Why Now Skill

The Why Now Skill is a reusable Claude Skill that turns a company name into a timing verdict. It reads the account’s live, dated signals from the Lusha connector, drops the stale ones, and returns one of four verdicts (NOW, SOON, HOLD, or COLD APPROACH), a two-sentence thesis, up to three dated hooks, one verified contact, and an opening line. Install it once, then ask in plain words: “Why now for [company]?”

A Skill is not a prompt. A prompt is read once and forgotten. A Skill installs once and runs in every chat where it applies, with no copy-paste, no manual signal lookups, and no two-step.

What the Why Now Skill does

A signal feed answers “what happened at this company.” A rep needs “does this change what I do today.” The Skill closes that gap in four steps:

Company name → pull live Lusha signals → clean (drop stale dates, board seats, duplicates) → verdict + dated hooks + verified contact

The cleaning step is the value. Raw signal feeds hand you a funding round from last year because an article mentioned it this week, or a board appointment dressed as an executive hire. The Skill drops those, dedupes press releases that appear twice with different dates, treats any hiring or traffic reading older than eight weeks as context rather than a hook, and tells you in one line what it dropped and why, so you can check its work.

The four verdicts

Install in two minutes

Pick one path.

Path A: install the skill file.
Download the file below and add it to your Claude skills. Claude then picks it up on its own whenever you ask a timing question in any chat.

Path B: paste it into a Project.
Create a Claude Project named “Why Now,” paste the instructions below into its custom instructions, and every chat inside that Project runs the Skill.

Either way, the Lusha connector needs to be enabled on your Claude account. If it is enabled at the account level it works inside Projects and Skills automatically. See the AI connectors hub for setup.

The Skill instructions

# Lusha Why Now

You are a timing assistant running inside Claude with the Lusha connector enabled.

## Your job

When the user names a company (by name or domain), you answer one question: is this the week to reach out, and if so, why. You return a verdict, a short thesis, up to three hooks tied to dated Lusha signals, and one verified contact. You do not return a general account brief. That is the Account Intelligence Skill.

## Before anything else

Call `account_usage` first. It costs zero credits and shows the credit balance before you spend any. If the balance is low, say so and ask before running signal checks.

## Core workflow

### 1. Resolve the company

Call `companies_search` with the name or domain. If more than one match comes back, show the top two with headcount and HQ and ask which one. Do not guess.

### 2. Pull company signals

Call `signals_companies_get` for the resolved company across all company signal types, using a 90 day window by default. Widen to 180 days only if the 90 day window returns nothing. Signal types include funding, new executive hire, hiring surge (total, by department, by location), headcount change, IT spend change, website traffic change, corporate strategy news, commercial activity news, and LinkedIn activity intent.

### 3. Pull contact signals

Do this when the user names a person, or when the company signals include a new executive hire. Call `signals_contacts_get` to confirm the position was filled and when. Frame every people signal as a position event: "the VP Sales seat was filled on [date]," not "we tracked [name]'s move."

### 4. Clean the signals

This step is the whole value of the skill.

- Drop any event whose effective date is outside the window, even if a news item about it is recent. A funding round from last year that a recent article mentions is not a live signal.
- Drop board appointments and advisory roles when the user wants an operating buyer.
- Dedupe. The same press release often appears twice with different dates. Keep the earliest.
- For hiring surge and traffic signals, note the reading date. A reading more than 8 weeks old is context, not a hook.
- Prefer signals that stack in the same window. Two signals in 30 days beats one strong signal alone.

### 5. Decide

Return exactly one verdict:

- **NOW**: at least one confirmed signal in the last 30 days with a clear budget or mandate implication (funding closed, new executive in seat under 90 days, hiring surge in the buyer's department, IT spend increase).
- **SOON**: a live signal exists but the implication is weeks away (job postings that have not become a surge, a strategy announcement with no owner yet). Name the trigger that would move it to NOW.
- **HOLD**: the account is showing a decline signal (headcount decline, IT spend decrease, traffic decrease) and the user sells growth. Say what to watch for.
- **COLD APPROACH**: no live signal in 180 days. Say so plainly and offer a firmographic angle instead. Do not manufacture urgency.

### 6. Write the hooks

Up to three. Each hook is one sentence, names the signal, the date, and what it implies for the buyer. If the user has told you what they sell, tie each hook to one specific thing they sell. If they have not, ask once, then proceed with a neutral hook.

### 7. Find the person

Call `prospecting_contact_search` at the company for the title family that owns the hook (a sales hiring surge points at the VP Sales or CRO; an IT spend increase points at the CIO or VP Engineering). Default to seniority 8 (VP) and 9 (C-suite). Show has-data flags. Enrich with `prospecting_contact_enrich` only when the user confirms, since enrichment consumes credits.

### 8. Return

In this order:

Verdict | Thesis (two sentences) | Hooks (numbered, dated) | Contact (name, title, email and phone availability) | Opening line (one sentence, under 25 words, references hook 1)

## Output rules

- Every hook carries a date. A hook with no date is not a hook; drop it.
- Never invent funding amounts, hiring counts, or dates. Surface only what Lusha returns.
- If the verdict is COLD APPROACH, say it in the first line. The user would rather know now than after writing the email.
- Report what you dropped and why, in one line: "Dropped 2 events: one 2024 funding mention, one board seat."
- Names returned by Lusha are real people. Do not pad with guesses.

## Credit discipline

- `account_usage` and all `*_filters` calls are free.
- Signal reads cost credits per signal hit. State the expected cost before widening a window.
- Enrichment costs credits per contact. Confirm before enriching.

## List mode

If the user pastes a list of companies, run steps 1 to 5 for each, return a table sorted NOW first, then SOON, HOLD, COLD, and write hooks only for the NOW accounts. Cap at 25 companies per run and confirm the credit estimate first.

## Communication style

- Plain English. Short sentences. No buzzwords.
- Lead with the verdict.
- When you drop a signal, say so. The user should be able to check your work.

## Out of scope

- Full sequences → Sequence Writer Skill.
- Buying group maps → Buying Group Skill.
- Lists from scratch → Lusha Prospector Skill.
- Tech stack questions → Lusha Tech Stack Snapshot Skill.

For anything else outside this scope, point the user to the relevant Lusha play: https://www.lusha.com/campus/plays/

What you get back

Situation: a rep selling sales engagement software asks, “Why now for [data infrastructure company, ~800 employees, US]?”

What the Skill does, invisibly:

1. Checks the credit balance (free)
2. Resolves the company and confirms one match
3. Pulls 90 days of company signals: 6 events returned
4. Drops 2: a 2025 funding mention rehashed in a recent article, and a board appointment
5. Confirms the new VP Sales seat was filled 34 days ago via the contact signal
6. Returns the verdict

Example outputs in this play are illustrative. They reflect the structure, fields, and format of real Lusha connector output, but were not pulled from a live session. Run the Skill with your own data and connectors to see live results.

Three requests to try once it’s installed

1. One account, offering named. “Why now for [company]? We sell data enrichment for RevOps teams.”

2. A list. “Here are 20 target accounts. Which ones are NOW this week, and what’s the hook for each?” The Skill returns a table sorted NOW, SOON, HOLD, COLD and writes hooks only for the NOW rows. It caps a run at 25 companies and confirms the credit estimate first.

3. A HOLD check. “[Company] cut headcount last quarter. Is there any reason to reach out now, or should we wait?”

Why it works with Lusha in Claude

The Skill works because Lusha signals arrive with effective dates and reading dates, not just headlines, so the date hygiene can be done by rule rather than by guess. Contact signals are framed as a position being filled or vacated, never as tracking a named person. And the connector runs in the same chat where the email gets written, so the verdict, the hook, the verified contact, and the opening line land in one pass. Lusha’s data is SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certified and GDPR and CCPA compliant; the Trust Center covers how it is sourced.

FAQ

What is the Why Now Skill?

A reusable Claude Skill that reads a company’s live Lusha buying signals, cleans out stale and duplicate events, and returns a timing verdict (NOW, SOON, HOLD, or COLD APPROACH) with up to three dated hooks, one verified contact, and an opening line.

Which signals does it read?

All 24 company signals and both contact signals available through the Lusha connector, over a 90 day window by default. The company set covers funding, executive hires, hiring surges by total, department, and location, headcount and IT spend changes, website traffic changes, three news categories, and LinkedIn activity intent. The signals reference lists each one with its refresh cadence.

How is it different from the Account Intelligence Skill?

Account Intelligence gives you the whole account: firmographics, buying group, signals, next steps. Why Now answers one question and stops. Use Why Now when the list is long and you need to decide which accounts to work this week. Use Account Intelligence once you have picked one.

How do I customize it for what I sell?

Add two or three sentences at the top of the instructions: what you sell, who buys it, and which signal types matter for your product. The Skill then ties every hook to your offering instead of asking each time.

How many Lusha credits does it use?

It calls account_usage first at zero cost and states the expected cost before widening a signal window or enriching a contact. Signal reads cost credits per hit; enrichment is the credit-heavy step and the Skill confirms before running it. Current rates are on the pricing page.

Related plays

• Use buying signals to time outreach perfectly (the prompt this Skill packages)
• Tech Stack Snapshot Skill: see what a company runs and the gap you sell into
• Build a list from a buying signal in Claude, with a direct dial on every buyer
• Sequence Writer Skill (where the hooks go next)

Browse every play at lusha.com/campus/plays.