MorningSheetThe MorningSheet Blog
For reps who sell to new businesses
How to find a business that is about to open, how long you have before it picks a vendor, and what to say when you call. Written from the Washington public record we read every week.
Looking for this week's openings? Seattle Tacoma Everett All openings
The numbers
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What a new Seattle restaurant looks like in the public record
198 Seattle food businesses licensed in six months: a quarter are trucks or carts, nine in ten are a first location, one in eight had a website.
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What the World Cup did to Seattle restaurants (and what it didn't)
Match-day sales up by half, Chinatown-ID sales down a fifth, and no surge in new restaurants. The numbers, with sources.
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Find them
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How to find restaurants opening soon in Seattle (before they're on Yelp)
The five Seattle records, in the order they appear, where to pull each one for free, and how to tell a real opening from a filing.
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How to find new businesses opening in your area (7 public sources)
New businesses leave a public trail months before they open. The seven signals, earliest to latest, and how to pull each one yourself.
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How to find newly registered businesses in Washington
A new Washington business is public information. The exact free state and city tools that hold each piece (Secretary of State, DOR, DOL, city licenses, permits, liquor) in the order they tip a business's hand.
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Washington business license search: the DOR lookup, step by step
The Department of Revenue's Business Lookup is the closest thing Washington has to a master list of businesses. How to search it by name, UBI, owner, or address, and where it stops short.
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Washington Secretary of State business search: find new LLCs the day they file
CCFS holds the earliest public signal a business gives off. How to search it by name, UBI, or registered agent, and why a formation is intent to confirm, not a prospect to call.
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UBI number lookup: find any Washington business's UBI for free
What the nine digits mean, the two free tools that resolve them (DOR and CCFS), how a UBI differs from an EIN, and what it won't tell you.
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Seattle business license lookup: two free city tools
The licensed-business directory answers a name; the open-data portal hands you the list. What each shows, and why the city record beats the state's on freshness.
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Who owns a business in Washington? How to find out, free
Three public registers name the people behind a Washington business: the CCFS governors line, the DOR owner-name search, and the contractor register. Which to search first, and what none of them will tell you.
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How to read a building permit (and spot a business about to open)
A permit is a public record of intent and money. Learn to read a few fields and it stops being paperwork. It becomes a dated, qualified, public lead.
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Seattle restaurant build-out permits, read weekly
A build-out permit is the first restaurant signal backed by real money. What King County's permit record says this week, and how to pull the same list yourself for free.
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5 King County restaurants that filed to open last week
A walk through five real opening signals from the public record: the permit or license behind each, the buying window it opens, and the rep who should already be dialing.
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Time it
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The restaurant opening timeline: every permit, license, and inspection
How a restaurant goes from LLC to open doors: the full sequence of public milestones, and which vendor's selling window each step opens.
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The 5-minute rule: what the research says about calling leads fast
A team of researchers tested how fast 2,241 companies call their web leads. The gap between the fast movers and everyone else is bigger than you'd guess.
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Why the first call wins (and how to make it yours)
In new-business sales, the vendor who reaches the buyer first usually wins. Here's why timing beats talent for new-business reps, and how to engineer being first instead of hoping for it.
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Sell to them
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Where merchant-services reps find new restaurant leads
A restaurant picks its card processor once, weeks before it opens, so the only easy sale is the first one. The public signals that surface new restaurants early, and how to be the first ISO in the door.
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Exclusive vs. shared leads: why multi-sold lists quietly kill your close rate
A shared lead goes to several reps at once; an exclusive lead goes to one. The honest math on which is worth it, including when shared is actually the right call.
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Lead lists vs. a live openings feed
A bought list is a snapshot sold to everyone; a live feed is dated signals with a buying window still open. The honest comparison, and which one fits how you actually sell.
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Cost per acquired customer: the lead math that actually matters
Cost per lead is a vanity number. The math that tells you whether a lead source actually pays is cost per signed customer, and then what that customer is worth.
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Where to find commercial cleaning jobs in Seattle
Seattle issues dozens of commercial build-out permits a month, each a space that will need a post-construction clean. Where the work lives in the public record, and how to reach it early.
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How post-construction cleaning contracts get awarded
The honest version: the GC usually signs, late in the job, often from a short list. Here is how a cleaning company that is not already on that list gets in.
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How a building permit signals a commercial cleaning job
A commercial build-out pulls a permit before the final clean is bid. That dated public record hands a cleaning company the scope, the size, and the address — months early.
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Want this week's openings, not last week's list?
MorningSheet hands one rep per territory the freshest King County restaurant openings, exclusive for 7 days: the business's verified direct line included. Start with a free sample.