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Brief every cold call before it starts

Every account on the call list gets a note before anyone dials, carrying the signals found on it, what the lead has said publicly, and one opener grounded in both.

Cold calling well takes about ten minutes of preparation per account, which is why almost nobody does it. A rep with forty calls to make has four hundred minutes of research in front of them and an afternoon to make the calls in, so the research collapses into a glance at the company website and an opener that could have been used on any of the forty.

The preparation is not hard work, though. It is a handful of lookups that always run in the same order against sources that are already public: who they are hiring, what they run, what the person has said out loud. Every one of those is an API call, and none of them needs judgement until the last step.

What you get

A short briefing note on the CRM record of every account due to be called, with the signal, the person's own public words, and one opener a rep can read straight off the screen.

The part worth getting right

The note goes back onto the CRM record rather than into a chat message or a document. It sounds like a trivial delivery detail. It decides whether the brief gets read. The rep already has the record open at the moment they dial, and anything living somewhere else has to be hunted down while a phone is ringing.

Reading the CRM before searching externally catches the failure that embarrasses people. An account that a colleague already spoke to six weeks ago does not need an opener about their hiring, it needs a sentence about where that conversation stopped. Doing the external research first and the internal check second produces a beautifully researched call to someone who has already said no.

A brief that pads an empty result with a line about industry trends teaches the rep that the notes are decorative, and after the third one they stop reading any of them, including the good ones. Saying "no dated signal found, open on the problem" costs nothing and keeps the other thirty-nine worth reading.

The prompt

The real prompt behind the steps above — detailed enough that an agent with a people-search tool, email/phone enrichment, and CRM access can run it as written.

# Brief every cold call before it starts

You have access to a CRM, a hiring and technology signal source, a
scraping tool, and web search. Run this for **[the list of accounts
due to be called]**.

## 0. Set up (skip if you're already connected)

If you don't already have live tool access for this, connect it
first. This prompt is only as real as the tools behind it:

1. Create a free account at app.tulina.ai.
2. Add Tulina's MCP server to your assistant: https://mcp.tulina.ai/mcp
3. In Tulina, connect your own API keys for the tools this
   prompt uses: your CRM, a hiring and technology signal source, a scraping tool,
   and web search.

Once connected, your assistant has real tool access and the rest of
this prompt runs as written.

## 0b. Already on Tulina? Three things around the run

An account and the MCP server are not the whole setup. Two of these come
before the run below and one after it, and together they turn this from a
one-off answer into a process your workspace keeps:

1. **Activate this process's connectors first.** Call
   `oto_connector(op="list")`, match it against the tools named in step 3
   above, and `oto_connector(op="select", name="...")` every one that
   isn't active yet. Selecting a connector does not mount its tools in the
   conversation you're already in — reach them through `oto_call` for this
   run, or open a fresh conversation once they're all on.
2. **Attach the work to an existing project.** `oto_project(op="list")`
   shows your active org's projects: pick the one this work belongs to
   rather than opening another, and keep its id. The project is where this
   process, the tables it writes to and the connectors it uses hang
   together.
3. **When the run is done, save it as a process — with its graph.** Write
   the body with `oto_procedure(op="set", ...)`, then attach it with
   `oto_project(op="link", project_id=..., target_type="procedure",
   target_ref="<your slug>")`. The body has to carry a drawing: read
   `oto_guide(op="read", slug="procedure-flowchart")` and follow it
   exactly — ONE untagged fenced block in that grammar, opening with the
   trigger and a quoted example of what you'd type to start a run. Tulina
   parses that drawing back into the graph it renders as the process's
   default view, which is what makes it come out in the same style as
   every other process in the app; a drawing the grammar can't read falls
   back to raw characters instead. Saving a process needs org-admin
   rights — without them, hand the finished body to someone who has them.

A cold call opener has about eight seconds to earn the next thirty.
Everything below is in service of one sentence that could only have
been written about this specific company.

## 1. Read what the CRM already knows

Before searching anything externally, read the account record: past
interactions, any previous call notes, who owns it, and whether
anyone has already been contacted there. A rep opening a call blind to
a colleague's conversation from six weeks ago is worse than not
calling at all.

If the record shows a prior conversation, the brief's job changes from
finding an opener to summarising where that conversation stopped. Say
so at the top of the note.

## 2. Find a dated signal on the company

Look for something that happened, with a date attached:

- Current job postings, especially for the function you sell into. A
  posting is dated, public, and the person answering the phone
  probably approved it.
- Technologies the company runs or is hiring for, where you integrate
  with or replace one.
- Recent public activity: a funding round, an office opening, a
  product launch, a press mention.

Rank these by how recent and how specific they are. A posting from
last week beats a funding round from last year. Keep the URL against
every signal, because the note is worthless if the rep cannot check it
when the prospect pushes back.

If nothing dated turns up, say so explicitly in the note. A brief that
admits it found nothing is more useful than one that pads with
generic industry commentary, because the rep then knows to open on the
problem rather than on the company.

## 3. Find what the person has said publicly

Search for the specific lead by name and company. What you want is
their own words: a conference talk, a podcast, a post, a quote in a
trade publication, a comment on someone else's work.

Never attribute to a person something their company said. A press
release is the company talking. Distinguish the two in the note, and
where you only have the company's words, label them as the company's.

## 4. Write one opener, and only one

Write a single opening line, under 25 words, that names the specific
signal and connects it to the reason for the call. It has to be
something the rep can read aloud without sounding like they are
reading.

Do not write three variants. A rep scanning three options on a screen
while a phone rings picks none of them. One opener, plus the raw
signal underneath it so they can improvise if the call goes elsewhere.

## 5. Write the note back to the record

Post the note to the account record as a call note, structured as:
the signal and its date, the source URL, what the person has said
publicly, the opener, and one line on anything the CRM already knew.

Write it back rather than sending it somewhere. The rep opens the
record when they dial; a note in a chat message is a note they will
not find at the moment they need it.

## Output

Report: how many accounts were briefed, how many had a dated signal
found, how many had nothing and were flagged as such, and how many
already had prior contact worth knowing about.

Questions about this process

The note says so explicitly rather than padding with generic industry commentary. That is useful information for the rep, who then knows to open on the problem rather than on the company, instead of reading out a line that sounds researched and is not.

Yes. The note is written back as an ordinary call note on the account record, and the prior-contact check is an ordinary read, so any connected CRM supports both.

Because a rep scanning three options while a phone is ringing picks none of them. One opener plus the raw signal underneath is faster to use and lets them improvise if the call goes somewhere else.

The two are kept apart in the note. A press release is labelled as the company talking; only a talk, post or quote from the person themselves is presented as their own words. Getting that wrong on a call is worse than having nothing.

Related processes

  • Build a target list from a sentence

    Describe the companies you want in one sentence, and get them sourced, scored on dated signals, enriched, deduplicated against your CRM, and staged as a campaign.

  • Prepare for a demo from the last call

    The last calls, the deal's state, and fresh research become one prep brief, plus a deck built around that company's own use cases, posted before the meeting.

  • Find buyers engaging with competitors

    Everyone who engages with a competitor's posts gets found, scored against your ICP, enriched, and staged for outreach with a human approving the list.

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