fix(leads): target buyers and decision makers, not people selling - #158
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Two things I got wrong in the intent sweep, both of which pointed it at the wrong population. Freelance and job boards were on the source list, on the reasoning that a job ad is approved budget. They are dense with the exact inverse of a lead: people advertising their own availability, in the same vocabulary, about the same topic, with the same enthusiasm. Nothing in the scorer told those apart from somebody buying, so "load testing consultant, available for hire" scored like a purchase. Those boards are gone, and self-promotion is now disqualifying wherever it appears — the phrasing turns up on every platform, not only the ones that specialise in it. What genuine demand those boards carry is demand for labour rather than for a supplier, so "hire an agency" and "hire a load testing engineer" have been separated. The first is a purchase; the second is employment, and only one of them is a buyer. Second, the scorer could not tell a buyer from a bystander with the same question. "I wish we had a better X" and "we are evaluating X this quarter" express the same want and only one comes from somebody who can sign. Language that marks purchasing authority — a stated role, plural first person, an evaluation under way, procurement vocabulary — now adds to the score, capped so it cannot outweigh the ask itself. A job title is not intent: someone who can sign but has asked for nothing still scores zero. Writing the tests exposed a real gap behind all of this. "We are evaluating vendors" is among the strongest buying signals there is and it scored nothing, because I had put it in the authority list where it had no tier to attach to. Being mid-evaluation is now a purchase signal on its own, as is a plainly stated team requirement. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
vu1nz Security Review0 finding(s) in PR #? No security issues found. |
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Two mistakes in the intent sweep I shipped in #157, both aiming it at the wrong population.
1. Freelance boards are full of the inverse of a lead
I had Upwork, RemoteOK and WeWorkRemotely on the source list, reasoning that a job ad is approved budget. But those boards are dense with people advertising their own availability — same vocabulary, same topic, same enthusiasm as someone buying. Nothing in the scorer told them apart:
Boards removed, and self-promotion is disqualifying wherever it appears — that phrasing shows up on every platform, not just the ones that specialise in it.
The genuine demand those boards carry is demand for labour, not for a supplier. So:
2. A buyer and a bystander asked the same question
"I wish we had a better X" and "we are evaluating X this quarter" express the same want, and only one comes from somebody who can sign. Purchasing authority now adds to the score — stated role, plural first person, evaluation under way, procurement vocabulary — capped at 30 so it can't outweigh the ask itself.
A job title is not intent:
Authority is added to an ask, never multiplied by it.
The gap the tests exposed
Three tests failed on first run, and they were right. "We are evaluating vendors" scored zero — one of the strongest buying signals there is, and I'd put it only in the authority list where it had no tier to attach to. Being mid-evaluation is now a purchase signal in its own right (it's later in the buying process than "willing to pay"), as is a plainly stated team requirement.
Search phrasings shifted to plural first person for the same reason — people speaking for an organisation say "we".
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tsc --noEmitclean · 1,084 tests pass (11 new) · build compiles🤖 Generated with Claude Code