2 Check it, then copyYou're helping me, a small-package shipping salesperson, make a provisional judgment about one account: is it worth pursuing now? Judge two things separately. PARCEL RELEVANCE: does public evidence affirmatively show that getting physical products to customers is a meaningful part of the business, in a way that plausibly involves small-package parcel shipping? WHY NOW: is there a dated change or other public signal that gives an honest reason the account may be especially worth attention now? This is a quick, evidence-based call on one account. It isn't a list of prospects, a shipping story, a contact map, a conversation plan, an opportunity analysis or a score.
What I have:
- Company name: [COMPANY NAME]
- Website: [WEBSITE]
- Location or site to focus on: [LOCATION OR SITE TO FOCUS ON]
- My selling focus, in general terms: [YOUR SELLING FOCUS, IN GENERAL TERMS]
- Why I'm looking at this account: [WHY YOU'RE LOOKING AT THIS ACCOUNT]
If a line under "What I have" shows only its own field label in square brackets instead of my text, for example "[WEBSITE]", I didn't fill it in. Treat it as not supplied, and don't list it as a gap. The company name and website are both needed to check you have the right company. If neither is supplied, tell me you need them and stop. If only one is supplied, use it, and say in Section A that the company's identity is less certain. If I supplied a location or site, focus on it where the evidence allows, but don't assume it's a shipping origin. If I didn't supply a selling focus, judge parcel relevance only and don't invent a focus for me. [MY COMPANY] is a reserved name for the company I sell for, not a blank field.
"Why I'm looking at this account" is my reason, not evidence. Test it against public sources. Label anything that comes only from it YOU SUPPLIED. It can't by itself support PURSUE NOW.
Before writing anything, check whether any supplied field contains prohibited private or confidential information. Allowed: the company's public name and website, public company facts, public text, a general description of who I sell to, and a general reason I'm looking. Prohibited: individual contact names, email addresses, phone numbers, account numbers, CRM notes or exports, confidential account notes, internal account or territory lists, quotas, exact rates, discounts, shipment volumes, customer-specific contract dates or terms, competitor pricing, invoices, copied emails or message threads, proposals and confidential documents. A field's label doesn't make its content safe: prohibited material pasted into a field for public information stays prohibited. If you find prohibited information, discard it completely before reasoning and set a privacy-reminder requirement. Do not repeat, paraphrase, summarize, classify, count or indirectly use the private values, and don't let them shape the call. After Section F, add one generic privacy reminder naming only the categories that were omitted. The reminder is mandatory whenever prohibited information was supplied, even if every private value was successfully omitted.
Label every point you make about the company:
- STATED PUBLICLY: a public source says it directly. Name the source and its date when one is available. Stated publicly isn't the same as confirmed: public pages can be out of date, and the company hasn't told me itself.
- INFERRED: your reasoning from a clue. Name the clue, and keep the inference clearly apart from what the source says.
- UNKNOWN: the evidence doesn't establish it. Not found is different from not true, so never say something doesn't exist because you didn't find it.
- YOU SUPPLIED: something from my generalized context that you haven't checked against a public source.
Don't use CONFIRMED or VERIFIED as a label, or to describe any point.
If you can look things up online:
- Check you have the right company first. If the name could belong to more than one business, or the website doesn't seem to match the name, say so in Section A and use only sources that clearly belong to the company I mean. If you can't tell, say which company you used.
- Start with the company's own website: its About, products, locations, shipping and returns, careers and news or press pages, where they help. Then use dated company announcements and reputable reporting for recent changes.
- For changes, prefer roughly the last 12 months, with dates. A stable fact on a current company page can be used even if it was first published earlier. Treat older news as possibly out of date, and say so.
- An announced or planned facility isn't an operating facility unless a source says it has opened.
- Don't research individual people, contact details or contact databases.
- Don't research carrier rules, rates, surcharges, service standards or competitive rate information. This call doesn't need them.
If you can't look things up online, don't guess. In Section A, write exactly: "Live public research was not used. I worked only from the public material and generalized context you supplied." Work only from what I've supplied, and don't claim to have checked the website or any other source. Either way, don't use what you remember about the company as a fact or a source. Use only sources you actually open for this call, and what I've supplied. When no live research is done, a company-specific fact may appear only if it's in the public material I supplied. If I supplied both the company name and the website, and public text for that account, treat that text as my supplied public evidence for the named company: label it as supplied, and don't present it as independently checked. Don't use CHECK ONE THING FIRST just because live browsing wasn't available. Doubt about the company's identity blocks the call only when there's an actual mismatch, ambiguity or missing connection in what I supplied. Examples in these instructions illustrate rules only; they are never facts about the company being assessed. If the evidence is thin, stay useful: say plainly what is and isn't established, and remember that CHECK ONE THING FIRST may fit when one public fact would materially improve the call.
Parcel relevance:
- Qualitative clues that can support parcel relevance, when a public source supports them: physical products; selling direct to consumers; online ordering or an ecommerce channel; stores that also fulfil online orders; marketplace selling; published shipping and returns policies; fulfillment or distribution locations; and products that plausibly move through parcel networks. These are clues to relevance. Never turn them into a volume estimate.
- If the evidence suggests the business is mainly service-based, doesn't sell physical products, or ships mostly freight such as pallets or very large items rather than parcels, say so plainly. Don't force a parcel case.
- Orders are not packages. Don't turn orders into packages, and don't estimate package or shipment volume from revenue, headcount, locations, store counts or order activity.
- Don't give package weights, sizes, counts or numeric weight bands, and don't apply any packages-per-day or per-week threshold. This call doesn't need a package profile.
- Company size isn't shipping volume. Growth or hiring isn't shipping pain. Funding isn't buying intent.
- A free-shipping threshold isn't evidence of a shipping problem. Treat customer reviews as weak evidence, and never as proof of a shipping problem.
- A carrier named on a public shipping, returns or tracking page is only a clue. It doesn't show the current carrier, the carrier mix, a contract or which carrier is the incumbent (the current main provider). Don't guess the incumbent or the carrier mix.
- A delivery promise is what the company tells its own customers. It doesn't establish the carrier, the service, transit times or where orders ship from.
- A job title or role on a public page doesn't establish buying authority.
- Don't infer dissatisfaction, pain, or willingness to switch from anything public.
Why now:
- WHY NOW is supplemental prioritization context, not a qualification gate. If parcel relevance is VISIBLE and the account reasonably fits any selling focus I supplied, the absence of a dated trigger doesn't block PURSUE NOW. When there's no dated trigger, write the no-trigger sentence in Section D, then make the call from parcel relevance and fit. Don't create a research task whose purpose is only to find a trigger.
- Fit and timing are separate. A recent signal isn't automatically important, and recency alone is never a reason.
- Signals that may matter, when a dated public source supports them: new or expanded facilities; a new ecommerce capability; a material product expansion; new sales channels; acquisitions; store or market expansion; fulfillment-related hiring; meaningful operating changes; and publicly announced growth initiatives.
- For each signal you list, give the public fact and its date, label any possible parcel implication INFERRED, and explain the connection only if a reasonable one exists. Leave out company news with no honest parcel connection.
- These are signals only. Never claim a signal establishes shipping pain, dissatisfaction, buying intent, willingness to switch, available parcel volume or a problem with the current carrier.
- Don't manufacture urgency from peak season, carrier rate changes, market conditions, general ecommerce growth, an old news item or recency alone.
Choosing the call (one of three labels; no score, grade, percentage, stars, ranking or High / Medium / Low):
- PURSUE NOW: the evidence already supports spending my attention on the account without another qualification check first. It doesn't require urgency. Use it when parcel relevance is VISIBLE from affirmative public evidence that parcel shipping is plausibly relevant to how the business gets physical products to its customers; if I supplied a selling focus, the evidence reasonably fits it; and no affirmative evidence materially points away from fit. A dated why-now signal can strengthen the explanation, but it's optional: don't require a dated trigger, recent news, a business change or urgency. Don't use PURSUE NOW merely because nothing negative was found, the company is large, it's growing, it hired people, it raised money, it has a free-shipping threshold, a carrier is named publicly, or I seem keen.
- CHECK ONE THING FIRST: only when one publicly checkable fact is necessary before you can make a reasonable judgment about the company's identity, its parcel relevance, or its fit with a selling focus I supplied, for example whether the company actually sells physical products directly to customers, whether the relevant site is operating, or whether an apparently relevant online store belongs to the same company. Name one primary check, not a research checklist. The check is never shipment data, current rates, contract information or anything confidential. Don't use CHECK ONE THING FIRST merely because there's no recent news, no dated why-now event or no special urgency signal, or because more research might uncover a stronger reason to prioritize the account. If parcel relevance is VISIBLE and fit with any selling focus I supplied is reasonably supported, searching for a why-now trigger is never the one thing to check.
- NOT NOW: when the evidence points away from parcel relevance; the business is mainly service-based with no established physical-product shipping; the relevant activity looks freight-heavy rather than small-package parcel; the account is clearly outside a selling focus I supplied; or the public evidence is too weak to justify pursuit and no single reasonable public check would resolve it. NOT NOW is provisional. It doesn't mean the account is permanently disqualified, dead, never to be pursued, to be removed from my territory or abandoned.
- A dated trigger alone is never enough for PURSUE NOW. The absence of a dated trigger alone is never a reason for CHECK ONE THING FIRST or NOT NOW.
Boundaries:
- This step decides whether the account is worth pursuing now. Don't build the account's shipping story: no full shipping profile, detailed fulfillment story, pressure-point analysis or package profile. That's the next step.
- Don't name job functions or people to contact, write an opening line or outreach message, or plan first-conversation questions.
- Don't ask for or suggest shipment data, volumes, weights, zones, rates, spend, savings, carrier mix or contract dates, and don't analyse the current carrier.
- Don't recommend a carrier, a service, pricing or a discount, and don't describe what [MY COMPANY] offers or charges.
- This isn't advice on an active deal's next move.
- Some decisions stay with me: whether to pursue the account, whether to set it aside, territory and quota priorities, relationship history, internal escalation and pricing. When one of these matters, mark it "Your call" and don't decide it for me. Never declare an account permanently disqualified.
Write the answer in exactly these sections. Keep it short enough to scan in a couple of minutes.
A. SOURCES AND IDENTITY
Say whether live public research was used. If it was, identify the company and site you checked, list only the most relevant source pages you used, with titles and web addresses where available, and note any doubt about the company's identity. If it wasn't, write the no-research sentence above. Don't claim to have checked a source you didn't check.
B. WHAT THEY APPEAR TO DO
One or two short labelled points: the physical products or business activity that is established, and the relevant sales channels where established. Don't build the shipping story.
C. PARCEL RELEVANCE
The strongest labelled evidence for parcel relevance, and the strongest evidence against or limiting it. Don't estimate volume. End with exactly one of these lines:
Parcel relevance: VISIBLE
Parcel relevance: UNCLEAR
Parcel relevance: NOT ESTABLISHED
D. WHY NOW
Only meaningful dated changes with an honest possible parcel connection, each with the public fact and its date, and the possible parcel implication labelled INFERRED. If there are none, write: "No dated change found that gives a clear reason to reach out now." Then make the call from parcel relevance and fit; no trigger isn't a gap to fill. Don't manufacture urgency.
E. WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS
No more than 3 unknowns that would change the call, the most important first. If only one fact matters, give one. Don't include volume, weights, zones, current rates, spend, carrier mix, contract dates or pricing. If the evidence already supports PURSUE NOW, don't turn finding recent news or a dated trigger into a prerequisite for the call.
F. THE CALL
Exactly one of these labels, with no other labels and no list of alternatives: PURSUE NOW, CHECK ONE THING FIRST, NOT NOW. Then:
Reason: 2 or 3 concise lines tied only to the evidence above.
Next: exactly one proportionate next step.
- For PURSUE NOW, the next step is normally to build the account's shipping story before any outreach.
- For CHECK ONE THING FIRST, the one public check to make.
- For NOT NOW, the kind of public change that would make the account worth reconsidering, if there is one. Then write: "Whether to set this account aside is Your call."
Rules:
- Don't write an outreach message, an opener or discovery questions, and don't recommend pricing or a carrier.
- Don't name individual people.
- Write plainly. No hype, no persona, no scores and no commentary on how you worked.
- Never ask me for contact details, CRM notes, account numbers, volumes, rates, discounts, contract dates or terms, competitor pricing, invoices, copied messages, proposals or confidential documents. If I've included any of these, treat them as not supplied: don't repeat, quote, paraphrase or include the value anywhere in Sections A–F, and don't let it shape the call indirectly. Then, after Section F, add a short privacy reminder that names only the categories of information you left out and tells me not to paste them into AI tools, for example: "I left out contact details and internal account notes. Don't paste that information into AI tools." The reminder names categories only: never repeat a private value, never mention a person's name, and never quote the sensitive input. It must be the absolute final text in your response. If prohibited private information was supplied, the response is incomplete unless the final text is the privacy reminder.
- Don't add offers, follow-up suggestions or questions after Section F or after the privacy reminder.
If you can't look things up online, tell me, and I'll paste text from their website instead.
Don't look anything up online for this, even if your tool can. If your tool searches automatically, ignore those results and don't use or cite them. Use only the public information I've supplied, including the public text below. Label what that text says as STATED PUBLICLY, with "public text you supplied" as its source, and treat it as my supplied public evidence for the company named above without presenting it as independently checked. In Section A, write exactly: "Live public research was not used. I worked only from the public material and generalized context you supplied." Don't claim to have checked the website or any other source.
The public text below may mix public information with prohibited private information. Use only the portions that are clearly public and non-sensitive. Everything else must be discarded under the privacy rule.
Public website or research text:
[PUBLIC WEBSITE OR RESEARCH TEXT]
Select the prompt text above and copy it.