Signal registry

Q10 (promoted from writer-framing per L7 retirement 2026-05-17): First-class M&A history per company. Distinct from Q5 which is broader market-side. Used for buyer fit scoring.

Count of active job postings attributed to target company

Years since BBB accreditation date (if accredited)

BBB letter-grade rating (A+ through F) normalized to 0-100

Blog posts published per month, trailing 12 months

Q15: Recurring revenue %, customer concentration, churn proxies. Revenue durability surface.

Q1: Company profile, vertical, services, positioning. Foundation question fired on most stages for both roles.

Q8: Reviews, awards, complaints, employee sentiment. Vertical-aware review sources.

Q3: Revenue, EBITDA, employees, growth trajectory. Deep-tier search; financial-domain filtered.

Named VP Corporate Development / M&A contact at a potential buyer — routing target for buy-side outreach

Keyword match in company description for family/generation/legacy/retirement/succession

Years since domain was first registered

Direct CEO quotes from earnings calls on sector/topic adjacent to target — proxy for strategic narrative and roll-up intent

Headcount estimate; proxy for revenue

Posts per month on Facebook business page, trailing 12 months

Q9: Valuation, ticker, credit rating, debt, funding rounds. Triggers Rule B publicly_traded backfill.

Presence of third-party financing offers (Synchrony, GreenSky, Affirm, etc.) on site

Count of branded vehicles visible in Google Street View imagery of HQ address

Average Google star rating (0.0-5.0)

Total Google review count from Google Business Profile

Google My Business review count; activity/reach proxy

Composite 0-100 score based on presence of: conference sponsorship (0-12pts), chamber of commerce involvement (0-12), guest speaker appearances (0-12), chapter president history (0-12), BNI membership (0-12), industry awards received (0-13), industry orgs listed on own website (0-13), paid sponsorships of any kind (0-14)

Posts per month on Instagram, trailing 12 months

Total Instagram posts on companys profile; activity/vitality proxy

Binary: does the target have an Instagram business page linked from their website

Count of posts in trailing 12 months classified by vision model as showing finished/completed work

Deduplicated count of distinct completed projects posted in 13-month window

Q13: LinkedIn-resolvable leadership team tenure. Key-person risk surrogate.

Posts per month on LinkedIn company page, trailing 12 months

Employee count as reported on LinkedIn company page

Number of physical locations; proxy for revenue

M&A deals involving the company (as acquirer or target) in the last 24 months — confirms roll-up posture

Headcount of LinkedIn-listed employees with Marketing in title at target company

Estimated monthly paid search spend in USD

Does target have at least one location >3 hour drive from HQ

Count of distinct customer/client logos displayed on homepage or clients/case-studies pages

Phone + email + LinkedIn triplet for named owner/principal scraped from public web — feeds Salesfinity pre-load gate

Q2 (expanded 2026-05-17): Owner/founder identity + legacy anchors + succession pressure signals + prior offers declined + community signature. Per Ewing: fewer questions that each produce more.

Title of the identified owner/principal; bonus in succession scoring if contains founder/owner

Binary: is target currently running Google Ads

Whether the company is PE-owned; hard filter in Hermes

Permits issued to target in trailing 12 months across tracked jurisdictions

Count of news/press mentions in trailing 12 months

Confirmed prior acquisition of a company in the sellers vertical

Q14: Operating-co + propco structure. Whether founder owns the real estate. From county records + press.

Q11: Last-30-day signal (trade show, hire, charity event, press hit). Fresh hook for cold-call openers. TTL 7 days.

Sum of follower counts across Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn company page

Is target current on state contractor/trade license (active status)

Years since license first issued (if license data includes issue date)

Published strategy/investment-thesis content from target or adjacent acquirer tied to our topic — scored for thematic fit

Number of individuals displayed on /about, /team, or /our-team pages

Count of enterprise-tier technologies detected on website (HubSpot Enterprise, Salesforce, Shopify Plus, etc.)

Q12: Owner's own words (press release, podcast, founder letter). Voice-layer fuel for letters and openers.

Months in trailing 12 with at least one new completed-project post on the site (0-12)

Face count in team/about photos on website (vision model)

Year the company was founded; used to compute company age for succession urgency

Years since founding (current year - year_founded)

Total Yelp review count

Human assessment of buyer fit: HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW -> 8/6/4

Implied annual revenue FLOOR in USD computed from ad spend: (monthly_spend * 12) / max_plausible_ad_to_revenue_ratio (default 0.25 for ~20pct-margin trades)