PodiumRevenue · Prospecting engine

Prospecting engine

Stop guessing who to call.

One machine, running every month. It watches the show calendar, scans every business in the target verticals for what they are missing, then narrows to the ones raising a hand. Three parts of it are working today, and you can run all three on this page.

Run the show radarScan a real business

The machine

Three stages, each narrower.

Stage one

Conferences

The full show calendar per vertical. Who is exhibiting, who is sponsoring, who is publicly saying they will be there.

Dated. A true reason to call this month.

Stage two

The monthly scan

Every business in the verticals, every month. What software they run, what they spend on, and what they are missing.

The gap becomes the opening line.

Stage three

Who raised a hand

Opens, clicks and return visits narrow the scan to the businesses actually paying attention right now.

This is the call list. And the ad audience.

Stage one

Conferences.

91 shows mapped across four verticals, with 1,026,200 people walking through them a year. Every date is public months ahead, which means the outreach window can be computed instead of remembered.

Demo 1 · live

Which shows are in play today

All 91 events, with the outreach window recomputed against your clock right now. Pick any show to see its real exhibitor list, the dated sequence, and the message that would go out.

5windows open now
15open within 30 days
28lists already parsed

One thing to be clear about

An exhibitor directory lists the companies selling on the floor: equipment makers, software vendors, apparel brands. The golf courses, gyms, bowling centres and pool builders we actually want are the people walking the aisles, and no organiser publishes that list. So the shows give us two different things. The exhibitor lists are a clean B2B segment we can work today. The attendees are the core ICP, and reaching them is exactly what the monthly scan in stage two is for.

Stage one, end to end

One show, fully automated.

Nobody schedules any of this. The show date drives every step, and the same sequence runs across all 91 shows without anyone touching it.

T-90The calendar firesA show enters its window. Exhibitor, sponsor and speaker lists get pulled from whichever platform the organiser uses.
T-60Match and suppressCompany names resolve to domains. Existing customers and open opportunities drop out before anyone sees the list.
T-30First touchEmail that names the show and the booth number, because both are public and verifiable.
T-14Second angleA different message about the problem the show creates, with LinkedIn running in parallel.
T-7Offer the meetingOnly to prospects who engaged. Meet at the show, or the week after it.
T+3Follow the showNot a fake handshake. The real thing: everyone leaves a show with more leads than they can work.
T+14Close or recycleBooked, or dropped back into the monthly scan with the show logged against the record.

Stage two

The monthly scan.

Shows are seasonal. This runs every month across every business in the verticals: enumerate, load each site in a real browser, record what it calls out to, diff against last month, and route on what changed. 311 businesses across 30 trades and 12 metros have been through it so far, and at 500,000 sites a month the infrastructure costs roughly $280.

Demo 2 · real captures

Scan a business, get the opening line

These are 311 businesses the scanner actually visited. Every tool listed below was observed in the page’s own network traffic. The opener is generated from the gap, not written in advance.

93 of 99 have no conversation layer at all

The gap is the opener

What we find, and what we say.

The rep never opens with who we are. They open with something true and specific about that business, found this month.

Running ads, no way to chat“You are paying for clicks that land on a page nobody can answer.”
Chat, but no booking“Your chat takes a message. It cannot take the appointment.”
A competitor's widget disappeared“Looks like you moved off them. What did you move to?”
Field service tool, no front door“Your dispatch is handled. The calls before dispatch are not.”
Hundreds of reviews, no review tool“You earned every one of those by hand. That does not scale.”
Phone number as the only path“If nobody picks up, the visit is gone.”

Stage three

Who raised a hand.

The first two stages produce more prospects than anyone can call. This stage decides the order, and it feeds marketing the same audiences it hands sales.

Demo 3 · the sort

Stack the signals, watch the list shrink

The scan and the calendar produce more prospects than anyone can call. Each signal you add cuts the list and moves the warmest names to the top. Engagement here is modelled, because nothing has been sent yet; everything else is the real capture.

301on the call list
10customers removed

Zero in the bottom row is the finding, not an empty state. Every one of the 301 businesses the scan surfaced across 5 verticals and 12 metros had at least one nameable gap, which is why all of them are worth a sequence and only a handful are worth a call this week.

The output

What lands on a rep’s desk.

Everything above produces one thing: a ranked book of businesses with a reason to call each of them. This is that book, built from every scan run so far, sorted by score and filtered the way a rep would filter it.

The output

One book, ranked and ready to work

Everything the scan has produced, in the form a rep would actually receive it. Filter it, search it, and take the list out as a CSV. 10 existing customers are already excluded.

301in this view
122ready to call
  1. Columbus Square Bowling Palacebowling alleyColumbus1494 reviews — established demandGreenfield97
  2. ZONA MED SPAmed spaScottsdale548 reviews — established demandGreenfield95
  3. ClearWater Express Washcar washAustin1203 reviews — established demandGreenfield90
  4. GO Car Washcar washAustin728 reviews — established demandGreenfield90
  5. Camelback Golf Clubgolf courseScottsdale521 reviews — established demandGreenfield90
  6. Equinox AustingymAustin273 reviewsGreenfield90
  7. Precision Garage Door of Austingarage door repairAustin1773 reviews — established demandGreenfield88
  8. Orkinpest controlTampa2103 reviews — established demandGreenfield88
  9. Commonwealth Animal HospitalveterinarianCharlotte571 reviews — established demandGreenfield88
  10. Sequoia Pro Bowlbowling alleyColumbus1032 reviews — established demandGreenfield87
  11. Smile On NashvilledentistNashville280 reviewsGreenfield87
  12. Williams and Sons Electric, LLC.electricianDenver96 reviewsGreenfield87
  13. Continental Golf Clubgolf courseScottsdale512 reviews — established demandGreenfield87
  14. McDowell Mountain Golf Clubgolf courseScottsdale632 reviews — established demandGreenfield87
  15. Ideal Air Conditioning and Insulationhvac contractorPhoenix1523 reviews — established demandGreenfield87
  16. The Ride Factory of Tampa Baymotorcycle dealerTampa236 reviewsGreenfield86
  17. Houston Auto Sales Incauto dealerHouston756 reviews — established demandGreenfield85
  18. RollHouse Columbusbowling alleyColumbus1060 reviews — established demandGreenfield85
  19. Addison Auto Repair & Body Shopcollision repairDenver1525 reviews — established demandDisplacement85
  20. Los Campeones Gym Austin NorthgymAustin304 reviewsGreenfield85
  21. Alex Martins Jiu Jitsu Academy in Dallasmartial arts schoolDallas573 reviews — established demandGreenfield85
  22. Camping World - Nashvillerv dealerNashville1844 reviews — established demandGreenfield85
  23. Urban Autocareauto repairDenver888 reviews — established demandDisplacement84
  24. Complete Auto Detail & Car Washcar washAustin1930 reviews — established demandDisplacement84
  25. Gulch Dental StudiodentistNashville743 reviews — established demandGreenfield83
  26. Southwest Skin Specialists ScottsdaledermatologistScottsdale1963 reviews — established demandGreenfield83
  27. Cool Zone Air Conditioning & Heatinghvac contractorPhoenix629 reviews — established demandGreenfield83
  28. Prado Vision Center & OpticaloptometristTampa1338 reviews — established demandGreenfield83
  29. Proforce Pest Control - Tampapest controlTampa1949 reviews — established demandGreenfield83
  30. New View Roofingroofing contractorDallas697 reviews — established demandGreenfield83
  31. Uptown Veterinary HospitalveterinarianCharlotte235 reviewsGreenfield83
  32. S Auto Houstonauto dealerHouston759 reviews — established demandGreenfield82
  33. Holiday Lanesbowling alleyColumbus941 reviews — established demandGreenfield82
  34. Suds Deluxe Car Washcar washAustin580 reviews — established demandGreenfield82
  35. Mister Car Washcar washAustin1531 reviews — established demandGreenfield82
  36. Washaroo Hand Car Wash & Detailingcar washAustin875 reviews — established demandGreenfield82
  37. Crossroads Chiropractic & Wellness Inc.chiropractorKansas City273 reviewsGreenfield82
  38. Dohrmann ChiropracticchiropractorKansas City814 reviews — established demandGreenfield82
  39. Capital Dent Masters Collision Centercollision repairDenver562 reviews — established demandGreenfield82
  40. Dentistry of NashvilledentistNashville1062 reviews — established demandGreenfield82

Runtime

From a cron job to a rep’s sent folder.

A scan that produces a list nobody sends is a report. This is the path from the scheduled job to an email that a prospect actually receives, and the three options for who it comes from.

Runtime

How it runs, and who the email comes from

The scan is a scheduled job. What it produces has to reach a rep’s queue and a prospect’s inbox without anyone copying a spreadsheet. Here is the loop, and the three ways to send at the end of it.

  1. 01Cron firesA scheduled job wakes on the 1st. GitHub Actions, Vercel Cron or Airflow. It reads the vertical and metro list, nothing else.
  2. 02Scan and diffThe browser cluster re-probes every business and diffs against last month. New gaps, vanished competitors and fresh ad spend all surface here.
  3. 03Score and suppressRules assign a score, a play and an opener. Customers, open opportunities and anyone a rep already owns are dropped before a human sees the list.
  4. 04Sync to CRMSurvivors are upserted by domain, with the evidence attached in a field. This is the record of truth, whatever does the sending.
  5. 05Enrol and sendThe CRM or the send tool picks up new records and enrols them in the sequence matched to their gap. Mail goes out under the owning rep.
  6. 06ListenOpens, clicks, replies and return visits flow back on webhooks, re-score the record and re-sort the rep's queue.
  7. 07RecycleAnything that did not convert drops back into the scan population and is looked at again next month.

Dedicated cold-send

Instantly / Smartlead

Highest volume. The right choice for the monthly scan, where the list is large and cold.

Cost
Roughly $100–300 a month per workspace, plus domains and mailboxes
Time to stand up
2 to 3 weeks including warmup

How it wires up

  1. Buy secondary domains (podiumhq.co, getpodium.io) so the primary domain is never at risk
  2. Provision 3 to 5 mailboxes per domain, warm them for 3 weeks before a single real send
  3. Push scored records in over the API, one campaign per gap type
  4. Rotate sending across the pool and cap each mailbox at ~30 a day
  5. Replies route to a shared inbox, classified, then handed to the owning rep

Why you would pick it

  • Built for this exact job: warmup, rotation and deliverability monitoring are native
  • Cheapest per send by a wide margin
  • Keeps cold volume completely off the corporate domain

What it costs you

  • Sends come from a lookalike domain, not podium.com
  • Another system to keep in sync with the CRM

The realistic recommendation is two of them, not one. Cold volume from the monthly scan goes out of a dedicated tool on secondary domains, so podium.com is never the thing being burned. Anything that has already engaged moves into the CRM and is sent by the rep who owns it. The scan writes to both.

Dependencies

What it takes to run itself.

The demos above are the parts that work. Turning them into something that runs without anyone watching is a different question, and it is mostly a question about access and plumbing rather than about clever code. Here is every link in each chain, and what each one is waiting on.

The dependency map

What has to exist for this to run itself

Every stage is a chain, and a chain automates only as far as its weakest link. Each step below carries what it depends on, what would run it, and whether that exists today.

2built
2partly built
7needs building

Fires per show, on the show's own dates. Roughly 61 chains running at different offsets.

  1. 1. TriggerNeeds building1 day

    A daily job asks which shows crossed into their window today.

    • A scheduler that survives a failed run
    • The event calendar as the source of truth

    GitHub Actions cron, or Vercel Cron. Calendar already exists as JSON.

  2. 2. HarvestPartly builtWorking for 8,893 exhibitors today

    Pull the exhibitor, sponsor and speaker directory from the organiser.

    • One parser per platform, not per show
    • Robots compliance checked per host, per run
    • A cache so an edition is only pulled once

    Map Your Show and a2z parsers are written and working. Swapcard needs a registered attendee account. EventScribe is partial.

  3. 3. ResolveNeeds a vendorDays, once billing exists

    Turn a company name on a booth sign into a domain and named contacts.

    • Name-to-domain matching that admits when it is unsure
    • Contact data for the roles that matter
    • A confidence floor below which nothing sends

    Apollo at $49 a seat covers the technology filter and contacts. Clay if the waterfall needs to be richer. Expect 60–70% resolution, not 100%.

  4. 4. SuppressNeeds access1 week, mostly agreeing the rules

    Drop existing customers, open opportunities, and anyone a rep already owns.

    • Read access to the CRM
    • A stable match key — domain, not company name
    • Rules for who owns a contested record

    Salesforce or HubSpot read API. This is the step that decides whether sales trusts the list.

  5. 5. SendNeeds building2–3 weeks including warmup

    Enrol the survivors into the dated sequence for that show.

    • A sequencer with an API
    • A mailbox fleet on separate sending domains
    • Warmup, and a per-mailbox daily cap

    Outreach, Salesloft or Apollo sequences. This is the real ceiling: about 158 unique prospects per mailbox per month, so 500 mailboxes reach roughly 79,000.

  6. 6. MeasureNeeds building3–4 days

    Opens, clicks and replies flow back and change the record's level.

    • Webhooks from the sequencer
    • Somewhere to put them
    • A reply classifier so humans see only real replies

    Sequencer webhooks into Postgres. Feeds stage three directly.

Where this breaks

  • An organiser changes their directory template mid-season and the parser silently returns zero rows. The job has to fail loudly, not quietly.
  • Name-to-domain resolution guesses wrong and a message goes to the wrong company. A confidence floor is not optional.
  • Sending volume ramps faster than warmup and the domain burns. Recovery takes months.

Status

This is not a concept.

The scan has run across 30 trades in 12 metros, covering 311 businesses so far. 10 turned out to be Podium customers and dropped out on their own. 30 were running a competing tool nobody had flagged. None of that required anyone to look at a website by hand.

93/99

Sports and recreation is the emptiest vertical we have scanned. Across 9 trades — bike shop, bowling alley, climbing gym, fitness studio, golf course, gym, martial arts school, pilates studio and swim school — 93 of the 99 businesses have no conversation layer of any kind: no chat, no review tool, no competitor. 63 of them are buying ads into that.

What it sees

Only software that runs in the browser. A tool that never loads a script is invisible to this, which makes the coverage real but not total.

What is modelled

Engagement in the third demo. Nothing has been sent yet, so those signals are derived rather than measured. The scan and the calendar are real captures.

What it needs

One vertical to start in, one engineer for six weeks to put it on a schedule and into the CRM, and marketing in the loop from week one.

Every business we want already told us what it is missing.

The shows publish who is going. The websites publish what they run. The clicks tell us who is ready. All anyone has to do is look every month, and go in that order.

Open the target book