What you'll be able to do after this guide: set up an hourly agent that finds records in your CRM that were never fully researched and finishes the job, so nothing sits half-done.
Records arrive in your CRM in many ways: added by hand after an event, imported from a list, created by a colleague, or left half-researched by a sourcing run that hit a tool outage. None of these go through the sourcing agent's full process, so they have no score, no evidence and no draft. Without a backfill agent, they sit untouched.
The backfill agent is also the retry mechanism for the whole system. Because sourcing agents leave the research date blank when research couldn't finish, the backfill agent will find those records and complete them.
The backfill agent's queue is simply "company records with no research date".
Work out the time one hour ago.
List company records created before that time, oldest first, 50 at a time.
Skip any with a research date, any marked Customer or Rejected, and anything on the exclusion list.
Take the first 10 that qualify. If fewer than 10 qualify, page on, up to about 200 records scanned.
Two details matter:
The one-hour delay stops the backfill agent grabbing a record that a sourcing agent is still in the middle of writing.
Oldest first works through the backlog fairly, so nothing waits forever.
You may find your CRM's filter can't test for "field is blank". That's fine: list the records and have the agent check the field itself.
Zero records to work on is a healthy result. Tell the agent not to go looking for work elsewhere when the queue is empty.
At 11:00 the backfill agent finds four records without a research date:
| Record | How it arrived | What the agent does |
|---|---|---|
| Brightside Ltd | Added by hand after a conference | Classifies it as Segment A, runs the full Segment A research, scores 4, drafts a message, sets Review |
| Hollin & Co | Imported list | Classifies it as Segment B, researches, scores 2, marks Skipped with research date set |
| Marston Group | Sourcing run left it unfinished after a tool outage | Completes the research, scores 3, marks Skipped |
| Kestrel Studio | Added by a colleague | Can't tell which segment fits. Creates a task "Classify segment: Kestrel Studio", leaves it at Researching with no research date |
The backfill agent first decides which segment's procedure to run.
If the record already has fields that point to a segment (a known current tool, say), use them.
Otherwise do a quick check of the website: a company with departments and clients suggests one segment; a one-person brand suggests another.
If it's still unclear, don't guess. Create a task for a person, leave the status at Researching and the research date blank so it can be retried, and move on.
Treat classification as choosing a branch, never as a reason to stop. If the company fits two segments, run the main one in full and set the second score honestly.
The backfill spec includes a condensed copy of each segment's research steps, or points to each sourcing spec. Either way, the backfill agent must apply exactly the same standards as the sourcing agents. A prospect shouldn't get worse research just because it arrived by a different route.
After the cheap research is done, the score decides what happens:
Scores 1 to 3: research is complete. Set the research date, mark Skipped, write no value hypothesis and no draft.
Scores 4 and 5: browse the prospect's own website, choose the value angle, write a two to three sentence value hypothesis that stands on its own as the pitch, draft the message, write the routing note, then set Review.
The value hypothesis is written last and only for strong fits. That way "value hypothesis is filled in" always means "this company was checked and is worth contacting".
Track how many records the backfill agent marks as weak fits. If most hand-added or imported records score 1 to 3, the other ways records enter your CRM are bringing in poor prospects, and that's worth fixing at the source.
If you add a new segment (partners, for example), update the backfill agent to recognise it, or tell the sourcing agent for that segment that there's no retry for its unfinished records. Otherwise those records wait forever.
Next: move on to From Prospect to Conversation, starting with Design the Outreach Pipeline.
