The short version.
Our rule is that SYNC prepares a message for a company only when it has found a reason: something that changed at that company, with a source and a date. When it finds no such reason, it waits. We chose this rule on indirect evidence. Nobody has proven it right, and that includes us.
The evidence for the rule is that companies buy when something changes, that more information makes buying harder, and that a vendor finds fewer replies to messages that pitch. The evidence against it is that volume still books meetings, and that buyers often choose a supplier they already knew.
There is also an admission. When we counted, the rule was stricter on this website than in the software. Our own count found ready dossiers without a dated reason. We have since changed the wording of the rule, and left the software as it is.
Why we chose the rule.
The starting point is a survey of business buyers by Gartner in 2022:
“99% of B2B purchases are driven by organizational changes — such as a digital transformation or operational changes — and 66% of B2B buyers say the amount of change in their organization is overwhelming.”
If purchases start from change, then a change at a company is the best available sign that a conversation may be welcome. The survey does not say that a message timed to a change gets more replies. That step is ours.
The second point is that more material does not help a buyer. An article in Harvard Business Review in 2017 reported that answering buyers with more information and more options “drives an 18% decrease in purchase ease”, based on a survey of more than 600 business buyers.[2] A message without a reason adds to that pile.
The third point comes from a vendor. Gong, which sells sales software, reports from its own data that “Pitching reduces reply rates by as much as 57%.”[3] A message with no reason to point at has little to offer except a pitch.
The fourth point is about what happens later. The authors of The JOLT Effect studied more than two and a half million sales conversations and report that between 40% and 60% of lost deals ended with the buyer deciding nothing.[4] We read this as a warning against starting where nothing is pressing. The book is about sales conversations. It does not study first messages.
What the rule does in our own product.
We counted what happens to a researched company in SYNC. The full count, with its limits, is in The accounts we left alone.[5]
The first two figures show that the rule holds back most accounts. They do not show that holding back is right, because nobody knows what those accounts would have done with a message.
The third figure is the admission. Of the 570 ready dossiers, 230 rest on a signal with a source and no date, and 37 have no reason recorded. The software asks for a signal and a source. It does not ask for a date. This was a choice made when the check was built, because requiring a date would have left most accounts waiting.
What would change our mind.
We hold this rule as a choice that can be tested. Three results would make us reconsider it:
- 01A fair comparison in which messages with a dated reason get no more replies from people than messages without one.
- 02Independent research showing that sellers who write to every fitting company, with or without a reason, win more customers.
- 03Evidence that the accounts we leave waiting had mostly chosen their supplier before any signal appeared. Then waiting for a signal means arriving too late.
We have a design for the first comparison: two groups inside sending that a customer has already approved, with the group recorded before the message goes out and a reply from a person within 14 days as the result. It has not run, and no run is planned yet. We have no result to report.
What we decided.
We have not changed the check. Today the check asks for a cited signal and its source, and does not require a date. The rule as this site stated it was stricter than what the software does. We decided to keep this: a cited signal without a date can still make a dossier ready. The reviewer sees that the date is missing, and we are making that more visible in the review screen. The wording of the rule on this site now says a reason we can cite, not a dated reason.
What speaks against this.
Volume still books meetings. Gong reports that the average seller sends 344 cold emails to book one meeting.[3] Instantly, a vendor of sending software, reports that follow-up messages produce 42% of all replies in its data.[6] Both are vendor figures. They still describe a way of working that produces meetings for the sellers who use it, without any reason per account.
Buyers often choose someone they already knew. 6sense, also a vendor, reports that buyers pick one of the four suppliers on their first shortlist 95% of the time.[7] If that holds, a seller who waits for a signal may arrive after the list is made.
The 95:5 rule from the LinkedIn B2B Institute says that about 95% of possible buyers are not ready to buy today.[8] Its advice is to be remembered by them before the need arises. That is an argument for being known early, and against staying silent until something changes. The rule is a model about advertising, and the argument still applies to us.
No independent study has tested outreach based on an event against generic outreach. Every figure we found for it comes from a company that sells it. Our own evidence is thin as well: a count on one day, in five workspaces that include our own and test workspaces, with no replies or meetings in it. It shows what the rule holds back and nothing about what it earns.
The outside sources were read on 29 September 2026. Each one carries a label in the source list that says how far we checked it. Vendor figures are named as vendor figures in the text. The JOLT Effect was read on the publisher's pages, not in the book.
Our own figures come from one count of all dossiers and researched companies in SYNC on 29 September 2026, across all workspaces together. Archived dossiers are included. The count of 267 is the sum of 230 and 37, by the reason recorded when each dossier was judged, and the percentages are computed by us. One company can have several dossiers, so dossier counts and company counts are different. The figures describe that day and hold no history.
- [1]Gartner. B2B Buying Report (2022 buyer survey).read in the original
- [2]Toman, N., Adamson, B. & Gomez, C. (2017). The New Sales Imperative. Harvard Business Review, March–April 2017.read in the originalread as a reprint
- [3]Gong Labs. Does cold email even work any more? Here's what the data says.vendor researchGong sells sales software; it gives different sample sizes on different pages
- [4]Dixon, M. & McKenna, T. (2022). The JOLT Effect. Portfolio/Penguin.read in the originalread on the publisher's pages, not in the book
- [5]iSyncSO. The accounts we left alone. Measured 29 September 2026.our own measurement
- [6]Instantly. Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026.vendor researchInstantly sells email sending software
- [7]6sense (2025). B2B Buyer Experience Report.vendor research6sense sells sales and marketing software
- [8]LinkedIn B2B Institute. The 95:5 rule.read in the originala modelled rule of thumb about advertising