What a location signal actually is (and why intent scores aren't one)
Permits, licenses, occupancy filings and moves are dated, public facts about a specific address. Intent scores are guesses about a company. Here's why the difference decides your quarter.
Most "intent" products tell you a company looked at something. A location signal tells you a business did something at an address, on a date, in public record.
That distinction is the whole product.
The three parts of a usable signal
- The event. A permit pulled, a license issued, a certificate of occupancy granted, a lease change, a registration filed, a move recorded.
- The address. Not the corporate HQ three states away — the suite where the work is happening and the decision gets made.
- The date. When it happened, so you know where the buyer is in their window. A permit from fourteen months ago is history. One from last Tuesday is a meeting.
Strip any one of those and you're back to a list.
Why "why-now" beats "who"
Every seller in your category can buy the same firmographic list you can. What none of them have is the ordering: which twelve of those two thousand accounts are inside a buying window this month. A build-out permit issued three weeks ago puts connectivity, security, insurance and payments decisions all on the table within roughly sixty days — and puts the buyer in a mode where they are actively looking for vendors rather than defending an incumbent.
Cited or it didn't happen
Reps do not trust scores they can't check, and they're right not to. Every FirstKnock signal carries its source record and its date, so a rep can open the citation before they dial and open with a specific, verifiable fact:
"Saw your CO came through on the Braker Lane suite — are you set for connectivity on day one?"
That's not a cold call. That's the first knock.