The Buying-Signal Scorecard

For deciding whether to contact one named person this week, or keep watching them.

Take one prospect. Write their name and company at the top. Work down.

Part 1: Fit. Could they buy?

Score 1 to 5. One point for each that is true.

• Right company size
• Right sector
• Right role, the one that owns the problem
• They have the problem you solve
• You can name the outcome they would get

Fit score: ___ / 5

Fit qualifies. It does not prioritise. A five here still tells you nothing about timing.

Part 2: Readiness. Are they looking now?

List every observable action from the last two weeks. Anything older goes back in the pile.

Pull from three places:

Your own ecosystem Profile views. Company page views. Follows. Inbound connection requests. Engagement on your posts.

The person, outside your ecosystem Engaging on a competitor's post. Commenting under an industry voice. A role change. Posting about a topic they never posted about before.

The company A relevant job advert. A new hire in the role that owns the problem. Funding. News. A physical expansion.

Now run the three tests, in this order.

Test 1: Does context change the weight?

Score what it means, not that it happened.

• 1 = A like
• 2 = A comment saying great post
• 3 = A profile view during a handshake, or a follow
• 4 = A comment about a specific failure, a role change, a job advert naming the problem
• 5 = A comment asking what it costs, or a profile view weeks after connecting with no prompt

Take the highest weight you can honestly score: ___ / 5

Test 2: Is there a window?

• Two or more signals inside ten days
• Signals spread over months
• Only one signal, whenever it landed

Two signals six months apart is a coincidence. If nothing sits inside the window, stop here.

Test 3: Does it come from more than one place?

• Signals from two or more of the three groups above
• Everything from one group

Two weak signals from different sources beat one strong signal from a single source. That is the test doing the heavy lifting.

The decision

Fit ___ / 5. Readiness ___ / 5. Window: yes or no. Sources: one or more than one.

• Fit 4 or 5, readiness 4 or 5, inside the window, from more than one place: contact this week. Write about the thing they showed interest in.
• Fit 4 or 5, but one signal only, or outside the window: keep watching. Do not message.
• Fit 3 or below: watch at most. Readiness does not rescue poor fit.
• Readiness 1 or 2 whatever the fit: leave it. That is noise.

What to do with the result

The job of this scorecard is not to add names. It is to take them away, so your fixed outreach capacity goes to the few names that earned it.

Not more activity. Fewer, better names.