A warm intro is an introduction to a target buyer that comes from a trusted third party (a coworker, investor, customer, or peer) rather than a cold outreach. Warm intros convert at multiples of cold rates and shorten sales cycles.

Why warm intros work

B2B buyers trust people in their network. A two-line forward from a peer carries more weight than a perfectly crafted cold email. The hard part has always been finding which colleague has the right connection.

Mapping warm paths at scale

Relationship intelligence tools aggregate the combined LinkedIn, email, and calendar data of your whole team to surface the strongest path into any target account. This used to be tribal knowledge. It is now a queryable graph.

Frequently asked

How much higher do warm intros convert?

Most teams see 3x to 8x higher reply rates and meeting conversion compared to cold outbound to the same accounts.

Does asking for an intro feel awkward?

It does the first few times. A good relationship intelligence tool drafts the forwardable blurb so the colleague has to do almost nothing.

Related terms

Sales Intelligence, Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), Buying Committee, Warm Path, Relationship Intelligence

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