# The Warm-Path Verdict: Request the Intro, Name-Drop, or Go Cold

*Take one target buyer and three or four candidate connectors, score each path in ten minutes, and return one verdict that a second reader would reach too.*

- Canonical URL: https://www.refolk.ai/guides/warm-intro-path-verdict
- Pillar: Sales and go-to-market
- Format: Framework
- Published: 2026-11-02
- Last reviewed: 2026-11-02
- Reading time: 23 min
- Keywords: which mutual connection to ask for an introduction, how to find warm intro path to prospect, warm intro vs cold outreach enterprise deal, relationship strength scoring for warm introductions, double opt-in intro request sales, how to ask a customer or investor for an intro to a prospect

## Key takeaways

- Grade every connector-to-buyer path as Potential, Likely, or Confirmed using dated evidence. A LinkedIn-only connection is Potential, and if the best path is Potential, go cold.
- Published warm-intro reply rates run from 10% to 80% and none of them say how they were measured. Cold-email benchmarks that do state their methods run from 0.45% to 4.5%.
- In Refolk's index, 44% of a 25-profile sample of US board-title holders lead with a CEO-type title. Verify board seats in filings or on the company's board page, not in headlines.
- Affinity's PE benchmark found the top three people hold 72% of a firm's strong relationships. That is why a per-connector cap, with no ask in the last 90 days, must gate every intro.
- An intro chain adds three to ten days before any conversation starts. If the trigger expires sooner, the verdict drops from an intro to a name-drop or a cold email built on that trigger.
- Ask only one connector per account at a time. Follow up once after 5-7 business days, then close the loop with the connector by day 7, deal or no deal.

This is a scoring model for one decision you make again and again. You have three or four people who could connect you to a target buyer, and you need to choose which of them, if any, gets the ask. It is written for founders, account executives, SDR leads, and partnerships teams. In about ten minutes it gives one verdict per account: a double opt-in intro through one named path, permission to name-drop and email direct, or cold outreach built on a named signal. A second reader scoring the same paths should reach the same verdict.

## What does a warm-path verdict decide?

A warm-path verdict picks one route into one target buyer and spends at most one favor getting there. You score each candidate connector on four dimensions and get one of three outcomes. "Go cold" is one of them, and it is a valid result, not a failure.

Terms used throughout:

- **Connector:** someone who knows both you and the buyer, such as a teammate, customer, investor, advisor, or former colleague.
- **Path:** one connector-to-buyer relationship. Four connectors means four paths to compare.
- **Double opt-in intro:** the connector asks the buyer whether they want the introduction before making it, so both sides agree before any email joins them. Fred Wilson set out the practice on his blog, AVC.
- **Name-drop:** you get the connector's permission to mention them, then email the buyer yourself. This is a smaller favor than an intro.
- **Favor budget:** how many asks a connector can take in a given period before they start saying no.
- **Trigger:** a dated public event that makes now the right time to contact the buyer.

The four dimensions:

1. **Tie strength:** how well the connector knows the buyer, graded against evidence.
2. **Credibility:** whether the buyer would weigh this connector's opinion on the problem you solve.
3. **Favor budget:** whether the connector can afford another ask. This is a pass/fail gate.
4. **Timing:** whether an intro can land before the trigger goes stale. Also a pass/fail gate.

The three verdicts:

- **Intro:** request a double opt-in introduction through one named connector.
- **Name-drop:** ask the connector's permission to mention them, then email the buyer direct.
- **Cold:** contact the buyer with no connector, leading with a named signal.

> **Rule:** One path per account
>
> Never ask two connectors about the same buyer at the same time. If the first ask stalls, close it out with that connector before you open the next path.

## Is a warm intro worth more than cold outreach?

Usually, yes, but the premium is much less certain than the published numbers make it look. Cold-email benchmarks state their sample sizes and counting rules. The warm-intro figures range from 10% to 80% and none of them say how they were measured.

| Path | Reported reply rate | Source type | Method disclosed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cold, strict counting | 0.45% | Agency dataset, 7.5M emails | Yes |
| Cold, platform average | 3.43% | Sending-platform report | Partly |
| Weak-source warm intro | 5-10% | VC fundraising guide | No |
| Warm outreach | 10-34% | Lead-gen guide | No |
| Double opt-in intro | 70-80% | Intro-template guide | No |

The widest gap in that table works out to about 178x (80% against 0.45%). Discount the top of the range for three reasons:

- **No method.** The cold figures come from counted samples. One agency counted 7,530,489 emails and excluded auto-replies, out-of-office messages, and bounces. An email-finder's study of 31 million emails landed on 4.5%. No warm figure shows its working.
- **Survivorship.** A double opt-in only reaches the buyer after the buyer agrees, so declines are removed before anything is counted. One source says so directly: the method "filters out the intros that were never going to work". The same source puts single opt-in at 45-60%.
- **Name-drops are unmeasured.** Nobody has published reply rates for direct emails that name a connector. The closest proxy is warm intros from weak sources, such as a LinkedIn connection or a conference acquaintance, at 5 to 10 percent.

Cold is not a write-off either. Instantly's benchmark reports a 3.43% average, a 5.5% top quartile, and above 10% for the best senders. One source estimates a strong cold email at 8-15 percent, which beats most warm intros from weak sources. Instantly also found that 58% of cold replies arrive on the first step, so a cold verdict should put its strongest signal in the first message, not save it for a follow-up.

What this means in practice: a warm path earns a favor only when the evidence shows the tie is real and the connector carries weight. Otherwise, the better use of your time is a sharp cold email built on a trigger.

## How do I check tie strength against public evidence?

Grade each path Potential, Likely, or Confirmed, based on dated evidence rather than the bare fact that a connection exists. A LinkedIn-only connection is Potential. A dated overlap on the same team, a shared board, or a co-investment is Likely. A path is Confirmed when the connector tells you they have emailed, met, and worked with the buyer within the last 12 months.

#### Tie-strength evidence grades

1. **Potential** - LinkedIn connection only, shared employer, or no contact in 12 months
2. **Likely** - Dated same-team overlap, shared board seat, or co-investment
3. **Confirmed** - Connector confirms they emailed, met, and worked together within 12 months

*Each grade inward needs stronger, more recent evidence, and only a Confirmed tie can carry a double opt-in intro.*

Relationship tools are built on the same kinds of evidence. Boomerang documents email frequency, calendar co-presence, tenure overlap, and how fast both sides reply. Affinity combines interaction history with connections it infers from past work experience. The Swarm maps overlaps from work, education, and investments instead of first-, second-, and third-degree contacts, and it grades a LinkedIn-only connection as "Potential". I use that grade name on purpose: a first-degree connection proves only that somebody once clicked accept.

| Signal | What it proves | How it lies |
|---|---|---|
| Tenure overlap | They could have worked together | Same company, different years or teams |
| Shared board | Regular contact on governance | Seat ended, or misread from a headline |
| Co-investment | Shared deal flow and trust | Same fund, no direct dealings |
| Recent interaction | The tie is live | A tense negotiation thread looks strong |
| LinkedIn connection | Nothing on its own | Always counts as Potential |

Nobody has published how often a first-degree connection has none of the stronger signals. You can check this yourself. Take a sample of your team's connections into target accounts and count how many show at least one Likely signal. That count tells you how much your CRM's "warm" flag is worth.

Checking dated overlap by hand across four connectors is the slow part of this step. In [Refolk](/), you can ask in plain English for people who overlapped at least two years with someone at a named company. That gives you the tenure dates you need to grade a path Likely instead of guessing.

### Why the scale stops at Confirmed

The best evidence on tie strength argues against rewarding closeness without limit. Rajkumar et al., writing in Science, randomly assigned LinkedIn users more weak-tie or more strong-tie recommendations and tracked their job moves over five years. The study covered about 20M users, 2B new connections, and 600,000 new jobs. It found an inverted U: moderately weak ties increased job mobility the most and the strongest ties the least. One write-up puts the sweet spot at about ten mutual connections. Weak ties mattered more in digital industries, and strong ties mattered more in less digital ones. Granovetter's earlier survey of 282 Boston men found that 27.8% of job-contact ties were people seen about once a year or less, but that result is correlational.

Two caveats limit how far this transfers. Both studies measure how job information travels, not how sales intros perform, and nobody has published a causal test on B2B intros. So I take one design rule from them and no more. A Confirmed tie scores the same however close it is, because a very close tie is often redundant. Credibility, scored separately, decides between paths.

Staleness needs a written threshold. Affinity notes that a path that was warm last year is not shown as warm today. I use 12 months since the last interaction as the cutoff, but no published study backs that number. Choose your own, write it on the scorecard, and apply it the same way every time.

## How do I score a connector's credibility with the buyer?

Credibility asks whether the buyer would weigh this connector's opinion on the problem you solve. Score it 0, 1, or 2. It is separate from tie strength: a buyer can know someone well and still not trust their judgement on purchases, or barely know a board member whose recommendation still opens the door.

- **2, direct standing:** a customer using your product in a comparable setting, an investor in or board member of the buyer's company, or the buyer's former manager.
- **1, peer standing:** same function or industry, known professionally, but no direct authority over the decision.
- **0, no standing:** no relevance to the topic, or a relationship that is mainly transactional or adversarial.

Sources disagree on which dimension should come first. Affinity ranks paths by relationship strength. The weak-source intro data, at 5-10% against much higher figures for trusted intros, suggests that who the introducer is matters more. I use tie strength as a gate, since a path must be at least Likely to qualify, and credibility to rank the paths that pass. Ranking by strength alone sends every ask to the same few people, a problem covered in the next section.

Before you score any path at 2, ask the connector directly how they know the buyer and whether the buyer would value their view. Affinity warns that a long, tense negotiation thread can look like a strong relationship. A two-minute conversation catches that, and the data does not.

### Board connectors are the most credible and the easiest to miss

Board members usually score 2, but their seats rarely appear in their headlines.

**44% - of sampled US board-title profiles lead with a CEO-type current title**

In a 25-profile sample from Refolk's index, only 24% list "Board Member" as their current title, so a headline search misses most board connectors.

| Query in Refolk's index | Exact target title | Off-target | Precision |
|---|---|---|---|
| US partnerships | 17 | 8 | 68% |
| UK partnerships | 22 | 3 | 88% |
| US board | 7 board titles | 11 CEO-type | 28% |
| UK board | 6 board titles | 7 CEO/founder/COO | 24% |

The sample is 25 profiles per query and matching is based on headlines, so treat these figures as direction, not measurement. The pattern is still clear. Partnerships titles are fairly reliable in headlines, but board seats sit behind operating titles. Confirm any board seat in company filings or on the company's board page before you count it as a shared board.

How many board connectors exist also differs by market:

| Market | Board/NED/Advisor | Partnerships titles | Board per partnerships |
|---|---|---|---|
| US | 152,696 | 5,859 | 26.1x |
| UK | 18,683 | 4,481 | 4.2x |
| US/UK multiple | 8.2x | 1.3x | - |

These counts come from Refolk's index, and the ratios are derived from them. The US has 8.2x the UK's board-title holders but only 1.3x its partnerships titles. So a UK rep has far fewer board paths per partnerships counterpart: 4.2 against 26.1. One caveat: the UK partnerships count looks high relative to the US, which may reflect how much of each market the index covers. For a UK account, expect to rely more often on customer and former-colleague paths.

I ran this search: `Board members of mid-market US healthcare software companies who are also current CEOs` - [see the full result list](https://www.refolk.ai/s/ej58aap4c0).

*Returns people who hold board seats while leading with an operating title, the connectors a title-only search tends to miss.*

## How many favors does a connector have left, and is the timing too sharp?

Favor budget and timing are gates, not scores. A path that fails either one cannot get an intro verdict, however strong it is. The budget gate passes when the connector is under their cap and has not been asked in the last 90 days. The timing gate fails when the trigger will go stale before an intro chain can land.

### Favor budget

Published caps exist only for customer reference calls:

| Source of the cap | Cap |
|---|---|
| Contract term | 2 to 4 calls per year |
| Reference programme design guide | 2 per quarter |
| Reference program build guide | 3-5 per quarter |
| UserEvidence over-ask flag | More than 2 in 90 days |

Nobody has published intro caps for investors or board members, so set your own cap per connector type and write it down. Count reference calls and intro asks against the same budget, because they draw on the same goodwill. Point of Reference reports an average of 1.7 reference accounts requested per opportunity, so your best customers are already being asked for references before any intro request arrives. The documented failure is predictable: a customer who has done 12 calls in a year and got nothing back will stop saying yes.

**72% - of a firm's strong relationships held by its top three people**

From Affinity's PE benchmark, where one person holds a median 31%. Scoring paths by strength alone sends nearly every ask to those three.

This is why the cap matters most for your best connectors. The Swarm reports building over $10M in pipeline in 12 months from its own cap table, investors, advisors, and team. That shows the value is there, but only if the asks are spread across the whole network instead of piled onto whoever scores highest.

> A favor spent on a weak link is a favor you no longer have for the strong one.

### Timing

Intros are slow. An intro chain adds three to ten days before you are in a conversation at all. Investor introducers who are inclined to help usually respond within 10-14 days. Standard practice is to follow up with a connector once after 5-7 business days and then drop it. Combine those and an intro can take weeks to start, which can be longer than a trigger stays relevant.

Mark timing **sharp** when the trigger's window is shorter than the intro chain's realistic range, starting with three to ten days for the chain alone. Sharp timing removes the intro verdict. Sources advise skipping the intro when timing is sharp, and I agree. Fall back to a name-drop, or to a cold email that leads with the trigger.

> **Tip:** Sharp timing, strong connector
>
> When the window is short but the connector is credible, ask only for permission to use their name. A yes takes one line to give, and you can email the buyer the same day.

## Relationship strength scoring rubric and verdict rules

Score every path on the rubric, drop the paths that fail a gate, rank what is left, and apply the verdict rules in order. The first rule that matches decides the verdict. Because each rule uses only the grades on the scorecard, two readers working from the same evidence reach the same verdict.

| Dimension | 0 | 1 | 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tie strength | Potential | Likely | Confirmed |
| Credibility | No standing | Peer standing | Direct standing |
| Favor budget | Fail | Pass | - |
| Timing | Sharp | Open | - |

Ranking the paths that pass the budget gate:

1. Highest credibility.
2. Then highest tie strength.
3. Then the fewest asks logged against the connector this quarter.

Verdict rules, applied to the top-ranked path:

1. If no path passes the budget gate, the verdict is **cold**.
2. If the top path's tie is Potential, the verdict is **cold**.
3. If the tie is Confirmed, credibility is 2, and timing is open, the verdict is **intro** through that one connector.
4. If the tie is at least Likely and credibility is at least 1, the verdict is **name-drop**.
5. Otherwise, the verdict is **cold**.

A Likely path can be upgraded before the verdict is final. If the connector confirms the relationship when you ask them, re-grade the path as Confirmed and apply the rules again.

| Verdict | Requires | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Intro | Confirmed, credibility 2, both gates pass | Named connector plus forwardable blurb |
| Name-drop | At least Likely, credibility 1+, budget passes | Permission, then a direct email |
| Cold | No path clears the name-drop bar | Named trigger plus a strong first email |

#### Tie evidence against connector credibility

Horizontal axis runs from Potential tie to Confirmed tie. Vertical axis runs from No standing to Direct standing.

| Quadrant | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| Credible stranger | Confirm the tie with the connector; until then, go cold |
| Intro path | Request a double opt-in intro if budget and timing pass |
| No path | Go cold with a named signal |
| Friendly but irrelevant | Ask for context, not an intro; go cold unless credibility reaches 1 |

*Only the top-right quadrant earns a double opt-in intro, and the middle band of Likely ties and peer standing earns a name-drop.*

### A worked example

The buyer is a VP of Finance at a mid-market company. There are four paths:

- **A, investor:** sits on the buyer's board, which the investor confirms. Tie 2, credibility 2. Asked for an intro 40 days ago, so the budget gate **fails**.
- **B, customer champion:** same function as the buyer, three years of dated overlap on the same team, last contact eight months ago. Tie 1, credibility 2, budget passes.
- **C, teammate:** LinkedIn connection only. Tie 0.
- **D, former colleague:** worked at the same 50,000-person company, but in different years. Tie 0.

A drops at the budget gate. B ranks first. B is only Likely, so you ask B how well they know the buyer. If B confirms recent contact and timing is open, the verdict is an intro through B. If B is unsure, the verdict is a name-drop. C and D are never asked.

## How to run the verdict on one account, step by step

Work through these eight steps for each account, in order. Steps 1 to 6 produce the verdict. Steps 7 and 8 carry it out and protect the connector relationship.

#### From connector list to one verdict

1. **List the candidate paths** - Write one row per connector, tagged teammate, customer, investor, advisor, or former colleague, with a note on how they know the buyer. This takes about ten minutes.
2. **Grade tie strength against evidence** - Check dated same-team overlap, shared boards, co-investments, and last interaction, then grade each path Potential, Likely, or Confirmed with the evidence noted.
3. **Score connector credibility with the buyer** - Score 0, 1, or 2 for the buyer's likely respect for this connector on your topic, and ask the connector directly before giving a 2.
4. **Check the favor budget** - Compare the connector's request-log history to their cap, and pass the path only if they are under cap with no ask in the last 90 days.
5. **Check timing** - Name the trigger and its window, and mark timing sharp if the window is shorter than an intro chain of three to ten days can deliver.
6. **Return one verdict for the account** - Apply the verdict rules in order and record intro, name-drop, or cold with a named signal, with at most one named connector.
7. **Write the forwardable blurb and send the ask** - For an intro, draft a 4-6 line paragraph the connector can forward without editing and ask for a double opt-in; for a name-drop, ask permission in one line.
8. **Follow up and close the loop** - Follow up once after 5-7 business days, then drop it; reply within 24 hours once the intro lands, and close the loop with the connector by day 7, deal or no deal.

The forwardable blurb does the connector's work for them. Keep it to four to six lines so they can copy, paste, and send it without editing.

**Connector ask with forwardable blurb**

```
Subject: Quick ask - intro to {Buyer first name} at {Buyer company}?

Hi {Connector first name},

I'd like to meet {Buyer full name}, {Buyer title} at {Buyer company}. You two {how they know each other}, so you're the one person I'm asking.

Why now: {trigger, one line}.

If you're comfortable, could you check with {Buyer first name} first whether they're open to it? A no is a completely fine answer. Below is a note you can forward as-is.

---
{Buyer first name}, {Your name} leads {your function} at {Your company}. They help {buyer's peer group} {outcome}, and {one proof point}. Given {trigger}, I thought a short conversation could be useful. Happy to connect you if you're open to it.
---

Thanks,
{Your name}
```

*Replace each curly-brace field; keep the blurb between the rules to 4-6 lines and never add a second connector to the thread.*

## How warm-path scoring goes wrong

Most mistakes in warm-path scoring are false positives: a path that looks warm in the data but cannot carry the weight of an ask. Each failure below has a specific check. Run the checks before step 6, not after a connector has already been embarrassed.

1. **Shared employer counted as a tie.** The false positive: both people worked at the same 50,000-person company, but in different years or different functions. The check: the tenures must overlap in dates, and the two must have been on the same team. If not, the path is Potential.
2. **Score built on interaction volume.** The false positive: a long email thread or frequent meetings. Affinity warns that a long, tense negotiation thread can look like a strong relationship, and its score runs from 10 (weak) to 100 (strong) based on recency and frequency and cannot be configured. The check: ask the connector directly before scoring credibility.
3. **Board seat inferred from a headline.** The false positive is usually the reverse: a missed board seat, or one dated wrongly. In Refolk's sample, 44% of US board-title holders lead with a CEO-type title. The check: confirm the seat and its dates in company filings or on the company's board page.
4. **Stale tie.** The false positive: a relationship that was real years ago. Affinity notes that a path warm last year is not shown as warm today. The check: last interaction within your written threshold. I use 12 months, which is my own threshold, not a published one.
5. **Favor budget overdrawn.** The false positive: the strongest connector looks like the best path on every account. The top three people hold 72% of a firm's strong relationships, so asks pile onto them. The check: a central request log with a cap per connector.
6. **Weak warm intro chosen over strong cold email.** The false positive: "any intro beats cold." A strong cold email at 8-15 percent beats most weak-source warm intros at 5 to 10 percent. The check: if the best path is Potential, the verdict is cold.
7. **Treating public data as lawful.** The false positive: assuming a public profile needs no lawful basis. The check is in the warning below.
8. **Two paths asked at once.** The false positive: more asks look like better odds. Nobody has published the effect, which is exactly why the one-path rule exists. The buyer may hear from both connectors, and you spend two favors on one meeting.

> **Watch out:** Public is not the same as lawful
>
> B2B prospecting can rely on legitimate interest under GDPR Article 6(1)(f) only with a written balancing test, and Article 14 requires a notice that flags the right to object within one month or in the first message, whichever is sooner. Scraping breaks LinkedIn's User Agreement, and the French regulator CNIL fined a contact-data tool €240,000 for scraping LinkedIn contacts.

The compliance check applies hardest to the name-drop and cold verdicts, because in those cases you contact the buyer directly, using data you did not get from them. Put the Article 14 notice in that first email. No published guidance specifically covers pooling your team's personal contacts into a shared connector map. Until there is some, include the pooled map in your written balancing test, treat it as personal data, and record where each connection came from.

## How to keep the request log and verdicts current

A verdict is a snapshot. Re-score whenever an input changes, and keep one central request log so favor budgets are measured and not remembered. The log is what stops your three best-connected people from being asked about every account.

Record one line per ask: the connector, the account, the type of ask (intro, name-drop, reference call), the date asked, the outcome, and the date you closed the loop. Close the loop with the connector by day 7, deal or no deal. Once an intro lands, reply within 24 hours. One vendor claims buyers give an intro roughly 72 hours of attention, but that figure is unverified, and the 24-hour rule stands without it.

Re-score an account when any of these happens:

- 90 days pass since the connector was last asked, which can reopen their budget.
- A new trigger appears, which can change the timing gate.
- The connector or the buyer changes roles, which can change tie strength and credibility.
- The last interaction passes your staleness threshold, which drops the path to Potential.

Job changes are the input most likely to go unnoticed. Re-running the same plain-English query in Refolk each quarter shows which connectors and buyers have moved, so a path does not quietly go stale.

Finally, start building the evidence nobody has published. Log the outcome of every verdict, and once you have enough intro, name-drop, and cold verdicts, compare reply and meeting rates across the three. Your own numbers will soon say more about your network than any benchmark in this guide.

**Per-account warm-path scorecard**

```
Account: {company}    Buyer: {name, title}    Scored by: {rep}    Date: {date}
Trigger: {event}    Window closes: {date}    Timing: Open / Sharp
Staleness threshold used: {months}

Path | Connector (type) | Tie evidence | Tie 0-2 | Cred 0-2 | Budget Pass/Fail | Last asked
A    | {name} ({type})  | {evidence}   |         |          |                  | {date}
B    | {name} ({type})  | {evidence}   |         |          |                  | {date}
C    | {name} ({type})  | {evidence}   |         |          |                  | {date}

Verdict: Intro / Name-drop / Cold
Named connector (max one): {name}
Named signal (if cold): {trigger}
Ask sent: {date}    Follow-up due: {date}    Loop closed by: {date}
```

*One block per account; paste into the CRM note or the request log so a second reader can reproduce the verdict.*

#### Before you send anything

- [ ] Every candidate connector has a row with a type and a note on how they know the buyer.
- [ ] Each path's tie grade cites dated evidence, and no LinkedIn-only connection is graded above Potential.
- [ ] Any shared board seat has been confirmed in filings or on the company's board page.
- [ ] Credibility scores of 2 were confirmed by asking the connector directly.
- [ ] The chosen connector is under their written cap and has not been asked in the last 90 days.
- [ ] The trigger and its window are named, and an intro verdict is only used when timing is open.
- [ ] The account has exactly one verdict and at most one named connector.
- [ ] Any direct email includes an Article 14 notice that flags the right to object.
- [ ] The ask is logged with a follow-up date and a loop-close date no later than day 7.

## Frequently asked questions

### Which mutual connection should I ask for an introduction?

Ask the connector the buyer would listen to on your topic, provided their tie to the buyer is backed by dated evidence and they have favor budget left. In practice, drop any path where the connector has been asked in the last 90 days. Drop any path that is only a LinkedIn connection. Rank what is left by credibility with the buyer, then by tie strength. Only the top path gets the ask.

### Is a double opt-in intro better than a name-drop?

A double opt-in intro carries more weight but costs the connector more and takes longer. Published double opt-in reply rates of 70-80% come with no stated method, and they leave out buyers who declined before the intro was made. Nobody has published reply rates for name-drop emails. Use the intro when the tie is Confirmed, the connector has direct standing, and timing is open. Use the name-drop when the tie is weaker or timing is sharp.

### How do I ask a customer or investor for an intro to a prospect?

Send one short message that says how they know the buyer, gives the trigger, and makes no a fine answer. Ask them to check with the buyer first, which is the double opt-in. Include a 4-6 line blurb they can forward without editing. Follow up once after 5-7 business days. Whatever happens, close the loop with them by day 7.

### When should I skip the warm intro and go cold?

Go cold when no path clears the bar. That covers four cases: the best tie is only Potential, every credible connector is over their favor budget, the connector has no standing with the buyer on your topic, or the trigger will expire before an intro chain could land. A strong cold email built on a named signal beats most warm intros from weak sources, so going cold is a sound verdict, not a failure.

### How many intro requests can I make of one investor or board member?

No intro cap for investors or board members has been published. The only published caps cover customer reference calls, from two to four a year as a contract term up to 3-5 a quarter. Set your own cap per connector and write it down. Log every ask centrally, and do not ask anyone who was asked in the last 90 days.

### Can I ask two connectors for the same buyer to improve my odds?

No. Ask one connector per account at a time. Nobody has published the effect of parallel asks, but the buyer may hear from both connectors and see the pattern, and you spend two favors on one meeting. If the first ask stalls, close it out with that connector before you open the second path.

---

*From the Refolk guide library. I revise these guides rather than replacing them, so the current version is always at https://www.refolk.ai/guides/warm-intro-path-verdict*