A connection just landed a buying seat

Someone you already know just started a job with a budget attached. A CIO seat, a CTO seat, a VP of engineering or data. That's the warmest signal you'll ever get, and most sellers waste it with a pitch in the first message.

There are two messages here. The first one isn't a pitch. The second one is.

Why a new seat turns into spend

A new leader is hired to change something. Nobody brings in a CIO to keep things exactly as they are. The board, the CEO or the owner had a reason, and the new person spends their first months figuring out what that reason means in practice.

They inherit a vendor list they didn't pick, a team they didn't hire and a roadmap someone else wrote. Some of it they'll keep. A lot of it they'll question. I wrote about this in The first 90 days of a new CIO, and the pattern holds for every buyer title.

A stranger pitching into that window competes with forty other strangers. Someone the new leader already knows doesn't. You're a known quantity at the exact moment they're deciding who to trust.

Where to find it

LinkedIn tells you. Job changes for first-degree connections show up in your feed and your notifications, and most people scroll past them. Don't.

Go through your connections once a month and look for title changes. The ones that matter carry a buying title at a company that fits your offer. CIO, CTO, CDO, CISO, VP of engineering, VP of data, VP of operations, head of digital. The company doesn't need to be on your target list yet. The person put it there.

The quiet signal in a LinkedIn job change covers what the announcement itself tells you. Read the new company's press release about the hire, if there is one. It often says what they were brought in to do.

What's strong and what's noise

A first-degree connection you've worked with, sold to or shared a project with is strong. A connection you accepted at a conference six years ago and never spoke to is weak. Be honest about which one this is.

A new seat at a company that fits your offer is strong. A lateral move inside the same company is weaker, though still worth a note. An interim title or an advisory role is noise for now.

A hire announced with a mandate is the strongest version. "Brought in to lead the modernization program" tells you the work. "Joins as CTO" tells you only the seat.

The note that isn't a pitch

Send it in the first week. Keep it to two or three sentences. Mention something real about your history together. Say nothing about your firm.

Something like "Saw the news. They're lucky to have you, and I still remember how you ran the warehouse cutover at Delmont. Rooting for you." That's it.

No ask. No "would love to catch up." No link to a case study. The note works for one reason. It's the only message in their inbox that week that wants nothing.

The second message is the pitch

Wait. Somewhere between week four and week eight, the new leader has finished the listening tour. They know what's broken. They haven't committed to fixing it with anyone yet.

That's when the second message goes out, and this one is a pitch. Not a capabilities deck. A hypothesis about the hard problem they've just found. The second message is a new hypothesis goes deeper on why it has to stand on its own.

Say Dana Whitlock, a former client, just started as CIO at a regional distributor called Harlow Supply. Her hire announcement mentioned consolidating systems from three acquisitions. Here's the second message.

Harlow's announcement said you were brought in to pull three acquired companies onto one set of systems. Six weeks in, you've probably found out how different those three really are. My guess is order-to-cash runs three different ways, and nobody wants to pick the winner before the ERP decision. Is that close, or is the harder problem somewhere else?

The hook is her own announcement. The trigger is the mandate on her seat. The hypothesis is specific enough to be wrong. The exit lets her answer in a word.

The 90-day shape

The window has a shape. Week one is the congratulations note. Weeks four to eight are the second message. By day ninety the new leader has a plan, a budget request and a short list of firms they trust. If you're not on that list by then, you're bidding against it.

After ninety days the signal isn't dead, just colder. The plan exists. You're now selling into it, not shaping it.

Stacking it

A known connection in a new seat is strong alone. It gets stronger with company signals underneath. A job post for the team the new leader will run. A cost program in the last earnings release. An acquisition that needs integrating.

When the person you know and the problem you can name show up at the same account, you've got the best opener you'll write all quarter.

You earned that connection years ago. The new seat is when it pays. Send the note that wants nothing, then send the one that names the problem.