Start with the work your customer needs done, not a list of senior titles. Confirm who your team already works with, identify a person whose role plausibly touches that work, and ask a willing customer contact for an introduction if they know them. If there is no suitable introducer, send a direct invitation only when you can explain your reason without implying a relationship you do not have.
Establish what the customer relationship actually covers
Before opening LinkedIn, review the account record and recent conversations. Write down the team you support, the work you help with, your current contact, and whether anyone on your team is already speaking to the person you hope to reach. An existing contract does not mean every department knows you or wants to hear from you. If the proposed contact sits outside the work you support, find a reason to speak with them before drafting a message.
Ask your current contact a narrow question: “Who owns the rollout across the other operations teams?” is more useful than “Who else should I sell to?” Their answer can confirm a responsibility that a job title only suggests. If they are unsure, keep the person’s remit marked as unconfirmed; do not turn a guess into a claim in your invitation.
Find a plausible contact, then check their fit
Look at the customer’s LinkedIn company page for people in the relevant function, or open its Sales Navigator Account Page. LinkedIn lists Relationship Explorer among the sections on an Account Page. Treat any name you find there as a candidate, not confirmation that the person owns your customer’s project. For broader list-building rather than this one-account decision, use the Sales Navigator prospect-list guide.
Check the candidate’s current employer, title and described responsibilities against the work you identified. Then check your account history for prior meetings, open conversations or a colleague who already knows them. A title such as “operations director” makes someone worth investigating; it does not establish that they oversee your deployment. If the profile and account history do not connect them to a useful conversation, ask your customer contact who does.
If your team uses Sales Navigator Advanced or Advanced Plus, TeamLink can show when a colleague is a first-degree LinkedIn connection with a lead. That is another possible route to an introduction, but a connection alone does not mean your colleague knows the person well enough to introduce you. Ask the colleague before mentioning their name.
Choose an introduction or a direct invitation
Use an introduction when your customer contact knows the candidate, agrees the conversation is relevant and is willing to connect you. It gives the new person a choice without asking them to accept an unexplained invitation. Do not treat an introduction as an entitlement of the account relationship: make the request easy to decline. If the contact does not know the person, do not ask them to endorse you anyway.
Consider a direct invitation when you have a specific, honest reason to contact the person but no willing introducer. State the part of the customer relationship you can verify, and invite a correction if their remit is unclear. Avoid “we work with your team” when you only work with a different team; name that team if it is appropriate to disclose. If the reason is simply that the person holds a senior title at a customer company, investigate further rather than sending.
Fictional example: Maya supports a customer’s operations team on a rollout. She sees a new operations director, Jordan, on LinkedIn, but does not know whether Jordan owns the next phase. Her current contact confirms Jordan owns it and agrees to introduce them. Maya sends the contact this short request: “Would you be comfortable introducing me to Jordan? Since they own the next phase, I can share what our team has learned from the operations rollout. No problem if you’d rather I reach out directly.” The resulting action is to wait for that introduction, not to send Jordan a simultaneous invitation.
If the contact declines to introduce Maya but confirms Jordan’s remit, Maya can decide whether direct contact is appropriate. A restrained note would be: “Hi Jordan, I work with the operations team on the current rollout. I understand you oversee its next phase. Would it be useful to compare notes on what your team needs?” If the contact has not confirmed Jordan’s remit, Maya should remove that assertion or wait until she can check it. If the contact asks her not to approach Jordan, she should respect that boundary.
Review the message and let the reply change the plan
Before any invitation goes out, compare the draft with the account record: Is the person’s name right? Is their responsibility confirmed or merely inferred? Does the wording accurately identify the team you work with? Check whether a customer contact or colleague is arranging an introduction, and whether another sender already has an open conversation. Do not run a direct sequence alongside a pending introduction.
For outreach suited to a campaign, ZenMode says you can choose on each campaign to check every message before it goes or let Autopilot send it; it also says follow-ups stop when someone replies. Use the review choice when account-specific wording needs inspection, and supply the verified relationship facts yourself. A one-person introduction request is better handled personally than treated as a generic campaign step. When a reply arrives, read it before deciding what to do next; an automatic reply-stop does not interpret a customer’s wishes for you.
Make the automation decision separately from the message-quality decision. LinkedIn says it does not allow third-party software that automates activity on its website and describes such activity as a User Agreement violation. Reviewing drafts does not remove that policy concern. If the account cannot accept the risk of a restriction, use manual outreach instead. If someone asks for no further contact, stop approaching them; the separate opt-out guide covers how to carry that decision into future outreach.
