By Brett Kaufman. 8 years using relationships to build sales pipelines, from political fundraising to a 7 figure business to running matchmaking for two communities. Over 1,000 introductions facilitated.

To keep track of introductions you owe, pull every promise out of the places it hides (texts, email, notes, voice memos, your calendar) into one list with three facts: who, to whom, and the date you said it. Then sort by age and pay down the oldest first, with a short text that owns the delay.

That is how to keep track of introductions you owe without a spreadsheet you abandon by Thursday.

Here is the moment it usually hits. Sunday night, home from a three day event. You scroll your texts and “I’ll connect you” shows up in four threads. Two more are in email. One is a voice memo you recorded in an Uber. You remember making maybe half of them. Every one of those people remembers you offered.

I have facilitated over 1,000 introductions and I run matchmaking for two communities. The promises are never the hard part. Finding them again is.

Where do promised intros hide?

They hide in every channel you used that week, and almost never in one place. Run this audit once, the first night home, in about 20 minutes. Search each channel for “connect you”, “introduce”, “intro” and “you should meet”.

1. Text threads. Scroll back to the first day of the event. This is where most promises live.
2. Email. Check your sent folder, not your inbox. The promise is usually in a reply you wrote.
3. Notes app. Fragments like “Dana, SBA, buyer from dinner” count. Turn each into a full entry.
4. Voice memos. Anything you recorded walking out of a session.
5. Calendar. Look at every meeting from the last two weeks and ask: did I offer anyone something in that one?
6. Group chats and event apps. Mastermind threads and conference messaging tools are where offers get made in public, which makes them the most visible ones to miss.

Every entry gets the same three facts: who you promised, who you promised to connect them with, and the date you said it. Add the one line why if you can write it. If you cannot, that is a sign the intro was never ready.

How old is too old for an intro you promised?

Age is the whole game. The same intro costs you more every week it sits, and what you send changes with the age.

Age of the promise	How it reads to them	What to send
Under 48 hours	Follow through	The ask to the other side, then the intro
3 to 14 days	Normal, slightly slow	The ask, with no apology needed
2 to 4 weeks	They noticed	One line owning it, then the ask
30 to 90 days	They assumed you forgot	Check the need is still real before you ask anyone
90 days or more	Written off	Close it out honestly, or offer something better

Two things follow from the table. Clear the oldest first, because they are closest to falling off the end. And never ask the other side for a 60 day old intro without first checking that the person who wanted it still does. The searcher may have found a lender. The founder may have closed the round.

If you have a pile from one event, triage the whole list in one sitting. Then run the asks. The ask itself is covered in the double opt in intro template, so I will not repeat it here.

What do you text when an intro is weeks late?

Own it in one line, then move. Nobody wants a paragraph. They want the intro.

At 2 to 4 weeks, to the person you promised:

That intro to the SBA lender I mentioned at dinner. I dropped it, my fault. Asking her today if she will take a call this week.

At 30 to 90 days, check first:

I owe you an intro to the lender from the conference, and I am late. Before I ask her, are you still looking, or did you get it sorted?

Past 90 days, close it or replace it:

I promised you an intro in the spring and never made it. If you still need a lender, I know two now who fit better. Want either?

Each one is under 40 words. Each one names the specific promise, so they know you actually remember it. And none of them makes them do work to forgive you.

When should you cancel a promise instead of making it?

Cancel when making the intro would cost you more than breaking the promise. That happens more often than people admit.

• You realize you do not know the other side well enough to vouch. You met them once, for four minutes.
• The fit was a stretch you made at dinner to be helpful. It sounded right at 10pm. It does not on Monday.
• The other side has said yes to you a lot lately. Spend that goodwill on the intro that matters most.
• The need expired. The deal closed, the round filled, the role got hired.

Cancel out loud:

Thought more about that intro. I do not know him well enough to put my name on it. If you send me two lines on what you need, I will think about who else fits.

A clean cancel is a payment. Silence is the default, and the default is what damages a connector’s name.

How to keep track of introductions you owe going forward

Capture the promise the moment you make it, in the same place every time, with a date you said out loud. The audit fixes last week. These rules stop next week from needing one.

1. Capture before you leave the room. One sentence: who, to whom, why. Not later. Later is how it ended up in a voice memo you never played.
2. Say when. “I will send the ask Monday” turns Monday into you keeping your word, not you being slow.
3. One list, the one you look at every morning. Not a notes file you open once a month.
4. Send within 48 hours or tell them why not. “Checking with her first” is not debt. It is a payment plan.
5. Log what happened when it is done. That is where tracking introductions and referrals takes over.

If you make 20 or more intros a month, the promise list becomes the front of a weekly queue. Making introductions at scale covers how to run that block. And if the bigger problem from the event is the follow ups themselves, not just the intros, start with the conference follow up system.

Why the promise list dies at volume

None of this is hard for three promises. It breaks at twenty, across two events and a dozen calls, in a week you were traveling. The captures never get typed, the list lives somewhere you do not look, and the 2 week mark for each promise lands on a different day.

The system that holds the promises for you

That is the part I built FRONT OF MIND to carry. After dinner, say a name and a sentence out loud, “promised the HVAC buyer an intro to the SBA lender,” and it is filed under the event. No laptop, no notes app.

Every morning you open your 10 minutes for today. Intros to make this week show up with dated proof on both sides, so you know the reason is still current before you spend your name on it. Follow ups that are due come with one line saying why today and a drafted text style message, 40 words max. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits. When a promise needs a better fit, ask Liala “who do I know that is an SBA lender” and get the right people with why.

It runs in your phone browser and you can save it to your home screen. Your contacts are encrypted. No one on our team looks at them. Export and delete anytime.

Start free with your first 25 contacts and 1 intro, and see which promise comes up first.

See how it works