Find the warm intro before you ever go cold.

“Who can walk me into this account so I do not have to go cold?”

Sweeps your team's network, customers, past colleagues, and shared investors for every warm path into a target account, scores each one, and picks the single best connector. When no path clears the bar, it says go cold and names the signal to anchor on.

CLOSE MORE DEALSINTERMEDIATECRMENRICHMENT TOOL WITH PEOPLE AND JOB-POSTINGS DATACONVERSATION TOOL✓ APPROVED 4/4
EXAMPLE PROMPTS
>Find the warm path into this target account. Here are our customers and team network
>Who is the single best connector, and draft the intro request they can forward
>Is there any warm path here, or should I go cold and which signal do I use?
ABOUT THIS SKILL

What this skill does

Takes a target account and answers one question before you write a single cold message: who do we already know who can walk us in? It inventories every plausible path, scores each one, picks the single best connector, and drafts the intro request that connector can forward in ten seconds. If no path clears the bar, it tells you to go cold and names the signal to anchor on. This skill runs before trigger-outreach: trigger-outreach turns a buying signal into a timely cold touch, while this skill decides whether you need to go cold at all by finding the warm path first.

Inputs

  • Works today with: your target account list, the names of the people on your team, your customer list, and a manual LinkedIn mutual-connections check on the buying contacts. Paste it or upload a CSV.
  • More powerful connected to a network-mapping tool (The Swarm or similar): it maps your whole team's collective network against the account automatically.
  • Sharper with a CRM: surfaces which current customers and past deals touch the account.
  • Sharper with LinkedIn Sales Navigator: pulls mutual connections and past-colleague overlap at scale.

How it works

  1. 1
    Inventory every path

    For each target account, sweep six sources: your team's collective network (everyone's connections, not just yours), current customers who could refer, past colleagues of the buying committee members, investors and advisors you share, community and event overlap, and vendors you both use. List every named person who bridges you to the account. No name, no path.

  2. 2
    Score each path (three dimensions, 1 to 3 each)
    • Strength: how well does the connector actually know the buyer? Worked together beats met once.
    • Relevance: does the connector's relationship map to the buyer's world? A former teammate of the decision maker outranks a friend of someone two floors away.
    • Willingness: will this person actually make the intro, promptly? A happy customer says yes. A dormant contact stalls. Sum the three. A path below your STRENGTH THRESHOLD does not get asked.
  3. 3
    Pick one path per account

    Rank the scored paths and pick exactly one. Never spray intro requests across multiple connectors for the same account. Two people asking the same buyer about you looks desperate and burns both relationships. Hold the second-best path in reserve in case the first declines.

  4. 4
    Write the forwardable blurb

    Draft the intro request so the connector can forward it in ten seconds without editing. Three sentences: who you are, why this specific buyer should care, and the small ask. The connector adds one line of their own endorsement on top. If they have to rewrite your blurb, you wrote it wrong.

  5. 5
    The fallback rule

    When no path clears the STRENGTH THRESHOLD, do not force a weak intro. Go cold instead, anchored to a specific signal, and hand off to trigger-outreach with the signal named. A weak intro is worse than a good cold message. A warm intro skips the trust-building a cold sequence spends weeks earning, but only when the warmth is real.

Output format

WARM PATHS · Meridian Logistics (sample data)
Rank  Connector        Source           Str  Rel  Will  Total  Verdict
1     Dana Okafor      customer (CFO    3    3    3     9      ASK. Worked with their
                       at Bluecrest)                            VP Ops for 4 years.
2     Sam Whitfield    past colleague   2    3    2     7      RESERVE
                       (your AE Priya)
3     Jordan Liu       shared investor  1    2    2     5      BELOW BAR. Do not ask.

The play: one request, to Dana. Forwardable blurb drafted below.
Reserve: Sam, only if Dana declines.

FORWARDABLE BLURB (for Dana):
"Priya leads sales at Fieldstone, they help ops teams cut carrier
invoice errors. Given what Meridian is doing with the new 3PL
rollout, she thought a 20-minute conversation with your VP Ops
could be worth it. Open to a quick intro?"

Tips

  • Never claim a relationship you cannot verify. A shared connection on LinkedIn is a lead to check, not a path to score, until someone confirms they actually know the buyer.
  • One intro request per account at a time. The reserve path waits until the first path declines or goes quiet for a week.
  • The connector always sees the final message before it sends. They are lending you their reputation. No surprises.
  • If the fallback fires, the handoff must name the signal the cold message will anchor on, not just "go cold."
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