What your business context should contain before you start outreach

Why this comes first

An outreach draft, a reply to a customer and a research brief all start from the same question: what does this business sell, to whom, and how does it talk? When the answer lives in people's heads, every tool and every new teammate has to be told again, and each telling comes out a little different.

A written business context fixes that. It does not need to be long. It needs to be specific enough that someone who has never met you could write a first message you would be willing to sign.

The offer

Describe what you sell as a buyer would see it, not as your internal service catalogue names it.

• What it is, in one sentence a customer would use.
• Who it is for, and the problem it removes for them.
• How it is priced: a range, a starting point, or how a quote is worked out. If you never quote prices in a first message, say so.
• What is included and what is not, so nobody promises the part you do not do.
• The proof you can actually show: a case you are allowed to name, a process, a guarantee you really offer. Leave out anything you could not back up on a call.

The buyer

A target market is more than an industry. Write down what makes a company worth contacting and who inside it you want to reach.

• Company type, size and region you serve well.
• The roles that decide, and the roles that use what you sell. They are often different people.
• What tends to be true just before someone buys: a new hire, a launch, a new location, a tool they have outgrown.
• Who is not a fit. Exclusions save more wasted messages than any filter: competitors, companies too small to afford you, regions you cannot serve.

How you sound

Tone is easier to describe with examples than adjectives. Paste two or three messages your team has sent that you were proud of, and note what makes them yours.

• Formal or conversational; first names or titles.
• Words you use, and words you never use.
• How long a first message should be.
• Whether you write in more than one language, and when.

The answers you give every week

Most customer questions repeat. Writing the answers down once is what lets a reply be fast and consistent, whoever sends it.

• Frequent questions, with the answer you actually give.
• Policies: booking and cancellation, refunds, response times, what happens after a sale.
• Opening hours and the regions or languages you cover.

The lines you never cross

Constraints belong in the context as much as the pitch does. A good draft that promises the wrong thing is worse than no draft.

• Claims you cannot make, for legal, regulatory or contractual reasons.
• Discounts or terms nobody may offer without approval.
• Topics to hand to a person rather than answer in writing.

A short example

Where it lives in Selfmades

Each organization in your workspace has a profile and a knowledge base. Entries sit in categories (General, Services, Pricing, FAQ, Policies, Projects), you can write them by hand or upload a document, and each one can be switched on or off for the AI without deleting it. Outreach drafts are written with this context, Stream Desk answers from the entries that are switched on, and the agent reads them when you ask it for help.

Keep it current

Treat the context like a price list: when the offer, the market or a policy changes, change the entry the same day. One accurate entry beats three that contradict each other, so update in place rather than adding a new one beside the old.