Forwardable introduction copy

A forwardable sales introduction is a handoff the current contact can send without writing it for you. It needs to work for both the contact deciding whether to pass it on and the person deciding whether to reply. Keep control of the context while the contact keeps the relationship: send a complete recipient-facing email after the contact agrees to help, with no rewriting required.¹ If the contact has to explain the business and the reason for the request from scratch, the handoff loses its advantage.²

Get permission first

Start with the contact, not the person you want to reach. Make it easy for the contact to decide whether to help before you send any copy.

Introductions usually use double opt-in.³ The contact should ask whether the intended recipient is interested and has time to connect.⁴ Ask the contact for permission to check, then wait for agreement before sending the recipient-facing email as its own message.¹

Use a question that gives the contact room to decline: "Would you be comfortable checking whether [recipient] is open to a conversation?" Do not ask the contact to promise that the recipient will take the meeting. Their job at this point is to test interest and availability.

Give the recipient a reason to respond

Make the relevance clear before the contact has to add an explanation. Lead with useful context and make the connection deliberate.

Use a single paragraph to explain what the business does, followed by traction or background that shows something interesting.⁵ Explain why the connection makes sense and add a few relevant details about the person being introduced.⁶ For an investor, make the fit explicit through interest in the space, preferred company stage, or a likely connection with the founders.⁷ For a commercial recipient, explain why this person's situation makes the conversation worth taking.

Ask yourself:

• What does the business do in plain language?
• What information gives the recipient a reason to pay attention?
• Why did the contact think of this person specifically?
• What should the recipient agree to next?

Build a self-contained email

Keep the request to the contact separate from the email they will forward. Write the forwardable copy so it makes sense when it arrives in the recipient's inbox without your presence.

Write the email in your own voice so the contact does not have to rewrite it to sound like them.⁸ Give the contact a clean email they can forward, rather than instructions for assembling a message from separate points.⁹ Use this structure:

Subject: [why this matters to the recipient]

Hi [recipient],

[Mutual contact] suggested we speak because [reason for the connection].

We help [customer or team] with [business problem]. [Add the relevant traction, background, or context.]

I thought this could be relevant because [why this recipient is a sensible person to speak with].

Would you be open to [the conversation or next step]?

Best, [your name]

The contact can add a brief line at the top explaining how they know you, then forward the rest as written.¹⁰

Test the forward

Run the message from the contact's side before you send it. Test whether the contact can forward it quickly from the device they are likely to have in hand.

The email should be easy to forward from a mobile phone without requiring laptop use.¹¹ Choose a subject line that makes sense to the eventual recipient.¹² Make the message ready to send so the contact only has to forward it.¹³ A useful speed test is whether the contact can forward it to a relevant recipient in 15 seconds or less.¹⁴

If the contact may send the same copy to several relevant people, keep the core email broad enough to travel without editing.¹⁵ When you are asking for one particular person, retain the sentence that explains why that person is a fit. This gives the contact a usable message without removing the reason for the request.

What not to do

These mistakes put the writing and decision work back onto the contact. Remove them before asking for the introduction.

• Do not put the forwardable email inside an unrelated thread or under a subject line that belongs to another conversation.¹⁶
• Do not ask the contact to write the introduction from scratch, since doing it properly could take 10 minutes of their day.¹⁷
• Do not make the contact edit the message before it can be forwarded. The email should be forwardable from an iPhone without editing.¹⁸
• When the recipient is an investor, do not leave out why that person should accept the introduction.¹⁹