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Via for AEs, SDRs and BDRs

Your quota does not care how many emails you sent.

It cares how many people answered, and right now almost nobody does.

An AE, SDR, or BDR uses Via to check every name on the list against the relationships their company already holds, so outreach opens with a person the buyer trusts instead of a subject line they have seen a hundred times. Via names the connector, shows what the relationship actually rests on, and drafts both the ask and the forwardable. Where the only route is a thin one you still get the context, so no account on your list gets worked blind.

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The problem

The relationship that would have closed it was two desks away.

You are not short of names, and you are not short of tools that will write you a message. What you are short of is a reason for the buyer to open it, and the only reliable reason left is that someone they already trust put your name in front of them.

The maddening part is that those relationships usually exist somewhere in the building. A colleague worked with the buyer's VP for four years, your top customer sat next to them at a previous company, and nobody knows, so the account gets worked cold and lands in the archive with everything else. That is quota walking out of the building unnoticed.

Three plays

What you run with it.

One for the list you are working now, one for the deals already open, and one for how you plan the quarter.

Play 01  ·  Getting replies

You open with a name they trust instead of a subject line they have seen a hundred times.

Before you send anything, Via tells you whether someone in your team's orbit, a colleague, a customer, an advisor, or an investor, already knows the person you are writing to, and what that connection actually rests on. Where the route is strong you ask for the introduction. Where it is thin you still walk away with something real to open on, which is the difference between a message that sounds like it was written for them and one that reads like a merge field.

How it runs
  1. Drop in the name, the company, or the whole day's list.
  2. Via returns the warmest route and the evidence: who, how they know them, and how strong it looks.
  3. Take the drafted ask, put it in your own words, and send it to the connector rather than the buyer.
  4. When the intro lands, your first message is a reply in a thread the buyer already trusts.
Play 02  ·  Active deals

The deal stops living or dying with one champion.

After a call, take the names your buyer mentioned, the security lead, the finance partner, and the executive who has to sign, then find your warmest path to each of them. You build the second and third thread while the deal is still healthy, rather than scrambling for one the week your champion goes quiet.

How it runs
  1. List the names that came up on the call, including the ones you have not met.
  2. Via resolves a route to each and tells you which are genuinely reachable today.
  3. Work the two strongest in parallel rather than waiting on your champion to make the connection.
  4. Log the connector on the opportunity so the thread survives a territory change or a handoff.
Play 03  ·  Territory planning

Your book gets worked in the order that actually converts.

Most reps work a book alphabetically, or by revenue, or by whatever the CRM happened to sort by last. Via re-sorts it by where you already have a way in, so the accounts where your team holds a real relationship get your mornings and the rest get a lower-effort motion. Same book, same hours, a meaningfully different hit rate.

How it runs
  1. Run your whole book through Via once at the start of the quarter.
  2. Split it into the slice with a credible path and the slice without.
  3. Give the warm slice your manual hours and put the rest into your sequencer.
  4. Re-run monthly, because every job change in your network reshuffles the list.
Where Via shows up

It arrives where you already work.

Via reaches you through the CRM you already live in, the assistant you already have open, or the app itself when you would rather work a whole list in one place.

Your CRM queue

The connector is already named on the record when you open the account, so there is no separate tool to check first.

Claude or ChatGPT

Ask who can get me into this account in the assistant you already have open, and get the path back without leaving the conversation.

Before the call

Run the attendee list ahead of a meeting and walk in knowing which of them your company already has a relationship with.

The ask itself

Via drafts the note to the connector, including the context that makes it easy for them to say yes and forward it on.

What Via moves

The metrics on your scorecard.

Nothing new to track. These are the numbers you are already judged on, and the warm slice is what moves them.

Reply rateCompare the accounts with a path against the ones without, from the same book in the same week. This is the number that tells you how to spend your mornings.
Meetings bookedActivity is not the goal. Working warm-first means fewer touches carrying more weight, which is the only way the number moves without more hours.
Contacts per opportunityA deal with one contact is a deal with one point of failure. Two or three named threads is what survives a champion leaving.
Win rateDeals that started with an introduction tend to close at a different rate than deals that started cold. Track them separately and the difference is obvious.
Where Via stops

What it will not do for you.

  • A warm path gets you read, not closed. Everything after the reply is still the job.
  • Your connector still has to say yes. Via drafts the ask and the forwardable so it is easy to grant, and easy is not the same as automatic.
  • Via will not talk up a relationship to make a path look better than it is. You see what the connection actually rests on and decide whether it is worth spending.
Questions

Straight answers.

What if nobody at my company knows the account?

We will tell you. Knowing an account is genuinely cold is worth having, because it means you can put it into a volume motion and give your manual hours to the accounts where a real path exists.

What if the only path is a weak one?

You still get the context, and that is the point. Via shows you what the connection actually rests on rather than reducing it to a score you cannot act on. A thin path might not be worth asking for an introduction, and it will still tell you the shared employer, the overlapping years, or the mutual name that gives your direct message a real opening line.

Strong or thin, you go into the conversation armed. The only account you should ever work blind is one where we found nothing at all, and we will say so.

Isn't this the same as shared connections on LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

Sales Navigator shows you that a connection exists. It does not tell you whether the two people ever worked together, how long they overlapped, whether they actually interact, or whether the relationship is strong enough to carry a request. Via scores the relationship on corroborated evidence and names the person most likely to say yes.

Will Via reach out to anyone on my behalf?

No. Nothing leaves your hands unless you send it. Via resolves the path, drafts the ask to your connector and the forwardable they can pass on, and then stops. No message reaches a colleague, a customer, or the buyer without your explicit say so.

How do I ask without burning the relationship?

Keep it specific and small. Name the person, say why you are worth introducing, and let the forwardable paragraph do the work so your connector has almost nothing to write. Vague asks get vague answers, and specific ones get introductions.

We have written this up properly: see How to ask for a warm intro for the templates and The 4 types of warm intros for which ask suits which relationship.

Also built for

Other people who run this.

FounderIs the whole sales team Sales leaderOwns the number the team carries GTM engineerBuilds the systems the team sells with
Keep reading
How to ask for a warm introMultithread any dealWhat is a warm pathWarm lead vs warm introVia vs LinkedIn Sales NavigatorThe 4 types of warm intros

Don't go unread. Start warm.

Via reads the relationships your team, your customers, your advisors, and your investors already have, then shows you who can open the account you are chasing and why they can.

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