I helped a distributor reach 300 approved accounts and 24 meetings.
At a glance
| Customer | A US distributor sells corporate recognition awards and branded merchandise. Six territory reps cover West, Central and East. They use HubSpot CRM and Apollo for contact details. |
|---|---|
| Problem | Reps found ceremony and event demand by hand. Two product lines competed for the same leads. CRM tasks missed purchase deadlines. Reps paid for contact details before approving accounts. |
| Solution | I built Ghost Shift to find public reasons to buy. Two departments keep separate account lists. Reps approve accounts before contact checks. HubSpot receives company records, verified contacts and drafts due on Day 0/3/6/9. Reps send those drafts themselves. |
| Operating period | 20 August to 6 September 2026, the first live cycle. |
| Results | About 700 findings and about 300 approved accounts. New findings reached 80 to 150 per week. The customer credits this work with 24 meetings and $50k in first-month revenue. |
The problem
The customer sells two product lines to overlapping buyers. Recognition pieces include trophies, plaques and crystal. They also supply President’s Club and dealer awards. Organizer-controlled merchandise includes bags, lanyards, kits and uniforms.
Both lines follow a calendar. Buyers prepare for sales kickoffs, annual meetings and member awards nights. Purchasing begins 60 to 365 days before the event.
Before I built Ghost Shift:
- Reps relied on memory and luck. A gala found in August for an October ceremony was already too late.
- Awards and merch leads shared lists. Two reps pursued different products at the same account without knowing it.
- Reps spent contact credits before reviewing the account.
- Tasks appeared one at a time. A first touch often had no follow-up scheduled.
How I built the account review
- Find. Each morning, I search public event pages, annual-meeting sites and association award programs. I also check news releases and photo recaps. I look for a documented purchase of physical awards or merchandise. Fit scores range from 0 to 35; source strength, 0 to 30. Timing scores range from 0 to 15; buyer access, 0 to 10. Each finding receives a territory, rep and New status. I require a source for every contact, email, phone, attendance and revenue figure.
- Review. Each rep sees their own tab. They choose Keep, Later, Skip or Rescrub next year. Only Keep moves an account forward. Scores, colours and AI suggestions never count as approval.
- Verify. After Keep, I check the organization's official page and then Apollo. I look for the person responsible for the purchase. Without a verified person, I prepare the company record and flag contact details for human review.
- Prepare. HubSpot receives the company, verified contact and four tasks. They fall on Day 0, 3, 6 and 9. Each draft refers to its source. Reps send the messages. The software never sends them.
I kept two rules throughout the build. Never mix departments. Never send automatically.
What I found
Searching for “awards” alone missed the useful accounts. I found a $13B logistics company's recognition week. Its program covered sales, safety and driver awards across multiple business units. Its event site showed a branded acrylic award. I flagged the next cycle with eleven months to prepare.
A newsroom release described a 25-year-old technician skills championship. It named ten finalists and showed a crystal champion trophy. State engineering-society programs published their plaque and medallion counts.
I also set rejection rules. A photographed recipient proves an award exists; the commissioning organization is the buyer. I reject film and PR firms campaigning to win awards. A vague save-the-date stays at C until the program is concrete.
Results in the first operating cycle
Process metrics
Account snapshot, 6 Sep 2026.
| Metric | Recognition | Branded merch | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| Findings on the master list | 350 | 347 | About 700 |
| Rep-approved accounts | About 134 | About 160 | About 300 |
| Still in rep review | About 150 | About 150 | About 300 |
| New findings per week | 80 to 150, with both research processes running. | ||
Roughly four in ten reviewed findings earn Keep. Large New lists remain in every territory. I never cap leads or pad thin territories to balance the counts.
Customer-attested commercial outcomes
| Outcome | Value |
|---|---|
| Meetings booked through this work | 24 |
| First-month revenue the customer credits to accounts found through this work | $50,000 |
The customer reported both figures and credited this work during its first operating cycle. They report steady growth since, with minimal churn. These figures describe that period. I offer no projection.
What the customer keeps
- Every finding stays recorded with its source URL, score, timing and decision. Good accounts return eleven months after their purchase deadline passes.
- Approved accounts have four HubSpot follow-up tasks. Unverified contacts stay flagged for human review.
- Contact spending maps one-to-one to rep approvals.
- The two product lines no longer collide.
Why I built it this way
I narrow the list to accounts with a dated reason to buy. A rep must approve each one. Broad tracking tools follow funding rounds and job changes. They miss association award programs and crystal trophys in recap photos.
I use your team's knowledge to find the purchase, identify the buyer and judge the timing.
About Ghost Shift
I built this account research service for awards and promotional-products distributors. Approved accounts become HubSpot drafts for reps to send. I adapt the setup to your tools. You can also hire me to run the daily work.
Source: founder-supplied case study and revised business plan provided 8 September 2026. Public totals round to about 700 findings and 300 approvals. This describes the existing method, including earlier work done partly by hand. It makes no performance claim for a new installation.