This lets you see beyond your direct network to see who else can help.
It’s a feature that works particularly well for coworkers with aligned incentives. For example, your boss or your CEO would be happy to make an ask on your behalf since it’s in service of the company. They want to see you succeed and the company succeed.
You can imagine how powerful this is if you’re young in your career and don’t have a big professional network to tap. With CTD, you can be the puppet master. It’s as though your CEO has given you their LinkedIn credentials and told you everywhere they can be helpful. You’re able to make asks with confidence that there is a real relationship, and you’ve got the clout of a senior executive sending the email.
The deeper you look into your network, the more important it is to understand relationship strength. When you ask for help on LinkedIn, you’ll often get, “I don’t really know them, and not sure how we met.” This is doubly true with 3rd-degree connections.
CTD shows you the relationship strength through this whole chain without compromising the identity of the connector. This is really important. For example, your investor might be ok opening up their network to your CEO and executive team, but they probably don't want to give your SDR team carte blanche access. This provides them with a filter to ensure requests are vetted.
The example below is CTD's Chrome Extension on top of LinkedIn. It identified 46 paths to reach Tope, the CEO of Calendly. Some of them are 2nd-degree paths, but it turns out my strongest paths happen to be 3rd-degree connections through investors and my CEO.
When you find a good path to someone you’d like to reach, simply click on the ask button, and it generates an email template like this;
Hey Drew,
It looks like Tope Awotona is part of your extended network. According to Connect The Dots, you have a strong relationship with someone who knows Tope well. Click here to see if your connection is someone you’d be comfortable asking for help.
I’d be happy to draft an email for you to send.
–Jamie
When Drew clicks on the link, he’ll see all the people in his network who know Tope well. He clicks the Ask button.
Hey Sarah,
I see you have a connection to Tope Awotona, the CEO of Calendly. Would you be willing to put me in touch with them or share a few insights?
–Drew
This whole sequence of events takes minutes to execute, and you are setting yourself up for success. You are much more likely to get a response or a meeting.
Upgrading to Business Edition and flipping to 3rd degree will increase your potential contacts by at 20% or more. For example, it might surface 20,000 more people you could reach. The even bigger impact is that it provides more paths to people you might otherwise only have a weak connection to. The Tope example above is a terrific case in point. The added visibility of finding the the strong bond relationship path can be a huge competitive advantage!
