Stage 1 runs on your own LinkedIn and email

Senior buyers answer people, not platforms. A note from a shared sending domain or a rented LinkedIn profile reads like it came from nobody, and it usually gets treated that way. Stage 1 works through your own accounts, so every message carries your name and your network.

How you connect

Go to Settings, Connections and click Connect LinkedIn. Stage 1 opens a secure sign-in page run by Unipile, the service that links your accounts. You sign in there, and Unipile hands Stage 1 a connection to your account. Stage 1 never sees your password.

Email works the same way. Click Connect email and sign in with Google or Outlook.

Once LinkedIn is connected, Stage 1 checks which LinkedIn plan you're on. Premium, Sales Navigator or Recruiter shows as detected. A free account shows a warning, and warm paths stay off. LinkedIn cuts free accounts off from search within days, and warm paths depend on search. LinkedIn bills that plan, not Stage 1. For which one to pick, read LinkedIn Premium or Sales Navigator for warm paths.

What it reads

Your connected LinkedIn does most of the research work.

It fills in company size, region and industry for new accounts. It searches for up to three people at each account in your buyer titles, the ones your Brain says hold the budget. It reads recent posts from people at the account, jobs the company listed in the past week, and when people on the committee started their current role.

It reads your own first-degree connections, and runs LinkedIn's connections-of search to find who you know who knows the buyer. That's where warm paths come from. When it reads a person's work history, it does it without telling them their profile was viewed.

And when a play lists competitor posts, company pages or your own team's posts, it reads who reacted and commented.

All of this stays inside a daily budget set by your LinkedIn plan. Sales Navigator gets more reads a day than Premium. The budget is split across Stage 1's four daily runs, so your account never does a day's worth of searching in one burst.

What it sends

Invites, LinkedIn messages and emails go out from your accounts, on the schedule you approve, inside your sending hours and daily caps. Nothing comes from a shared pool. Before any prospect hears from you, you can send yourself a real test from Settings, Connections.

How replies come back

This is the part most tools get wrong.

When someone answers on LinkedIn or by email, Unipile passes the new message to Stage 1. Stage 1 matches it to the person by their LinkedIn profile or email address. Messages you sent yourself are ignored. Quoted history at the bottom of an email is trimmed off. What's left lands on the Desk, labeled, with your next move drafted.

If the person answering is a mutual connection you asked for an intro, the reply goes to that intro instead. And when someone accepts your LinkedIn invite, Stage 1 hears about that too, so the opener can go once you're connected.

You don't paste anything in or check two inboxes. The reply is on the Desk.

If you want your own Unipile account

Most firms use the one-click connect. A firm that already has its own Unipile account can use it instead, under Advanced on the same screen.

Why this matters for a services sale

Your network is the asset. A partner at a consulting firm with thousands of connections built over two decades has paths into accounts no data vendor can sell. A tool that sends from somewhere else throws that away.

Your name matters too. When a CIO checks who wrote to them, they should find a real person with a real history at a real firm. Stage 1 keeps it that way, from the first invite to the reply. For more on picking the first channel, see LinkedIn or email first.

Connect LinkedIn and email once. Stage 1 does the reading, and every message still goes out under your name, from accounts you approved.