Designing your first North American prospecting pilot.

One question, in plain words. Do buyers in this region and role want a conversation about our offer? That is narrower than "will we win US business", and it can be answered in a short test. A pilot cannot prove that you will close deals. It can show whether buyers respond, whether the leads or meetings match your profile and whether your own team follows up fast enough.

Write the question at the top of the plan. Every other decision in the pilot should serve it.

Start where your offer, references and delivery are most credible. A specific region and one role, for example "operations directors at mid-sized freight companies in the Eastern and Central time zones", makes a good pilot audience. A broad first audience makes the result hard to read, because you cannot tell which part worked.

Send your exclusion list at the same time: customers, open opportunities and accounts you cannot serve. A conversation with someone already in your pipeline is not a test of new demand.

Choose by what you want to learn, and by who will do the closing.

Every fee is listed in your written quote before you sign. Leads are exclusive and never resold. No-shows on appointments are never billed, and cancellations with notice are replaced.

Choose the lead route if you want to measure reach, and the appointment route if you want to measure held conversations. Pay per close includes a monthly fee, so it suits a pilot only if you are ready to run it for as long as the agreement lasts; either party can end a campaign on 14 days written notice. Compare the models on the pricing page, pay per lead, pay per appointment and pay per close.

Set the cap in US dollars, because quotes, contracts and invoices are in US dollars. Then convert it once, at today's rate, to see what it means in your own currency, and keep a margin for exchange movement. The hub page has a dated, indicative currency box, and it is a guide, not a price in your currency.

The cap decides the volume. Ask the written quote to state the cap and the number of leads or appointments it allows, so you cannot spend past it by accident.

Buyers answer in their own working day. Name the person who will take each meeting or follow up each lead, and the hours that person can cover. If that means late evenings in your time zone, say so now and plan around it. Check the gap against the meeting-window table and write times with their zone.

Prepare a plain offer in USD, references you have permission to share and a short answer to the question buyers ask a foreign supplier: how will you support us here? Vivin's outreach always says where your company actually operates, and never presents you as local.

Fix the pass mark before the first delivery, and measure the same few things every time.

• Leads or meetings delivered, accepted and rejected against your written criteria.
• How quickly your team followed up.
• Conversations held and what buyers said.
• Replacements granted, and any dispute raised inside the 5 business day window.

Judge early results on acceptance and conversations. Sales may take longer than the pilot lasts, so say that in the plan. Then choose one of three outcomes: widen, adjust or stop. Expansion decisions such as entity, tax and contracting stay with your own advisers.