranger could name your buyer. **In Outscope:** Enter your website. Outscope reads it, writes down what you sell and who buys it, and you correct anything it got wrong. ### 2. List the changes that make a company need you A company about to need you usually says so somewhere first. It hires for the change, raises money for it, or announces it. Those moments are your signals: a team being built, a project starting, a tool or a problem named, a new market, a new leader. Write each one the way the company would say it. "Has budget for outbound" is never written down anywhere; "you'll choose and set up our outbound tools" is. Give each a weight, and add a few that rule a company out, like a recruitment agency hiring for its clients. "Hiring a Head of Sales" is the most honest thing a company will tell you all year. **By hand:** Five to eight phrases, each with the words a matching posting or story would use, such as "outbound", "SDR" or "pipeline". **In Outscope:** It suggests signals from your website. Weight each from one to five dots, add your own in plain words, or switch one to rule out. [How to write signals that match](https://outscope.co/docs/signals) ### 3. Read the places companies say it Companies put their plans in a few public places. Roles go on their own job board, run by an applicant tracking system such as Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable or Workday. Funding rounds, new markets, launches and new leaders go in the news and on their own blog. All of it is public and dated. Read often. A posting or a story from this week is a decision made this month; one from last spring may be old news. **By hand:** Search Google for a job board's address and a phrase, such as site:jobs.lever.co "cold email", set to the past month, then a news search for the companies you find. Repeat for each board. Results are patchy. **In Outscope:** Every day it reads new job postings on the job boards companies run themselves (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable and Workday). Only postings that use your keywords are read. 33,323 open postings on 1,270 job boards, counted 8 Nov 2026. ### 4. Keep the sentence that shows the need If you can't read the evidence, it isn't evidence. For each company, keep the one sentence that matches a signal, with its date and a link to where it was said. That sentence is your reason to write, and anyone can open the link and check it. A headline or a job title alone is a weak reason. "VP of Marketing" could mean anything; "rebuild our demand generation and choose which agencies we work with" says what happens next. **By hand:** Copy the sentence and the link into your sheet. A company with no sentence to point at is a guess. **In Outscope:** A language model reads each one against your signals and has to quote the line that matched. The quote is checked word for word against the source. If it isn't there, the match is thrown out. Example, Commure for Ballast. Hiring for cold email operations: "Plan and execute cold email campaigns end to end, from list segmentation and sequence design to copywriting, A/B testing, and send scheduling." [Sales Development Representative, Enterprise (India)](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Commure/10107908-8bd7-4754-9f1e-9c844eba0ff4), posted 22 Sept 2026. ### 5. Rank by how strong, how recent and how close a fit Put the strongest signal first, then the most recent: a match from this week outweighs the same match from two months ago. Several signals for the same change count for more than one. Then look at the company. One that clearly isn't your buyer goes to the bottom, whatever it said. **By hand:** Sort the sheet by your strongest signal, then by date. Open each company's homepage to check the fit. **In Outscope:** Companies are scored from 0 to 10 in code: the strongest match, how many match, how recent they are, and the fit read from the company's homepage. The best come first, each with its reason. [How companies are scored](https://outscope.co/docs/scoring) ### 6. Write to the person who owns the change Email the person who will live with the change: whoever runs sales for a sales hire, marketing for a marketing one, the founder at a small company. Open with the line the company wrote, then say what you'd do about it. **By hand:** Find the person on the company's site or LinkedIn, guess the address pattern, and verify it before you send. **In Outscope:** Pick a company and it finds people in the roles you choose, each with a verified work email: 1 credit when found, nothing when not. It writes a first line from the company's own words. Export a CSV for any sending tool, or send the draft to Ballast. Outscope never emails anyone itself. [Who to email and first lines](https://outscope.co/docs/who-to-email) ## What a signal can't tell you - **Whether they'll buy from you.** A signal shows a company is about to change something. A good one gets you a better reason to write. The rest is your offer. - **Much about very small companies.** Small local firms and companies under about ten people rarely post roles or make the news, so there's little to read. - **Whether the moment has passed.** A role can be filled a week after it goes up. Check the date before you write. For a longer guide to telling a real signal from noise, read [how to spot high intent leads](https://outscope.co/blog/high-intent-leads). ## Questions ### Why public signals and not intent data? A public signal is dated and says what a company is about to do, in its own words. You can open it and read the line yourself. Outscope doesn't buy intent data and doesn't track anyone's browsing. ### What does Outscope read? Every day it reads new job postings on the job boards companies run themselves (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable and Workday). Each quote links to where it was said. ### What if the model quotes something that isn't there? The match is thrown out. Every quote is checked word for word against its source before you see it, and the score is worked out in code from what passed. ### Can I try it on my own market first? Yes. Enter your website and the first preview reads up to 100 of today's postings against your signals and shows the top three companies in full. No card. ### Does Outscope send the emails? No. Export a CSV for the tool you send from, or send the people and their first lines to Ballast as a draft campaign. [Start from your website](https://outscope.co/signup): the first preview reads up to 100 of today's postings for you, free and with no card.