Importing your target accounts into Stage 1

Every services firm already has a list. The accounts the partners want, the logos from last year's plan, the companies a former client moved to. Stage 1 finds accounts on its own, but it shouldn't ignore the ones you already chose.

Import puts your list into Stage 1, so it's watched with everything else.

What it does

You upload a CSV of companies you target. Stage 1 adds each one as an account and checks it on the same runs as the accounts it finds through your plays. When a signal lands at one of them, it shows on the Board, ranked by signal strength like any other account.

An imported account with no signal yet stays off the Board. It's watched, not ignored. The Board is for accounts that are moving, and a name on a list isn't movement.

What goes in the file

Only one column is required, account, with the company name. Everything else is optional. Domain, industry, employees and region describe the company. Name, title, linkedin and email add a person. Signal_type, signal, date and url add something that happened.

Stage 1 reads the usual header names too. Company works for account, website for domain, headcount for employees, job title for title.

One row is one signal. Rows for the same account roll up into one card, so three things you know about one company go on three rows. Signal types are the ten Stage 1 watches, from rfp and leadership_change to hiring, funding and competitor. The Import screen lists them all, and a sample file downloads from the same screen.

A row might read like this.

Harlow Freight,harlowfreight.com,1200,US,Jordan Reyes,VP Data,,,hiring,Opened a Director of Data Engineering role,2026-09-20

That one row gives Stage 1 the company, its size, a person in a buying seat and a dated signal. With a signal in the row, the account goes straight to the Board.

What happens on import

You can upload a file or paste the rows straight in. Up to 5,000 rows go in at a time.

Rows with a problem are skipped, and Stage 1 tells you which row and why. No account name, an employee count that isn't a number, a signal type it doesn't know, a date it can't read. Everything else goes in. The result reads as a count of accounts, people and new signals, with a button to open the Board.

Import fills blanks. If Stage 1 already knows an account's size or domain, your file doesn't overwrite it. People are matched by name or LinkedIn profile, so a person who's already on the account isn't added twice.

Research starts right away, not at the next scheduled run.

Where to find it

Settings, Import. The screen shows the columns, the signal types, a file picker, a box to paste into, and a link to download a sample file. CSV import is on every plan.

Why it matters for services

Services firms don't sell to the whole market. They sell to a few hundred companies where they have a reason to win, an industry they know, a platform they've built on, a client who moved. That list is worth more than any database filter.

The trouble is that a list goes stale. Nobody rechecks 300 accounts every week. Import hands the checking to Stage 1, so the list turns into a Board of the accounts that are moving now. For how to build that list in the first place, read build a target list that isn't a guess. To clean one you already have, see cleaning a target list in an afternoon. And for how the Board ranks what comes in, see how Stage 1 ranks accounts on the Board.

Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial and no credit card. Start your trial and bring your list.