Telling Stage 1 how well you know someone

LinkedIn says you're connected to 900 people. You'd call maybe 60 of them. A warm path through someone you met once at a conference isn't warm, and asking them for an intro to a CIO burns a favor you never had.

Stage 1 can see who you're connected to. It can't see how well you know them. So it asks.

Three buttons

On any account, each person on the buying committee lists the people you know who know them. Under each one there's a row that says You know them, with three buttons. Well, A bit and Barely.

Tap one and the warm paths rerank on the spot. Tap the same button again to clear it.

What each one does

Every path has a strength from 0 to 100, shown as Strong, Good or Weak. Before you say anything, Stage 1 builds it from what it can see. Whether the person is your own colleague, worked with the buyer, works at the account, or sits on a board or group with them. Whether they know more than one person on the committee. Whether they hold a senior title.

Well adds a lot to that. A bit adds a little. Barely drops the path to the bottom, and Stage 1 will never pick that person on its own.

Stage 1 asks the strongest path that rates Good or better. If none does, the person gets the direct opener instead. Your answers decide which side of that line each connection lands on.

It sticks

Your answer is about the person, not the account. Mark someone Barely once and they're Barely everywhere they show up, on every account. Mark your old boss Well and every path through them gets stronger.

Where it fits in the flow

The buttons sit inside the warm paths on each account, next to the vouch line, where you write what you and that person did together, the way they'd say it.

You can still overrule the ranking. Ask a different person instead, skip the intro and go direct, or hand the choice back to Stage 1. It asks each mutual connection about only one person per account, so nobody gets asked about three people at the same company.

When you approve the account, the ask goes to the connector that day. The direct opener to the buyer waits six days. If the connector writes back that they don't know the buyer that well, Stage 1 reads it as a no. The direct opener goes out, and it never uses their name.

Totally understand, Priya. Thanks for being straight with me. I'll reach out to Daniel directly and won't use your name.

That's the kind of reply Stage 1 drafts for you to send back.

Why it matters for services

An intro is a loan of someone else's reputation. A $300K engagement can start with one. Ask the wrong person and you get silence, or worse, a lukewarm forward that tells the buyer nobody really vouches for you. The cost of a burned intro runs through what that does.

The best connectors aren't always your closest friends. Sometimes it's a former colleague you haven't spoken to in two years who'd still take your call. Weak ties are where intros come from makes that case. Only you know which ones would.

Three taps tell Stage 1 what LinkedIn can't. For how the rest of the warm path works, see warm paths in Stage 1.