Section 6 · The 'Why Now?' Engine
6.2Leadership change trigger
Designed for Phase 2- No.
- 6.2
- DMA's reference
- Decision Book p.17
- Phase
- Phase 2
- Autonomy
- L1 · Recommend
- DMA's decision
- Yes
What DMA asked for · Decision Book p.17
Notice when a prospect gets a new CEO or marketing leader, because new leaders often review their agencies.
Why it matters to DMA: A new leader is one of the most reliable moments to be heard: they are looking at vendors with fresh eyes, early in the job.
In our words, from DMA's Product Decision Book v3, page 17.
How we do it
- DMA's book schedules this for Phase 2, with a company news and hiring feed. The POC already has everything the trigger feeds into; the feed itself is the Phase 2 work.
- Designed flow: the feed reports an event (a new VP of Marketing started at a dormant prospect). The company is matched to the Nutshell account by domain and name; the person is checked against the account's known contacts.
- The event becomes a dated signal on the account, like a contract end from a note. DMA's rules decide whether it changes the next best action, and the message angle is a short, relevant welcome with one observation about their marketing.
- Nothing reaches the prospect without the consent gate and the send limits, and new message angles are approved before use.
Already in place
- The nightly review already reads notes for contacts who left, changed role or whose email bounced. When the main contact of a Tier A or B account has left, the next best action becomes "find new contact", for a person to confirm.
- The why-now slot on every account, with dated signals, their status and where they came from (6.1).
- Scoring and next-best-action rules kept as versioned data: a new trigger is a rule change a person approves, not new code paths.
- Consent, suppression, verified addresses and send limits on every message, whatever started it.
What the later phase adds
- A company-news and hiring feed, matched to accounts by domain.
- A "new leader" signal with the person's name and role, confirmed before any outreach.
- A welcome message angle approved by DMA.
The flow
It plays on its own while it's on screen; hover or use the controls to pause or step through.
An event arrives
A new VP of Marketing started at a dormant prospect
- Stored data
- Rule in code
- Person
- Screen
Where the data goes
The same six stages on every page. Nothing reaches Nutshell except through the write gate.
- 1Event feed
Source
A company news and hiring feed (Phase 2).
- 2Sync
Copies Nutshell changes into the bridge database
Nutshell history is already mirrored; the event is matched against it.
- 3Bridge database
A copy of the CRM data, plus what the AI works out
Stores the event, the match and its confidence, with an expiry.
- 4AI
Claude models, only through DMA's own gateway
Reads the event and writes the angle; code decides the score and the action.
- 5Write gate
The only way back into Nutshell: checked, approved when needed, sent once
Carries the reason and next action onto the account.
- 6Nutshell
The system of record
The rep sees the event as the why-now.
The tables behind it
Drawn from the POC's database catalogue: structure only, no data.
PK primary keyFK reference the database enforces (solid line)ID reference kept by id (dashed line)
| Table | What it holds | Columns |
|---|---|---|
| ai.enrichment | Where bought-in data lands: provider, the fields returned, match confidence, cost and expiry. | 9 |
| ai.scores | The score, reason codes and next best action the event would feed. | 20 |
| ctrl.decision_log | Every trigger decision, with its inputs and the rule that fired. | 28 |
How the tables connect (4)
| Column | Points to | Kept by |
|---|---|---|
| ai.scores.prompt_id | agent.prompts | The application (by id) |
| ctrl.decision_log.agent_version_id | agent.agent_versions | The application (by id) |
| ctrl.decision_log.run_id | agent.runs | The application (by id) |
| ctrl.decision_log.conversation_id | conv.conversations | The application (by id) |
Worked example
Synthetic demo data: every name, business and number is made up.
Designed behaviour for one synthetic dormant account.
A new marketing leader at a dormant prospect
- Event
- Priya Shah joined Summit Orthopedics as VP of Marketing, September 2026
- Match
- Summit Orthopedics (domain match), confidence high
- What changes
- Why now: a new VP of Marketing started this monthThe old contact stays on the account; the new one is added for a person to confirm.
- Next best action
- Find new contact, then a welcome email for approval
In the running POC
There is no screen for this one yet: it is designed for Phase 2, as DMA's book decides. The parts listed under “Already in place” run in the POC today.
See it live
Opens the exact screen in the running POC, in a new tab.
| Open | Where | What to try |
|---|---|---|
| Today | DMA AI dashboard | Where the event would show as the why-now; today it shows the why-now from DMA's notes. |
Status
Designed for Phase 2. DMA's book schedules this for Phase 2. The design is ready and builds on parts that already run in the POC.