Good account research answers three questions before you write anything: could this company buy, might they buy now, and who would have to say yes. Everything else is trivia. This checklist covers twelve checks in four groups, what each one actually tells you, and the four findings that mean you should close the tab and move on.
Budget five to ten minutes per account by hand. If it takes longer, you are writing a dossier instead of making a decision.
Group 1: Fit — could they buy?
- Headcount and trajectory. LinkedIn shows employee count and whether it is rising or falling. Falling headcount at a company that fits on paper is a timing problem, not a fit problem.
- Industry and business model. Whether they sell to consumers or businesses changes almost every assumption you are about to make.
- Geography and entity structure. Where are they registered and where do they operate? This determines currency, contracting, data residency questions, and which of your case studies will land.
If fit fails, stop. Nothing in the other nine items rescues a company that is the wrong size or the wrong shape.
Group 2: Timing — might they buy now?
- Funding. A round closed in the last six to nine months means budget exists and there is pressure to spend it on growth.
- Hiring in your function. The strongest single signal on this list. A company hiring three people into the team your product supports has approved budget for that problem.
- Leadership changes. A new executive in your target function typically re-evaluates tooling within their first two quarters. That window is short and it is the best time to be in the room.
- Product or market news. A launch, a new market, or a new segment creates new operational problems that need solving.
Timing is what converts a fitting account into a working one. Most reps research fit thoroughly and timing barely at all, then wonder why well-targeted outreach gets no reply.
Group 3: Risk — should you walk away?
- Layoffs in the last two quarters. The single most reliable disqualifier.
- Public cost-cutting or spending freezes. Often visible in earnings commentary for public companies, and in quiet job-post withdrawals for private ones.
- Executive departures in your target function with no announced replacement. Nobody is signing anything until that seat is filled.
Reps skip this group because it produces bad news. That is exactly why it is worth doing — every account it removes gives you back the twenty minutes you would have spent on a deal that could not close.
Group 4: Access — who has to say yes?
- Who owns the problem. The functional lead, not the most senior name you can find.
- Who owns the budget, and who can veto. Usually one or two levels up, plus security or procurement for anything that touches data.
The output
The checklist is finished when you can write two lines:
- Verdict: pursue now, pursue later, or drop — with the one fact that decided it.
- Opening line: one specific, verifiable thing about this company that could not be said about any other.
If you cannot write the second line, you have not found a reason to reach out, and no amount of clever copy fixes that.
The twelve items at a glance
| Group | Check | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Fit | Headcount, industry, geography | Could they buy at all |
| Timing | Funding, hiring, leadership, product news | Is there a reason to act now |
| Risk | Layoffs, cost cutting, departures | Should you drop it |
| Access | Problem owner, budget owner, blockers | Who to contact and in what order |
Automating the boring twelve
Nine of the twelve items are visible on the company’s LinkedIn page and in recent news about it, which is why this is automatable. LinkedIntel reads the page you are on and returns funding, hiring signals, leadership changes, financial momentum, decision makers, and explicit red flags, scored as IMMEDIATE, MODERATE, or COLD, in about ten seconds. What it does not do is decide fit for your specific product — items 1 through 3 still need your judgement, and item 12 usually needs a conversation.
Used well, the tool handles groups 2 and 3 and you spend your ten minutes on groups 1 and 4, where judgement actually pays.
Related reading
How to research a company before a sales call is the narrative version of this checklist. What are buying signals in B2B sales goes deeper on group 2, and how to find decision makers on LinkedIn covers group 4 properly. If you are running this as a founder without a research team, LinkedIntel for founders is the relevant workflow.