agent-targeting-standard-signal.html
Your outbound agent sends at machine speed all day. It runs on whatever targeting you gave it. Most owners never set that standard. So the agent inherits a loose ICP and sprays bad-fit accounts. Reply rates fall and the domain cools. The fix is a targeting standard you own: who it may contact, what signal qualifies them, and who it must never touch.
Read time: about 5 minutes. First step runnable Monday morning.
Write the one-page fit bar your agent may target, straight from your last 20 closed-won deals.
The agent cannot judge fit; it obeys the bar you set. No bar means it treats every account as a target. Pull your recent wins, name the pattern that separates them, and write it down. That page becomes the standard the agent runs on, not a guess it makes.
Start here: export your last 20 closed-won accounts with firmographics, the trigger that opened them, and the buying committee. You need CRM access and one hour.
Ignore this week: prompt wording, sequence copy, and sending volume. Set the fit bar first, then feed the agent.