network-path-mapping

Applies when a target list exists and cold outreach is the only plan. Produces a ranked set of warm paths with a drafted ask for each.

The play

1. Build the target list first, 20 to 50 firms, before looking at the network. Starting from the network produces a list of whoever is easiest to reach, which is a different and much worse list.
2. Export the connections list before anything else. Nobody can recall their own network from memory, and the export is the only way to see it whole. Requesting the archive and turning the CSV into the inventory is in references/network-inventory.md, along with the other sources worth pulling: former colleagues, former clients, vendors, peer firms that refer out, and the people who went quiet two years ago. Most agency owners have four to five hundred usable relationships and can name forty.
3. Match the network against the target list. For each target, who in the inventory can reach someone there, and through how many hops. Stop at two hops; a third-hop introduction is a cold email with extra steps.
4. Score each path on connection strength, not on seniority. A strong relationship with someone junior beats a weak one with a VP, because the ask only works if the person wants to make it. The strength tiers and what each can be asked for are in references/path-strength.md.
5. Branch by what the path actually is:
   • Former client at a new company: the strongest path available and the most neglected. They have already bought, and the firm they joined is a new account.
   • A current client who knows the target: valuable and spendable once. Never ask until the engagement is visibly going well.
   • A peer agency that does adjacent work: a referral relationship, not a one-off ask. Build it as a standing channel.
   • A vendor or a tool rep selling into the same market: they meet the same buyers weekly and are rarely asked.
   • A dormant contact, two years quiet: re-establish first, ask second, never in the same message.
6. Write the ask so the connector does almost nothing. One forwardable paragraph, a named reason, and an explicit permission to say no. The patterns are in references/the-ask.md. An ask that requires the connector to compose anything will sit unanswered.
7. Work the list in order of path strength, a handful a week, and record every outcome. An intro that never arrives is information about the relationship, not just about the target.
8. Re-run quarterly. The network changes faster than the target list: people move, and every move creates a path that did not exist last quarter.

What good looks like

• First thing I check that most people skip: where former clients work now. People who have already bought from you, sitting inside new accounts, is the single highest-converting path in any network, and almost nobody keeps a list of it.
• The mediocre version: opening the contacts list, picking the names that feel senior, and asking each for "any introductions you think make sense". It transfers all the work to the connector, and it is why most intro requests go unanswered.
• I know the mapping is right when at least a quarter of the target list has a named path, and each path has a specific reason attached.
• Second test: the ask could be forwarded without editing a word.
• Red flag: every path runs through the same two people. That is two relationships, not a network, and the finding is that the network needs widening before it needs working.

Rules

• MUST build the target list before looking at the network.
• MUST work from an exported connections list, never from memory.
• MUST stop at two hops.
• MUST score on relationship strength, not the connector's seniority.
• MUST write the ask as a forwardable paragraph the connector can send unedited.
• MUST give the connector an explicit way to decline.
• MUST record every outcome, including silence.
• NEVER ask a current client for an introduction while the engagement is wobbling.
• NEVER ask a dormant contact for anything in the first message after a long silence.