A Canadian consultancy needed owners and operators at 5 to 50-person manufacturers and trades businesses. Three keyword batches found the right problem but the wrong people. One creator with the right audience helped Signado find 37 people and keep five worth reviewing.
Real customer workspace. Business and person names withheld.
37
People found
from one creator source
5
Worth reviewing
after Signado checked fit
2
Interested
already discussing the problem
One afternoon · August 3 to 4, 2026 · one Canadian manufacturing creator
A Canadian business-process consultancy wanted a repeatable way to find clients through LinkedIn after 30 years of referrals, word of mouth, and cold calling. It served owner-led Canadian manufacturers and trades businesses with 5 to 50 employees.
Three keyword batches matched the operational problems the consultancy solved. But LinkedIn keyword results were global, and many people using those terms were consultants and vendors selling services around the same problems. The keywords were relevant. The people were not.
Adding more keywords would not fix the audience. We switched to one Canadian manufacturing creator whose posts already attracted owners and operators, then let Signado check who fit the consultancy's market.
Follow the real run from a precise buyer definition to three noisy keyword batches, one creator source, five keepers, and one comment-led opener.
Step 01
The consultancy served owner-led Canadian manufacturers and trades businesses with 5 to 50 employees. That definition gave Signado a clear test for every person it found: the role, company, size, industry, and location had to resemble a business the consultancy could help.
Step 02
We tried three batches of phrases that described the operational problems the consultancy solves. The words matched the problem, but the results included consultants, vendors, and people outside Canada. The keywords found the right conversation and the wrong audience.
Step 03
We changed the starting point to one Canadian manufacturing founder. Their recent posts attracted people running manufacturing, food, restaurant, and goods businesses, so the audience was closer to the consultancy’s market before Signado scored anyone.
Real source
One Canadian manufacturing founder with an audience of owners and operators
Creator identity withheld to protect the customer workspace.
Step 04
Paste the founder’s personal LinkedIn URL into Signado as a Creator source and choose Daily. On the first check, Signado can look back up to seven days for an eligible post with comments. Following checks look for new activity from the last 24 hours.
Step 05
The creator run found 37 people. Signado checked the role, company, location, public activity, and fit with the consultancy’s market. Five were worth reviewing. A competing consultancy scored 22, an employee at a company with more than 1,000 people scored 19, and the creator’s own reply was excluded.
37
found
5
kept
2
interested
Step 06
One keeper was a supply chain director at a four-person food manufacturer in Alberta. The person scored 64 and had written that the product had promise but the business was not profitable enough yet. That comment gave the consultancy a specific problem to ask about instead of a generic compliment.
Message path
Their comment → the pressure they described → one relevant question → human review
After approval, the lead can go through Gmail, SMTP, Instantly, HeyReach, a webhook, or CSV.
The consultancy did not need more people talking about operations. It needed Canadian owners and operators. Starting from a creator they already followed moved the search closer to those buyers.
The scores did not turn people into buyers. They made the differences visible, so a four-person manufacturer did not look equal to a competing consultancy or a 1,000-person company.
Real examples from the consultancy workspace. Names and companies withheld.
| Person | Company | Location | Fit score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Co-founder and COO | 5-person consumer products manufacturer | Ontario | 67 |
| Supply chain director | 4-person food manufacturer | Alberta | 64 |
| Founder | 11 to 50-person restaurant group | Not supplied | 63 |
| President | 5-person business | Ontario | 59 |
| Owner | Small ecommerce goods business | Atlantic Canada | 53 |
Comment, paraphrased
The supply chain director believed in the product, but the business was not profitable enough yet.
Opener built from that comment
You mentioned that you believe in the product, but the business is not profitable enough yet. When that happens in a small manufacturer, where do you feel the pressure most today: purchasing, production, or the handoff between them?
This run measured discovery: who was worth contacting, not who was ready to purchase that afternoon. Two of the five were already engaged on the exact problem.
We also ran the same Creator setup in our own market for four weeks: see how one source found 97 leads worth reviewing for Signado.
Keywords narrow the conversation. A creator narrows the audience. Signado then decides which people fit. In this run, three keyword batches matched the problem but returned the wrong market. One creator put Signado inside an audience of Canadian operators, then the fit check separated five potential clients from the other 32 people.
The buyer definition set the test: Canadian owners and operators at manufacturers and trades businesses with 5 to 50 employees.
The creator changed who entered the search: operators following a Canadian manufacturing founder instead of anyone using a broad problem phrase.
Signado kept the evidence attached: the role, company, location, score, source post, and comment showed why each person deserved review.
A narrow market does not always need a better keyword. It may need one person whose audience already contains the clients you want to meet.
Change the source, not just the phrase. Add a creator whose posts attract the owners or operators you want to meet. Signado finds the people joining those public conversations, then checks whether their role and company fit who you sell to.
Choose a person whose LinkedIn audience overlaps with your buyers, add that personal profile as a Creator source in Signado, and set it to Daily. Signado checks recent public posts, finds the people taking part, keeps what they said, and scores their fit with your market.
Look at who comments on the person’s recent posts. Choose a creator followed by the roles, industries, company sizes, and locations you can serve. A large following matters less than an audience that contains your potential clients.
One creator run found 37 people in one afternoon. Five were worth reviewing, and two of those five were already engaged on the exact problem. The five fit scores were 67, 64, 63, 59, and 53.
A Creator source set to Daily checks for new public activity every day. The first check can look back up to seven days for an eligible post with comments. Following checks use the latest 24-hour window.
No. Signado does not ask for your LinkedIn login, cookies, or a browser extension. It watches public LinkedIn activity without running through your personal account.
Add one personal LinkedIn profile to Signado. It checks the creator’s recent public conversations, finds the people taking part, and shows who fits your market with the original context attached.