Send a test before any prospect gets a message

The worst time to find out your email isn't connected is after you approved ten accounts. The second worst is hearing it from a buyer.

Stage 1 lets you send a real test first.

What it does

Once your LinkedIn and email are connected, you can send a test from each. It's a real send, through your own accounts, the same way every prospect message will go. Not a preview and not a simulation.

The test LinkedIn message reads like this.

This is a test from Stage 1. If you're reading it, LinkedIn messages from your account are working.

The test email carries the subject Stage 1 test and the same kind of line. If it lands, the path works. If it doesn't, you know before a buyer is involved.

How it works

Stage 1 sends through Unipile, which connects your own LinkedIn and your own email account. Nothing goes from a shared pool.

For email, Stage 1 fills in your own address. Send it to yourself, or change it to a colleague's or a personal address if you want to see how it lands somewhere else. The button stays off until your email is connected.

For LinkedIn, paste the profile link of someone you're already connected to. A colleague is the easy choice. Stage 1 sends them the test message from your account, and they can tell you it arrived.

Every test is logged under Settings, Activity, with where it went. If something's wrong, the send fails with the reason, like a link that isn't a LinkedIn profile or an email account that isn't connected yet.

Where you find it

Go to Settings, then Connections. Once LinkedIn is connected, a card called Send a test first sits under your connections, with one line for a test email and one for a test LinkedIn message. Only the workspace owner sees it, since the owner runs the connections.

Run it the day you connect, and again any time you reconnect an account.

What it protects

Until LinkedIn is connected, Stage 1 doesn't send at all. It still finds accounts and drafts messages, and you can send them yourself, but nothing is ever marked sent that didn't go out. The test is the step between connected and trusted.

It checks the parts you can't see from the settings screen. That the account Unipile holds is the one you meant to connect. That LinkedIn accepts a message from it. That email from your account reaches an inbox and reads the way you expect.

Why it matters for a services sale

You're about to write to senior buyers at accounts worth six figures, from your own name. Each of them gets one first impression. If the first one breaks, you don't get a clean second try, and you may not even hear that it broke.

A test costs a minute. It's the same discipline as reading every draft before it goes, which we covered in owning every send. For the choice between the two channels once both work, see LinkedIn or email first.

Connect, send the test, check it arrived. Then approve your first account.