Two people can type almost the same sentence and mean different things. "What is the best CRM?" can come from a founder who signs up tonight or from a student writing a paper. Learning to tell them apart in a few seconds is the difference between five useful replies a week and fifty wasted ones.

This is a field guide to that skill. It lists the signals that mean someone is close to buying, the ones that only look like it, and a quick score you can apply to any post on Reddit, Quora or LinkedIn. For the broader idea of reading signals before anyone fills out a form, see what is intent data.

The four signals of a real buyer

Real buying intent shows up in four ways. The more of them a post has, the more worth your time it is.

  1. A named problem with a cost. "Our invoices go out two weeks late and it is hurting cash flow." The person is losing something now.
  2. A constraint. A budget, a team size, a deadline, a city, a tool they must work with. People who are only curious do not bother inventing constraints.
  3. A request for names or criteria. "Who do you use?" "What should I look for?" They want to choose.
  4. A decision point. "We are switching before the new year," "contract is up in March," "our last provider fell through." A date turns interest into a project.

Phrases by stage

The wording tells you how close the person is. This is the rough ladder, from furthest to closest.

  • Learning. "How does X work," "what is X," "is X worth it." No purchase yet. Reply only if you can teach something, and expect nothing back.
  • Comparing. "X vs Y," "what is the difference between," "which is better for." The person has narrowed to two or three. A neutral, specific answer lands well here.
  • Choosing. "Can anyone recommend," "looking for a," "who do you use for." They are ready to take names.
  • Switching. "Moving away from," "alternatives to," "fed up with." They are paying someone already and are unhappy, which is often a quicker sale than a first-time buyer.
  • Urgent. "Need someone by Friday," "ASAP," "our site is down." Reply fast, and make the next step trivial.

What each platform's version looks like

The same intent is worded differently depending on where it is posted.

Reddit. People are blunt and specific, often with context: "Running a 6-person landscaping company in Ohio, we are drowning in missed calls, what do you use?" Recommendation requests are common in city and trade communities. The date matters less because old threads still rank in Google.

Quora. Intent is wrapped in explanation: "How do I decide whether to hire a fractional CFO or an in-house controller?" The asker is researching, so criteria and price ranges are what they want. See how to find Quora questions from people ready to hire.

LinkedIn. People write in a professional register and often as a story: "We just lost our head of recruiting. Any agencies you trust?" The ask is buried in a paragraph, and the post is fresh, so a week is already old. See finding customers on LinkedIn by searching posts.

Look-alikes that waste your time

  • The student. No situation, a textbook question, a generic phrasing. Often tagged with a course or a "for a project" line.
  • The seller in disguise. "What is the best tool for outreach?" from an account that links to its own product in the comments. They are shopping for customers, not for you.
  • The vent. A long complaint with no ask. Sympathy is welcome, a pitch is not.
  • The poll. "What does everyone use?" with a hundred replies and no sign the asker will read yours.
  • The stale thread. The asker said "thanks, solved" three comments ago.

A thirty-second score

Give a post one point for each yes, and reply to anything at four or higher.

  1. Does the person describe a real situation, not a generic topic?
  2. Is there a constraint, such as budget, size, place or date?
  3. Are they asking for names, criteria or a recommendation?
  4. Is the post fresh enough to answer (a day or two on LinkedIn, a few weeks on Reddit and Quora, or a thread that still ranks and still takes replies)?
  5. Do you actually fit what they need, with no stretching?
  6. Is the reply space still open: few answers, none of them thorough?

The last two are about you, and they matter most. If you would have to bend your offer to fit, leave it.

An example, scored

Take this Reddit post from a founder: "We are a 9-person SaaS and our support is a shared Gmail. Customers wait two days for a reply. Budget around $300 a month. Anyone moved from a shared inbox to a real helpdesk? What would you pick?" It has a named problem with a cost (two-day waits), constraints (nine people, $300), a request for names and a decision point implied by the pain. Score it: the first question is a yes (two-day waits on a shared Gmail), so is the second (nine people, $300), so is the third (it asks what they would pick), the fourth is a yes if it was posted this week, the fifth if you sell helpdesks, and the sixth if few people have answered. That is up to six. Now compare "what is a helpdesk?", which scores one or two at most.

Doing the scoring without reading everything

Reading is the slow part. Rocketship's Conversations does the first pass: it searches Reddit, Quora and LinkedIn for posts that match your business and your buyer, gives each a fit score so the best come first, and drafts the reply, comment or DM in your voice. The score is a shortcut for sorting, so open the post and apply your own judgment before sending. You send it from your own account, or turn on Post for me (Launch and up), which posts Reddit replies and LinkedIn comments for you, from your own accounts, within a daily limit you set. For LinkedIn, you press Search LinkedIn and the free Chrome extension reads the newest posts in your browser.

If you want to apply the same ideas by hand first, how to use Reddit search to find people ready to buy walks through the searches, and how to find people asking for recommendations online compares the places. When you are ready to see it on your own business, read how Conversations works.