# Hermes Owner Contact Strategy Lock

Locked date: 2026-06-24
Project: Vinod USA Lead Control / Hermes Agent
Workflow source: `multi-source-owner-evidence`

## Rule

For every niche the user provides, Hermes must run the same owner-contact strategy:

1. Use the niche only to choose relevant USA businesses.
2. Treat Google Maps, websites, directories, registries, booking platforms, social pages, and local articles as seed/evidence sources.
3. Identify a real person owner first.
4. Prove that owner identity with public evidence.
5. Run the owner profile rabbit hole: LinkedIn personal profile first, then Facebook, Instagram, X, articles, interviews, directories, leadership pages, and direct owner-contact searches.
6. Extract owner contact only after owner proof exists.
7. Qualify only when the contact is owner-backed.
8. If owner proof or owner contact cannot be proven after bounded research, mark the business exhausted and continue to the next business.

The niche changes. The strategy does not.

## Qualification Gate

A lead may be qualified only when all of these are true:

- The business is in the United States.
- The business matches the requested niche.
- A named owner/founder/CEO/principal/operator is found.
- Public evidence ties that person to the business.
- The contact is one of:
  - `owner-direct`: owner email or owner phone is tied to owner-level evidence with a public source.
  - `owner-associated`: a strong owner identity is proven, and the best reachable channel is the official business email or phone tied to that owner-controlled business.
- Business-only contact is never treated as owner-direct contact.

Business email and business phone must stay in separate seed fields. They can support an `owner-associated` result only when the owner identity is proven and the contact remains clearly labeled as business contact.

## Rejection Rules

Reject or exhaust the business when:

- No real person owner is found.
- Owner name looks like a business name, department, role label, or generic contact.
- Contact is only a generic business email or business phone with no owner proof.
- Evidence is weak, guessed, unsupported, or mismatched to the city/business.
- Research exceeds the bounded owner rabbit-hole pass without proof.

Do not invent owner names, emails, phones, social profiles, or URLs.

## Search Pattern

For each business, run the owner rabbit hole in this order:

1. Business website: About, Team, Leadership, Contact, blog, press, footer, schema, and linked socials.
2. Exact business + city search: owner, founder, CEO, president, principal, operator.
3. Public profiles: LinkedIn personal profile first, then Facebook, Instagram, X, and other visible profile pages.
4. Third-party proof: local articles, interviews, directories, reviews, registries, event listings, booking/vendor pages.
5. Owner contact trail: public emails, phones, profile links, articles, and source-backed contact mentions.
6. Quality gate: accept owner-direct or owner-associated only; otherwise reject/exhaust and continue.

## Dashboard Meaning

Dashboard source label:

`Multi-source seeds -> owner evidence graph -> owner contact proof`

Counters should mean:

- Owner hunts: businesses where Hermes attempted the owner rabbit hole.
- Owner profiles: public owner/profile evidence found.
- Owner contacts: source-backed owner-direct contacts.
- Qualified: owner-direct or owner-associated leads that passed the quality gate.
- Rejected/failures: businesses where owner proof/contact was missing, weak, exhausted, or errored.

## Output Contract

Final CSV/report rows must keep these concepts separate:

- Business name, city, state, website.
- Owner name and owner title.
- Owner email and owner phone, when owner-direct proof exists.
- Business email and business phone as seed or owner-associated channel.
- Contact confidence: `owner-direct`, `owner-associated`, `business-only`, or `no-contact`.
- Owner evidence URL/source.
- Owner contact evidence.
- Owner rabbit-hole status and exhaustion reason.
- Agent/search trace summary.

## Locked Prompt

Use this as the controlling instruction for every niche run:

Use Google Maps, websites, directories, registries, booking platforms, social pages, and local articles only as seed/evidence sources. Identify a real person owner first, prove that owner with public evidence, search that person's public profile/contact trail, and qualify only when owner email or owner phone is tied to owner-level evidence. Business phone/email must remain seed contact only. If owner proof or owner contact cannot be proven after bounded research, mark the business exhausted and continue.

