Why relationship capital needs a system
Every team has hidden advocates across past deals, alumni, and investors. Without an operating rhythm, those relationships stay locked in inboxes. We needed a repeatable loop that treats warm paths like product work—prioritised, estimated, and shipped.
The goal was simple: short meetings that end with clear owners and intros booked, not a dashboard review that nobody updates.
We reframed intros as sprintable work: inputs (accounts), method (warm paths), and outputs (meetings booked).
The weekly loop we run
We anchored the cadence to our Monday planning so account teams see relationship signals before committing to outbound volume.
The constraint that changed behaviour: asks must be written in the meeting while context is on-screen.
- Pull three focus accounts per rep with low coverage and high intent.
- Surface 3–5 warm paths per account from the network graph and mark an 'intro owner' for each.
- Write the shortest possible ask: two sentences, one link to context, one clear next step.
- Send within 24 hours; track status as 'drafted', 'sent', 'accepted', or 'declined'.
- Share snippets of accepted intros on Friday to reinforce the loop.
Signals that keep the loop honest
We track the loop like product teams track releases. No vanity metrics—only indicators that predict booked meetings.
- Coverage depth: % of buying-committee roles with at least one warm path.
- Intro velocity: median time from surfaced path to sent ask.
- Acceptance rate: asks that convert to forwarded intros or direct replies.
- Feedback quality: short notes from introducers on what resonated or felt risky.
What changed after 30 days
By week three, reps stopped debating whether a path was 'warm enough'—we had shared benchmarks and a small library of asks that worked.
Executives loved the visibility: they could spot where their network unblocked deals and where we needed new senior coverage.
- More first meetings because we reduced the friction to ask.
- Cleaner handoffs: intro owners were explicit, so no asks went stale.
- Better targeting: coverage gaps surfaced accounts we were missing entirely.
Signals from the field
Intros per sprint
12 → 27
after 30 days
Time-to-first intro
48 hrs
median
Coverage lift
+33%
key accounts touched
Key takeaways
- Schedule the loop into planning so intros compete with other work—and win.
- Force short, specific asks while context is visible; overwriting later is the enemy.
- Measure velocity and acceptance, not just number of paths surfaced.
- Close the loop publicly to make warm intros a team sport, not a favour.