Playbook
A one-page lead brief from pages you opened
Direct answer
A lead brief is a short note on a company you are about to contact, built only from pages you opened. Companies House lists some company details for free. ChatGPT may arrange those notes and must mark anything without a page. It does not replace the supplier-quote guide. This has not been live-tested.
- Time to set up
- One sitting per company, with the sites open
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Monthly cost, USD
- $0 on the free plan
- Monthly cost, GBP
- £0 on the free plan
- Last tested
- Not yet tested
- Updated
- 25 October 2026
GOV.UK says you can get some company details for free, including the registered address, officers, document images, charges, previous names, and insolvency information. ChatGPT's pricing page on 25 October 2026 listed a free plan and did not print a dollar amount for Go, Plus, or Pro. This guide does not buy a data product. The Grok page is for supplier prices, not for this brief.
GBP figures are a budgeting conversion at £1 = $1.33 and €1 = £0.86, rounded to the nearest pound, fixed for this edition on 24 October 2026. They are not a live rate and not a quote. Vendor list prices are usually quoted before tax.
Primary tool: ChatGPT
ConsultantsAgenciesTradespeople
Who it is for
A sole trader about to email or call a named business, who will not send a fact they have not opened.
Supplier prices, with a link you open before the number reaches a customer, are the Grok guide. The document you send as a quote is the trade quote draft.
If the lead arrived through a form, the two-step Zap files the enquiry. It does not research the company.
What you need
- The company's own website, open in a tab you control.
- The company name or number, so you can search on GOV.UK.
- A private note or sheet with columns for the fact and the URL.
Step by step
01
Open the company's site and write what it actually says
Copy the sentence that says what they do, and the URL of that page. If you cannot find a service, a location, or a contact route, write that you could not find it. Do not ask a model to guess the turnover, the staff count, or whether they are hiring. Those lines are how a brief becomes fiction.
02
Look the company up on GOV.UK
The GOV.UK page says some details are free: company information such as the registered address and date of incorporation, current and resigned officers, document images, mortgage charge data, previous names, and insolvency information. Search with the name or number. Copy the company number, the status, and the URL of the result. If two companies share a name, stop until you know which one you mean.
03
Leave home addresses out of the paste
Officers can be people. A registered office or a director's address is more than a brief needs. Copy the company number and the status. Do not paste a home address, a date of birth, or a personal phone number into ChatGPT. You can read those on the official page if you have a reason. The chat does not.
04
Ask for a brief that cites, and that marks gaps
In a ChatGPT Project, paste only the lines you copied, each with its URL. OpenAI's Projects article describes New project and Project settings for instructions. Tell it to use only those lines, to keep the brief to one page, and to write 'not in the notes' when you did not supply a fact. The pricing page marked Projects on the free plan.
05
Delete any sentence you cannot click
Read the draft against the tabs you still have open. If a line has no URL in your notes, delete it, even if it sounds likely. The supplier-research guide is the same rule for prices: a figure with no page is not a price. This page is not that search. Do not let a lead brief grow a quote for materials.
06
Write the email yourself
The brief is for you, before the call or the email. It is not the email. Say why you are writing, in your own words. Do not attach the brief. Do not claim you studied their accounts if you only read the overview. If you need a price from a supplier of yours, switch to the Grok guide and open those pages too.
What can go wrong
A turnover nobody published
If it was not on a page you opened, it is not in the brief. A round number is the usual invention.
Pasting a director's home address into the chat
The official register may show it. The prospecting note does not need it, and a consumer chat does not either.
Sending the model's paragraph as the outreach
The brief is private preparation. The email is a separate sentence you are willing to sign.
UK notes
Costs, including VAT
Companies House details listed on the GOV.UK page we read are free. ChatGPT's free plan was listed on 25 October 2026. Paid ChatGPT prices were not in that text, so this page does not convert them. A commercial people-search product is not part of the setup. If you later pay for one, that invoice is a different decision.
Data flow
Company data on the public register is still data about people when the officer is a person. Paste the company number and the status, not a home address. The company's own marketing page is what they published. UK GDPR still applies to personal data you choose to put in a chat. Keep the brief in a private note, not in a link anyone can open.
HMRC and Making Tax Digital
Looking up a company does not create a sale, a CIS deduction, or a VAT invoice. If the work goes ahead, you invoice it as you usually do. The brief is not a credit check. GOV.UK's page is an information search, not a promise that the company will pay you.
Practical orientation for a UK reader. Not tax, legal, or accounting advice.
Test log
Status: Pending first test
25 October 2026 · pending
Pending first test. The steps were compiled from GOV.UK's company-information page and the ChatGPT pricing and Projects pages. They have not been run on a live prospect.
Sources
- Get information about a company — accessed 25 October 2026
- ChatGPT pricing — accessed 25 October 2026
- Projects in ChatGPT — accessed 25 October 2026
Disclosure
AgentShed is independent and this playbook is not sponsored. There is no affiliate link on this page. If that changes, the link will use rel="sponsored" and a sentence beside it will say so. The verdict is not for sale.
Questions people ask
How is this different from the Grok supplier guide?
That guide looks for a published supplier price or lead time, and you open the link before a number reaches a customer. This one is a note on a business you might contact. It must not invent a price either.
Can the model browse the company for me?
Not in this setup. You open the site and the GOV.UK result, and you paste what you found. A line the model fetched on its own still has to be a page you then open.
Is Companies House the credit check?
No. The page we read lists public company details, including insolvency information where it exists. It does not say the company will pay your invoice.
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When this page is re-tested
One email when the log changes. No sequence of lessons.