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 find people in your network to introduce, start from a dated need, not a person: who needs something specific right now, and since when. Then search your contacts for who has exactly that, run a quick fit test on both sides, and ask each side privately before you connect them.

Most connectors do it backwards. Here is how to find people in your network to introduce the right way, and why the order matters.

The backwards version looks like this. You meet someone great at a dinner. On the drive home you think, who should she meet? You run through the people you remember, pick two who seem like they would get along, and send a “you two should know each other” intro. Both say thanks. Nothing happens.

I have facilitated over 1,000 introductions and I run matchmaking for two communities. The ones that land almost never start with “who would get along.” They start with “who needs what, this week.”

Why start from needs instead of people?

Because a need has a reason and a date, and those are what make the other side say yes. “You should meet” is a suggestion. “She just signed an LOI and needs SBA debt with a seller note” is a reason to take the call this week.

Fred Wilson, who named the double opt in introduction on his blog AVC, put the receiving side’s view plainly: “All of us get email intros that we don’t want to follow up on.” The intros he did not want were the ones with no reason he cared about. Starting from a need is how you avoid sending those.

What needs should you be listening for?

Listen for events with a date on them. These are the ones that create a clear match in deal work:

• Signed an LOI. Needs a lender, a QoE firm, a deal attorney, an insurance broker.
• Closed a deal. Needs integration help, a CFO, a second add on, other owners in the same industry.
• Started raising. Needs investors who back exactly that stage and size.
• Owner mentioned selling. Needs a quiet coffee with the right buyer, or an M&A advisor, never a crowd.
• Moved cities. Needs the five people worth knowing there.
• Lost someone. A lender left the bank, an advisor retired. Needs a replacement.
• Hiring. Needs a specific operator, not a recruiter.

Write each one down the day you hear it, with the date. That date matters more than anything else on the line. A need from last week is a match. A need from last spring might already be solved.

How to find people in your network to introduce: search by need

Search your contacts by role, industry and place, not by name. You will not remember the right lender by name at 11pm. You might remember “the SBA lender who does landscaping deals in Florida.”

This is where most networks fail the connector. The contact exists, but nothing on the card says what they do, where they are, or what they told you last time. That is why the one sentence you capture after meeting someone is worth more than the contact itself.

Then look past the obvious name. The lender you always use has said yes to you four times this quarter. A second lender you met six months ago and never called might be a better fit, and the intro also gives you a reason to get back in touch with her. Weaker ties are often where the right match hides, which weak ties vs strong ties gets into.

How do you know if a match is good?

Run five checks. If any one fails, wait or pass.

Check	Passes when	Fails when
Specific value	Each side gets something you can name	“You two would get along”
Current on both sides	Both reasons are from the last few weeks	One side’s reason is months old
You can vouch	You know both well enough to put your name on it	You met one of them once
Not overused	The busier side has not said yes to you a lot lately	Third ask to the same person this month
One line why	You can write it in a sentence	It takes a paragraph to explain

“Current on both sides” is the one people skip. You confirm the buyer’s need is real, then assume the lender is still doing that kind of deal. She may have changed banks. Check both reasons, and check the dates.

A worked example from one week

Here is an illustrative week. You had eight calls and a mastermind dinner. Your needs list on Friday has four lines:

1. Searcher, LOI signed Tuesday. Needs SBA debt with a seller note.
2. Operator, closed his first add on last month. Wants another owner in commercial cleaning.
3. Founder, raising this quarter. Wants investors who back B2B services.
4. Advisor, just moved to Miami. Wants to know the deal people there.

You search your contacts by role and place. For line 1, two SBA lenders. One just posted about a seller note deal she closed, so her reason is current too. Match. For line 2, a CPA who mentioned two clients thinking about selling. Match, but ask the CPA first, because confidentiality matters more than speed. For line 3, the only investor you know who fits backs a different stage. Pass, and tell the founder plainly. For line 4, three people in Miami you can vouch for. Match, one at a time.

Four needs, three matches, one honest no. Then each match goes through the ask, which the double opt in intro template covers word for word.

Why matching breaks at volume

The method is simple with eight calls. It breaks with eight calls a week for a year. The needs list lives in your head. The contact cards have no notes. The lender’s reason went stale three months ago and you did not see it. And the match you should have made sits there, because nothing put the two people next to each other on the same morning.

That is what the super connector’s operating system is really about. Not knowing more people. Seeing the match while both reasons are still fresh. Communities that run this on purpose, like mastermind member matchmaking, live or die on it.

The system that finds the matches for you

That is why I built FRONT OF MIND. Every morning you open your 10 minutes for today, and intros to make this week show up with dated proof on both sides. You see why each person fits and that both reasons are current before you spend your name on the ask.

When you want to search yourself, ask Liala out loud: “who do I know that is an M&A advisor” or “who lives in Miami.” You get the right people and why. Capture is just as fast: say a name and a sentence after dinner, snap a business card or badge, and it is filed under the event. Each ask comes as a drafted text style message, 40 words max. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits.

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 match comes up first.

See how it works