Warm intros & network intelligence basics.

Quick, direct answers to the questions sales teams and founders ask most.

Fundamentals

What is a warm path?

The clearest route between you and someone you want to reach — based on real relationships and shared history, not just LinkedIn proximity.

What is a warm intro?

When someone the buyer already trusts introduces you to them. Trust transfers through the connector — and that changes the entire conversation.

What is warm outreach?

You reach out directly with shared context — a mutual, a signal, a community tie — but without a formal intro. Relevancy without access.

How Via works

How does Via find warm paths to any account?

Via works backwards from your target — not forwards from your existing contacts — to surface the few paths most likely to result in a real intro.

How does Via know who actually knows whom?

Via grounds relationships in real work history and shared context — not LinkedIn connections. A social link is not a working relationship.

Fundamentals

What is relationship intelligence?

Real context about how people in your network actually know each other — who worked together, for how long, how recently, and through what.

For founders

How do founders get warm intros?

By working their extended orbit — investors, advisors, past colleagues — systematically. Not guessing, not cold DMing, not hoping someone knows someone.

Practical

How do you find who knows someone at a target account?

Stop hunting manually. The paths usually exist — they're just invisible in the tools your team uses every day. Here's how to surface them.

What are the best tools for warm outbound sales?

The best warm outbound tools — categorized: relationship intelligence, signal tracking, enrichment, and engagement. Here's what each type does.

Cold outbound vs. warm outbound

Cold outreach gets 1–5% response rates. Warm outreach gets 10–34%. Full comparison — conversion data, sales cycle impact, and when each works best.

How do you map your network for sales?

Network mapping for sales means systematically identifying who on your team knows someone at your target accounts — then activating those paths.

How do warm intros shorten the sales cycle?

Warm introductions close 69% faster than cold outreach (Heinz Marketing) because trust transfers through the connector. Here's the mechanism and how to make it work.

Best alternatives to cold outreach for B2B sales

Warm introductions, signal-timed outreach, community selling, and customer referrals. How each replaces cold volume with trust and access.

How to leverage mutual connections for sales

Find who on your team has real relationships with target buyers, distinguish real connections from surface-level ones, and activate the right paths.

Buyer's guide

Warm intro software: what to look for

Network mapping, path strength scoring, CRM integration — what actually matters in warm intro software, and what's just a nicer label on a contact database.

Fundamentals

Warm lead vs. warm intro

A warm lead showed interest in your product. A warm intro means someone the buyer trusts made the introduction. The warmth comes from different places.

Relationship intelligence vs. sales intelligence

Sales intelligence tells you who to target. Relationship intelligence tells you who can get you in. One builds a list — the other gets you a meeting.