Doors, how Stage 1 picks the way in

A good opener sent the wrong way still burns the account. Before you write anything, you need to know what earns you the right to write at all. Stage 1 answers that first, for every person, and calls the answer a door.

What a door is

A door is how you earn the open with one person. Research can earn it. A relationship can earn it. Your firm's history with the account can earn it. Or nothing does, and you don't send.

Stage 1 picks the door before it drafts. The door picks the recipe. The build stays the same every time. An opener, a personal hook, a misery hypothesis and a binary exit.

The cold doors

Three doors run on research.

Hypothesis Outreach opens when a public filing names the risk. The Trigger opens on a fresh, dated event at the company or a fresh hook about the person. The Take-Away is for when nothing fresh surfaces and all you have is the seat and a pattern you know cold. If you'd rather not send on a pattern alone, turn it off under Insights, Constructs, and nothing fresh means no send.

The warm doors

Four doors run on a relationship that has to be specific.

The Referral opens when a mutual contact told you something real and cleared you to use their name. The Former Buyer opens when they bought from you at another company. The Conference Connection opens when a colleague spoke with them at an event and handed them over. Former Colleague opens when you worked together before and something has changed for them since.

Two more cover people who know you. They know you well is for a close friend, someone who owes you one, or someone who used to report to you. Warm note is for someone who knows exactly who you are, or someone you've met only in passing. Neither leans on research.

The institutional door

The Standing Account is for an account your firm served where this reader never signed the work. The logo owes you nothing, so the note doesn't lean on it.

When the history went badly and the reader was there, Stage 1 uses The history first instead. It names what happened, once, before anything else.

No door

When nothing opens, Stage 1 says so under the person's name, with the reason, and nothing goes to them. That's the method working, not a gap. The no-door rules cover every case.

How it picks

Stage 1 starts with what it can see. It compares your LinkedIn work history with each person's, checks them against your past clients, and counts the real LinkedIn conversations between you. Anything it finds shows with a Detected tag and the evidence. Your call always wins.

Then it checks in a fixed order. Anything that closes the whole account comes first. Then your firm's history, then your relationship with the person, then standing accounts, then research. The first door that opens is the one you get.

What the data can't see, you add. Tap Know under any person to fill in the how you know them form.

Where you see it

Open any account on the Board. Under each person, a chip names the door and a short line says why. For a former colleague who just moved up, it reads like this.

Former Colleague. The New Seat. Recognition first, under 90 words.

Each door has its own constructs and its own champion under Insights, so what wins with a former buyer never overrides what wins with a filing.

Why services sellers need this

In a $300K services sale, the first note is a trust test. Get the way in wrong and the words don't matter. A cheerful cold opener to someone whose company fired your firm tells them you didn't do your homework. A research note to a close friend reads like you forgot who they are.

Most outbound tools have one door, and it's cold. Warm paths find the people who can introduce you. Doors decide how you walk in.

Pick the way in first. The message follows.