What happens before the first sale

When a company that sells to other companies tells me how it finds customers, the story almost always starts the same way. Someone opens Google Maps, searches for the industry, copies phone numbers into a spreadsheet and starts writing. After a while they get tired, the spreadsheet stays half done and next month it starts from zero.

That job has a name: setter. It's the person who finds potential customers, writes to them first, follows up politely and passes to the salesperson only the ones who want to talk. It's a key job and, at the same time, the one nobody feels like doing.

First, knowing who to write to

We started with the most basic part: the list. We built a search tool where you say who you want to sell to, for example factories in an area, wholesalers in an industry or agricultural companies, and it gives you back a spreadsheet with the name, phone, email and website of each company. It searches Google Maps, the yellow pages, LinkedIn and Instagram, and every month it brings new companies.

We designed it for companies that don't live online. Many of the ones that need customers the most have no marketing team and no time to search. The question we hear most is "can't I just search for this myself?". Yes, you can. What you're buying is the time you don't have and the order you never get around to.

Then, the first message

A list alone doesn't sell. So the next step was adding to each company a WhatsApp link with the first message already written. The salesperson taps the link, the conversation opens and they send the message themselves. No robot is writing for you, and that also protects your number.

It seems small, but it changes what the spreadsheet is for: it stops being something you look at and becomes something you use.

What's next: an AI setter

I already prospect this way. I have an AI agent that finds marketing agencies in Latin America for me, prepares the context on each one and leaves the first contact ready. The idea we're developing is to bring that to any company: an automatic setter that takes the month's list, writes the first message, follows up when there's no reply and tells the salesperson when someone wants to talk.

This doesn't get built in two weeks. You have to be careful about how messages are written, how many go out per day and from which number, because WhatsApp and email have rules, and a blocked account is worse than an unused list. That's why we're going step by step: first the list, then the ready message, then the automatic follow-up.

Why it matters

Most companies don't lose sales because of a bad product. They lose them because nobody had time to write to the right company, or because someone wrote once and never again. An automatic setter doesn't replace the salesperson. It takes off their plate the part nobody wants to do, so they can spend their time on the conversations that are worth it.

My bet

Soon, having a setter will stop being something only large companies with sales teams have. Any small business will be able to say who it wants to sell to and start the month with open conversations instead of an empty spreadsheet.