Updated
Why payroll vendors need the months before a renewal
Payroll is software nobody wants to switch in a hurry. Employee records, pay rules, tax settings and year-to-date totals all have to come across, and many teams want at least one pay run in parallel before they trust a new system. A company that starts looking a few weeks before its renewal often renews anyway, because there is no time left to move.
So the window matters more than the date. Many companies also prefer to change payroll at the start of a year or a quarter, when the totals reset; reaching them in the months before gives them time to plan for it.
Who to contact
Payroll sits between HR and finance, and both have a say:
- Head of People, HR Director or CHRO: owns the employee experience and often the HR system.
- Payroll Manager: runs every pay run and knows what the current product gets wrong.
- CFO, Finance Director or Controller: owns the cost, the ledger and the audit trail.
- In smaller companies, the founder or the office manager who runs payroll alongside other work.
What to say
Lead with the calendar, not the product. They adopted their current system about a year ago, so a review may be coming; offer to show what a move would involve, when it would need to start and how a parallel run would work, so they can decide on a real plan instead of a guess.
Never state their renewal date. Coolie infers the window from when they adopted the product, and a wrong date ends the conversation; ask instead whether a review is planned.
How Coolie finds them
Name the payroll products you compete with
Select as many as five payroll products, picked from the matches Coolie shows as you type their names.
Coolie dates each adoption
It looks for companies whose use of one of those products began 9 to 12 months ago and continues today, and shows when it began.
It keeps the companies that fit your ICP
Your ideal customer profile (industry, company size, location) filters the companies before anyone is contacted.
It finds the decision makers
At each company, Coolie looks for the people whose job titles match your ICP, and gives each lead a score.
It researches the leads you pick
For the leads you choose, Coolie writes a research brief (the company's news, the person, the reason to write now) and a personalized email and LinkedIn sequence.
It writes and sends from your own accounts
Email and LinkedIn steps go out from your own mailbox and LinkedIn account, spread over your working hours. You approve each message, or let the agent run on autopilot.
Before you rely on the window
Coolie does not see contracts. A company on a multi-year agreement, or paying monthly, will not follow the calendar the signal infers, and some companies run payroll through an accountant or a bureau rather than buying software directly. Treat each lead as a reason to ask about their plans, and add Competitor Churn for companies that leave a competitor without waiting for a renewal. See all signals.
Example (fictional)
You sell payroll software for mid-sized companies and name the competitor you most often replace.
Coolie finds Harbourline Engineering, 340 employees in the UK, which adopted that product ten months ago and still uses it.
Harbourline's HR Director and Finance Director are found and scored; for the ones you pick, Coolie drafts an email offering a migration plan that starts before the new tax year.
Every company and person in this example is invented.
Frequently asked questions
How far ahead of a renewal should a payroll vendor reach out?
Far enough to plan a move, which is why the signal looks at companies 9 to 12 months after they adopted a competitor: on a yearly contract, the decision is likely in the next three months. How long a switch takes depends on the company and on your product, so say it plainly in your first message.
Does Coolie know when their payroll contract ends?
No. It knows when the company started using the product and that it still does; a yearly renewal is an inference from that date.
Can I target companies in specific countries?
Yes: your ICP's locations and company sizes filter the companies before anyone is contacted, which matters in payroll, where each country's rules decide which products can serve a company at all.