Case study · 03 - Commercial brokerage
A Reason to Call, Timed to the X-Date
$32M revenue regional brokerage · transportation and logistics niche · 21 producers
A transportation-focused brokerage started with a free Book Change Scan on 100 prospects, found the ones whose business had just changed, then had FDEs automate the trigger-to-outreach motion on its whole prospect list.
Company profile
- Revenue
- $32M
- Employees
- 180
- Prospects tracked
- 4,200 with X-dates in Salesforce
- Team
- 21 producers · 4 sales development reps
- Niche
- Trucking, logistics, distribution
- New business
- 41% of organic growth, prior year
Applied Epic
Salesforce
Outlook
HubSpot
SlackThe scan needed no integration. Salesforce prospects and X-dates were connected read-only after the scan, with Epic added for existing clients.
The challenge
Producers worked X-dates the way everyone does: a call 120 days out, then another at 90. The calls had no news in them. Prospects that had just made an acquisition, opened a terminal, or hired a new CFO got the same script as everyone else.
2.1%
first-meeting rate on X-date outreach in the prior year, across roughly 3,000 touches.
4,200
prospects in Salesforce, with no way to tell which ones had changed since a producer last looked.
45 min
average research per prospect before a producer felt ready to call, so most calls went out without it.
Generic
sequences from the SDR team, the same message regardless of what was happening in the business.
The prospects were not ignoring the brokerage. They were ignoring a call with nothing new in it.
The Book Change Scan
- Companies
- 100 prospects with X-dates in the next two quarters
- Systems
- None for the scan; public data only
- Window
- 30 days of monitoring
- Outside
- M&A, state filings, job postings, exec changes, contracts
The brokerage sent 100 prospect names. Pulse matched each one to its public footprint, watched for 30 days, and reported every material change with its evidence. Producers rated which ones they would actually pick up the phone for.
- 1
23 reason-to-call events across the 100 prospects. Producers said they would call on 17 of them, and had known about 3.
- 2
The strongest triggers were acquisitions, new operating locations, and finance leadership changes within 120 days of an X-date.
- 3
Eight prospects had grown their fleets materially in the window, visible in job postings before anywhere else.
- 4
After the scan, connecting Salesforce let Pulse weigh each change against the X-date and the last producer touch.
What Pulse surfaced
Four of the events from the scan:
Prospect acquired a competitor
Acquisition of a two-terminal carrier announced, X-date in 101 days, no producer touch in 14 months
$96,000 est. commission
New to the teamNew CFO ahead of the X-date
CFO hired from a larger fleet, finance team reorganized, X-date in 112 days
$54,000 est. commission
New to the teamFleet expansion in a new state
Georgia registration, 14 CDL roles posted, new terminal on the website
$71,000 est. commission
New to the teamLarge contract win
Multi-year distribution contract with a public agency, higher limits likely required
$38,000 est. commission
Team already knew23
events in 30 days
74%
worth a call
61%
worth a call and new
What FDEs built on top
After the scan, the brokerage connected Salesforce and Epic and FDEs built the trigger-to-outreach motion. Producers approve every message.
New Business Agent
Picks up every prospect trigger, writes a reason-to-call note with the evidence, and drafts outreach timed against the X-date for the producer to edit and send.
Prospect Research Agent
Before a first meeting, assembles locations, fleet, recent changes, and likely coverage questions from Context, so producers stop researching by hand.
Custom trigger events
Transportation-specific rules for what makes a prospect worth calling now, weighted by X-date and the last producer touch.
Salesforce write-back
Accepted triggers open a task on the prospect with the reason and the due date, so the SDR team and producers work from one list.
The sales leader asks Pulse, “which prospects 90 to 150 days from X-date changed this month?”, and gets the list with the evidence linked.
The rollout
Weeks 1-4
Book Change Scan
100 prospect names, no integration. 23 events reported in writing at the end of 30 days.
Weeks 5-6
Connect Salesforce
Read-only connection to 4,200 prospects and their X-dates, so each change was weighed against timing and the last touch.
Month 3
Pulse live on the prospect list
Triggers routed to the owning producer, with SDRs copied on accounts they support.
Month 4
FDE agents live
New business and research agents in production. 76% of drafted outreach sent by producers with light edits.
Results
3.1x
meeting rate on triggered outreach
6.5% against 2.1% on standard X-date outreach over the same quarter
11
first meetings from the scan
out of 17 prospects producers chose to call
~40 min
research saved per prospect
with the research agent preparing the first meeting
61%
worth a call and new
of scan events, rated by the producers who made the calls
Value delivered
$210k-$300k year-one new commission
$180k-$260k
New business commission
Accounts bound from a meeting set by a trigger, at first-year commission actually earned, discounted to 70% for attribution.
~1,800 hrs/yr
Prospect research returned
Measured research time before and after on 50 first meetings, applied to the year's first-meeting volume, valued at loaded cost.
$30k-$40k
Rounding on existing clients
The same triggers on existing Epic clients, credited only where a new line was bound.
All estimates discounted for year-one realization. Commission varies by line, carrier, and agency arrangement; no universal rate is assumed.
Beyond new business
The same events now reach teams beyond new business:
Account managers get the same expansion triggers on existing clients.
Marketing builds niche campaigns from what is changing across the prospect list.
Neither effect is included in the value figures above.