Typical outbound workflows, and how to run them in Topo

Most outbound teams run the same set of workflows: building lists, acting on triggers, researching accounts, working the pipeline, keeping an eye on performance. This article goes through each one and shows how to run it in Topo.

Almost everything starts from the AI Agent with one prompt. Replace what's in [brackets]. The agent asks before it creates, enrols or sends anything.

Three things the workflows below rely on:

• Your CRM. Topo connects natively to your CRM, so the agent can read deals, owners and contacts, and write back.

• Connectors. Call recorders and knowledge tools plug in natively (Settings > Connectors). Any other tool with an MCP server can be added as a custom MCP.

• Repeat without retyping. Save a workflow you use every week as a Skill (Settings > Skills). If it should run on its own, ask the agent to put it on a schedule, or build a Playbook.

Build lists and map markets

Search prospects from an ICP description

Describe your buyer in plain words and get a list.

The agent turns your description into a Lead Search (titles, seniority, department, industry, size, location), runs it and shows you all the results. Refine in the same conversation if something's off. For criteria that filters can't express ("sells to schools", "has a partner programme"), add an AI qualification and each company is checked for you.

Find [persona] at [industry] companies with [size] employees in [country]

Map a market

See who's in a market, how it splits into segments, and who the buyers are in each.

The agent searches companies in the market you describe, groups them by sub-segment, size or geography, and finds the key buyers at each. You get a segmented map with counts. Turn any segment into a list in one step.

Map the [market] market in [region]: segment it, show company counts per segment and the main buyer at each

Build a lookalike audience

Start from examples instead of a written ICP.

Give the agent your seeds: a few domains, an existing list, your closed-won deals from your CRM, or a page or screenshot of customer logos. It enriches them, shows the traits they share, and you confirm which matter. Then it builds the Lead Search from those traits.

Find more companies like [domain 1], [domain 2] and [domain 3]. Show me what they have in common before you search

Target a competitor's customers

Reach people already in the category, who'd decide whether to switch.

Two signals in Topo cover it:

• LinkedIn followers of a competitor's company page. People following a competitor are close to the problem you solve.

• Started using a competitor. Companies that just added a competitor to their stack. Reach them before the first renewal.

Filter both to your ICP, and new matches arrive for you to approve or refuse.

Set up signals on [competitor]: their LinkedIn followers and companies that started using them, filtered to our ICP

Prospect an event

Turn a conference, trade show or webinar into people worth contacting, before and after.

Two signals in Topo cover events:

• Followed a LinkedIn event page.

• Posted about an event on LinkedIn.

Both work for pre-event outreach ("are you going?") and post-event follow-up. If you're attending, ask the agent which matches to meet first and for an icebreaker for each.

Set up signals on [event] for people who follow the event page or post about it, filtered to our ICP

Act on triggers

Companies that just raised

Funding means new budget and new priorities.

Use the funding filters in Lead Search to find companies by round and amount. To catch the timing ("raised in the last 3 months"), add an AI qualification. Then reach the decision makers with outreach that ties the round to what you sell, without the generic "congrats on the raise".

Find [industry] companies in [country] that raised a [round] recently, and the [role] at each

Companies hiring for the right roles

A job post for a role your product supports is a strong hint of need.

Two signals in Topo:

• Hiring for a role you sell to. Companies opening a role matching the titles you choose.

• Job post mentions a keyword. Companies whose job descriptions name a tool, a competitor or a pain point you track.

Filter to your ICP, then reach the hiring manager or the team lead, not the new hire.

Find companies hiring for [role] whose job posts mention [keyword], and build a campaign for the head of that team

People who just started a new role

New role, new budget, new priorities. People are most open to new tools in their first months.

The Started a new role signal flags people matching the titles, seniority and companies you target when they take a new position.

Set up a signal for [persona] who started a new role at [industry] companies in [country]

Former champions

Your past champions are your best leads when they move company.

Keep your champions in a list (for example, the contacts on your closed-won deals, pulled from your CRM). The Champion changed job signal flags when someone on that list joins a new company. The agent can research the new company and draft a message built on the shared history.

Build a list of the champions on our closed-won deals and set up a champion job change signal on it

News on your strategic accounts

Launches, expansions, new offices, partnerships, leadership changes: triggers that only show up in the news.

The Strategic account → Weekly news Playbook template watches the news on your strategic accounts every week. Use it as it is, or edit it to fit how you work.

Set up the Weekly news playbook on our strategic accounts

Research accounts and people

Enrich and score a lead

One person, on demand or automatically.

• Manually: open their LinkedIn profile and use the Chrome extension to enrich them and add them to Topo.

• Automatically: a Playbook can enrich and score leads when a trigger fires, for example a new signal match.

Build a playbook that enriches every new [signal] lead and scores their fit with our ICP

Account brief

Everything worth knowing about one company, on one page.

The agent combines company enrichment, web research (news, funding, hiring, leadership), the decision makers, and your history with the account in Topo and in your CRM.

Give me a brief on [company]: what they do, recent news, decision makers, and our history with them

Map who you know at an account

Who's there, who you've already contacted, and how it went.

The agent finds contacts at the company by department and seniority, then adds outreach status (contacted, replied, reply category) and CRM context (owner, deals). It flags people new in role and past champions. Ask for one team only if the company is large.

Map the [department] team at [company]: who's there, who we've contacted, and what happened

Break into a target account

From research to a plan to sequences, in one conversation.

The agent checks your history with the account, researches the company and the people, and maps the buying committee. It recommends one or two angles, each tied to a real finding, and who to contact for each. Once you agree, it drafts one sequence per angle. Several accounts? It ranks them first.

I want to break into [company domain]. Research it and propose an approach before building anything

Personalisation research

Angles and opening lines for one prospect.

The agent researches the person and the company (posts, interviews, news, career moves) and returns a few angles, each with a draft opening line and its source. To do this across a whole list, create an AI variable and the agent fills it for every lead.

Research [prospect] and give me 3 personalisation angles with a draft opening line for each

Podcast and interview research

When a prospect has been on a podcast or panel, their own words make the best opener.

The agent searches the web for their podcast appearances, interviews and talks, reads the episode pages and show notes, and pulls the topics, opinions and challenges they mentioned, with a draft opener for each. Where only an audio or video exists with no text, results depend on what's published.

Find podcasts or interviews featuring [prospect] and draft openers based on what they said

Pre-call brief

One page to read 5 minutes before you join.

The agent pulls the person's background, company news, every past touch in Topo and your CRM record, and your call notes if a call recorder is connected. You get: who they are, 3 things to know, 3 questions to ask, likely objections with answers, the competition they probably use, and the history in a few lines.

I have a call with [name] at [company] in an hour. Prep me

Work your pipeline and customers

Decide which accounts to work today

A short, ordered list, not a dashboard.

The agent scores your accounts on recent engagement (positive replies count most), fresh signals, ICP fit, CRM state and contacts not yet reached. You get three tiers, act today, this week and watch, each with the next move. It can turn the first tier into tasks.

Which accounts should I focus on today, and what's the next move on each?

Pipeline review

An honest status check on your open deals.

The agent reads your open deals from your CRM and adds what Topo knows: replies, engaged contacts, open tasks, new signals. Each deal comes back on track, at risk or stalled, with one concrete next step where it's needed and gaps in stakeholder coverage flagged.

Where do my open deals stand this week? Show the ones at risk and what to do next

Fill the gaps in a deal's buying committee

A deal with one contact is fragile.

For each open deal, the agent compares the contacts in your CRM and in Topo with a typical buying committee for what you sell. For every missing role, it names a person at the account and suggests an approach that builds on the existing relationship.

Which of my open deals are single-threaded? Who's missing and who should I add?

Revive stale opportunities

Open deals with no activity for 30 days or more.

The agent checks whether your contacts are still in role (and who replaced them if not), looks for news since the last activity, and drafts a re-engagement message with a fresh reason to talk.

Find my open deals with no activity in 30 days, check the contacts are still there, and draft a revival message for each

Revive closed-lost deals

Lost deals that deserve another try because something changed.

The agent scans closed-lost deals in your CRM, looks for what's happened since (funding, new leadership, hiring, signals), and scores revival potential using the loss reason. You only see the deals worth reopening, with the trigger, who to contact and the angle. Messages acknowledge the past conversation. They never pretend it's a first contact.

Any closed-lost deals from the last 18 months worth reopening? Tell me what changed at each

Expand inside existing customers

Find the teams, offices and subsidiaries that don't use you yet.

The agent maps your footprint from your CRM and Topo, then the rest of the organisation by department and seniority. It ranks the whitespace by fit, names a person for each area, and drafts outreach that references the existing relationship. It checks the account owner first, so nothing goes over an account manager's head.

Where can we expand inside [customer]? Name the people and the warm angle

Measure and improve

Compare sequence performance

Which sequences work, which don't, and why.

The agent compares your sequences on open, reply and positive reply rates, flags the top performers and the ones to pause, and points out what the winners do differently (channel mix, length, angle, timing). It can rewrite an underperformer using the patterns that worked.

Compare my active sequences. Which ones should I pause, and what do the best ones do differently?

Activity dashboard

Volume, engagement and consistency over time.

The Analytics page covers it in Topo. For a written read, the agent summarises volume trends by channel and by rep, engagement rates, and gaps in consistency (weeks or reps that dropped off), over the period you choose.

Summarise our outreach activity this month vs last month, by rep and by channel

Team performance review

For managers: reps side by side.

The agent compares reps on volume, reply and positive reply rates, and the meetings recorded in your CRM. It highlights the biggest movers and doesn't rank on volume alone: someone with low volume and a high positive rate is doing something worth copying.

Compare the team's results over the last 30 days. Who's doing well and who needs help?

Rep coaching brief

Prep for a 1:1.

The agent pulls one rep's activity, engagement quality and conversion over the period, and gives you the wins, the things to discuss with the data behind each, likely causes, questions to ask, and one habit to borrow from a top performer.

Prep my 1:1 with [rep name] for this week

Deliverability health check

Bounces, falling open rates, or a mailbox in trouble.

The agent checks every sender: connection, volume, bounce rate, open rate and alerts, across reps and sequences. A drop on one sender points to that mailbox. A drop everywhere points to tracking or content. You get a verdict per sender and the actions in order of impact. It can pause sequences or lower volume once you confirm.

Are my senders healthy? My open rates dropped this week

Ongoing deliverability monitoring

Catch problems before they hurt your reputation.

Topo's sending health alerts flag issues on their own. To go further, put a deliverability check on a weekly schedule and get the result on Slack.

Every Monday, check my senders' deliverability and alert me on Slack if anything needs action

Refine your ICP

Make your targeting match what actually works.

The agent reads your Organisation Context and compares it with reality: who replies positively, who never replies, what your closed-won deals have in common. On a new workspace, it asks a few questions and runs test searches to check each segment is big enough. It proposes one change at a time with the evidence, and updates Organisation Context only once you approve.

Is our ICP still right? Check it against our results and suggest changes

Improve signal lead quality

Refusing a lot of signal leads usually means a filter is too loose.

The agent compares approved and refused leads per signal, finds what refused leads have in common (too junior, wrong department, company too small, wrong country), and proposes the exact filter change for each signal. It applies nothing until you approve.

Why am I refusing so many leads from my signals? Suggest filter changes

Weekly signal performance report

How your signals are doing, delivered where your team works.

Ask the agent to send a weekly report to Slack: leads found, approved and refused per signal this week, and how the leads from each signal performed in sequences over the last 30 days, with anything that needs attention flagged.

Every Monday at 9am, post a signal performance report in [Slack channel]

Move your workflows to Topo

Rebuild sequences and automations from another tool

Switching tools without losing what works.

Paste or upload what you run today: sequence steps and copy, CSV exports, screenshots of automation rules. The agent restates what each does, maps your merge fields to Topo variables, and rebuilds the sequences in Topo for you to review before anything goes live. For automation rules, it tells you which Topo feature covers each (signals, reply categories, tasks, CRM sync, a Playbook) and can describe or build the Playbook. It ends with a cutover checklist, so nobody gets contacted twice.

We're moving to Topo. Here's our main sequence and our automation rules. Rebuild them and tell me what changes