How do we know when a company is actually ready to buy consulting work?

Buying triggers: how to tell which companies are worth approaching now

Stop sorting companies by what they are and start sorting them by what just happened to them. Seven events matter in consultancy markets. Each has a short window, so track a small list often rather than a big list occasionally.

20 August 2026 · 5 min read

A buying trigger is an event that changes what a company needs. Size and sector tell you who might buy from you one day. Only a trigger tells you who is worth approaching this quarter.

Is it a trigger? The date test

Can you say what changed, and roughly on what date? If not, it is a characteristic, not a trigger.

"A mid-sized housing association" is a characteristic. Useless for timing.
"Published a five-year decarbonisation plan in March with no head of sustainability" is a trigger. Act on it.

The seven triggers

Trigger	What it means	Where to look	Window
Budget released	Someone now has money and a deadline.	Board minutes, annual reports, grant and contract awards.	3–6 months
New decision-maker	They need an early win that is visibly theirs.	LinkedIn role changes, appointment announcements.	First 90–180 days
Public promise, no team	They have committed publicly and cannot deliver it internally.	Published strategies, annual report targets, filings.	6–12 months
Failed hire	They tried to fix it with a permanent hire and could not.	The same job advert reposted over months.	2–4 months
Structural change	A merger or restructure has broken how things worked.	Companies House, press releases.	3–9 months
Pressure event	A missed target or regulatory finding needs answering.	Regulator publications, trade press, results.	1–3 months
Peer movement	A competitor did it, so now they need a view.	Competitor announcements, conference agendas.	3–6 months

Act inside the window

A trigger is not a permanent label. After the window closes, treat the company as untriggered and wait for the next one.

A new director is useful in their first six months because they are still deciding how to spend the budget. At eighteen months you are asking them to unmake decisions they already made.

So do not build a big list of triggered companies. Check a defined list often enough to catch a trigger while it is open.

Find your own triggers

Yours beat the generic list above, because they come from work you actually won.

1.Pick one service line.
Triggers are specific to what you sell. A list built for everything ranks nothing.
2.List the last five clients who bought it.
Ask the partner who ran each account one question: what had just happened at that company when the conversation started? The answer is in their head, not the CRM.
3.Cross out anything you cannot put a date against.
You will be left with two or three recurring events. Those are your triggers.
4.Give each one a source and an owner.
One place to look, one named person, once a week. Three triggers checked weekly beats thirty checked never.

What a trigger is for

It does not tell you what to say. It tells you that saying something is worth doing now, and gives you a reason you are writing this week rather than any other week.

Open with something that actually happened at that company. That is a different object from an approach that opens with what your firm does.

What to do next

1Spend half an hour with your partners on the last five wins.One question each: what had just happened there?
2Apply the date test and keep only what passes.If you cannot say roughly when it happened, cross it out.
3Name a source and an owner for each trigger you keep.One source, one person, once a week.
4Drop anything outside its window.Chasing a stale trigger is how firms end up sending generic emails again.