Lead Generation guide
How to find new business customers in the UK: start from a dated reason
Companies buy when something changes: a move, a contract won, a new hire, a supplier lost. Find the change and the date it happened, and you have a reason to write that the reader recognises at once.
By Rudi Myers, founder of Bondstone
Why a dated reason beats a list
A list of names tells you who exists. It doesn't tell you who needs you this month. Write to a hundred companies with nothing to say and you're one more sales email. Write to one that has just taken a second unit, and your first line is about them, not you.
The date matters as much as the reason. A company that won a contract last week is choosing suppliers now. One that won it two years ago chose them long ago.
- Company
- A commercial bakery, 2.3 miles from you, about 45 staff
- Reason
- Taking a second unit, twice the size of its first
- Dated
- 2 October 2026, on its own news page
- Write to
- The operations director, named on its website
- Route
- A named work email, published on its site
An illustration. The business is invented; the kinds of record are real.
Where the reasons are published, free
- Companies House. New companies, new directors, new owners (the people with significant control), a new registered address, and accounts that show growth. Searching it is free, and every filing is dated.
- Contracts Finder and Find a Tender. The government's sites for public sector contracts. Award notices name the company that won and when. A company that has just won a contract has to deliver it, which means people, vehicles, kit and space.
- Job adverts. A company hiring three drivers, a warehouse manager or its first office manager is growing, and growth needs suppliers. Job boards and the company's own careers page show the date.
- Exhibitor lists. Trade shows publish who is exhibiting, often months ahead. A company paying for a stand is spending to grow, and the show gives you a date to write around.
- Insolvency notices. When a supplier goes into administration or liquidation, its customers need a new one quickly. The notices are published in The Gazette, the official public record, and the company's record at Companies House changes to show it.
- Planning applications. A council's planning site shows who wants to extend, change or fit out a building, with the dates.
- A company's own news. Its website's news page, its social posts and the local paper: new premises, a new product, a big order, an award.
Check the fit before you write
A reason only counts if it's a reason to need what you sell. Before you write, ask four questions.
- Is it the kind of company you do your best work for?
- Is it close enough for you to serve well?
- Is the reason recent? The last three months is a good rule.
- Does the reason point at something you actually do?
Leave out your current customers and anyone you've quoted recently. They need a different conversation.
Who to write to
Write to the person who feels the problem your reason points at. In a small firm that's usually the owner or managing director. In a bigger one it's whoever runs the part of the business you'd change: operations, facilities, purchasing, or the department you sell to.
Names are published in two places: the company's own website, on its team or about page, and Companies House, which lists every director. Use a named work email where the company publishes one, and otherwise its general email, phone number or web form.
Write to limited companies, LLPs, plcs and public bodies, not to sole traders or partnerships. It's the rule we keep on every outreach we run.
What to write
Short, about them, with one ask. Four lines do it.
- The reason and its date, in their words: “I saw on your news page that you're taking a second unit from November.”
- What you do about that, in one sentence.
- One piece of proof: a similar job, or a number you can stand behind.
- One ask, easy to say yes to: “Worth a short call next week?”
Hi Sarah,
I saw on your news page that you're taking on a second unit, twice the size of your first, from November.
We fit out food production units across West Yorkshire, from the floors and wall cladding to the cold rooms, and we moved a bakery in Bradford into a bigger unit this spring.
Worth a short call next week, before the layout is fixed?
Dan
Director, Example Interiors Ltd
An invented example. The bakery, the fit-out firm and both people are made up.
Then pick up the phone
An email followed by a call gets about two and a half times the positive replies of email alone, according to Saleshandy's study of 53 million emails. Ring two or three working days after you write, ask for the person by name, and open with the same reason: “I wrote to you on Tuesday about your new unit.”
If they're busy, ask when suits and ring then. If they say no, ask what would have to change for it to be a yes, and write the answer down.
Keep a simple record
One row per company: the reason, its date, where you read it, who you wrote to, when you rang and what they said. After a month you'll see which reasons get replies, and you can look harder for those.
A list nobody works returns nothing, so put an hour in the diary every day and keep it.