What counts as a warm conversation
This is the only definition that matters, because it is the only thing you pay for. It is in the contract before anything is sent. You are invoiced when all five are true:
- A named person at a company you approved.
- They replied to a message you approved, sent on your behalf.
- They said they want to talk about what you sell.
- They gave you a way to continue: a call, a thread, or an introduction.
- You can read every message that produced it.
all five true
$200
Invoiced monthly in arrears, net 14. Every billed line names the person, the list and the date it came from.
what doesn’t count
$0
- A connection accepted, a like, a follow, a profile view, a reply to a post.
- An out-of-office, or “wrong person, try Dana”, unless Dana replies and meets all five herself.
- “Sure, send me some info.” That is politeness. Tests 3 and 4 exist to catch it, because per-reply pricing without them pays me to farm it.
- Anyone not on the list you approved, however senior they looked.
- Anything you can’t read in full.
If one of the five is missing it never reaches your invoice.
seven days to strike any line
For any reason, or none. It comes off and I don’t ask why. Two things before you rely on it: silence is approval, so I email you on day five; and if you strike more than a third of the lines two months running, one of us ends the account rather than argue about the definition.
Test 3 is the subjective one. The strike window is what you have instead of an argument about it.
A specimen month, line by line
This is arithmetic on the published price, not a forecast and not a result. Nobody has run a month of this yet. The two-in-ten below is my working assumption; when I have a real month, this table is replaced by a real one.
| Reply | Amount |
|---|---|
| Managing partner, engineering consultancy, list A, replied 2 Sep first one Met all five. Your free first warm conversation, once, whatever it turns out to be worth. | $0.00 |
| Head of Operations, 600-person equipment rental group, list A, replied 4 Sep Met all five. Asked for a call the following Tuesday. | $200.00 |
| CTO, insurance software vendor, list A, replied 9 Sep fails test 3 Replied warmly, never said they wanted to talk about what you sell. Listed here, never billable. | $0.00 |
| Director of Ops, freight broker, list A, replied 11 Sep fails test 4 Interested, gave no way to continue. Listed here, never billable. | $0.00 |
| Six more replies: three out-of-office, a “wrong person, try Dana” that went nowhere, two “send me some info” None met the five tests. You see all six in the weekly export anyway. | $0.00 |
| Due, net 14 | $200.00 |
Ten people replied. A per-reply model bills all ten; this one billed one. That gap is the product. Every line above is on your statement, billable or not, so you can check the arithmetic rather than take it. The seven days run from the statement date: anything you strike inside them comes off before payment is due.
The terms
- Invoicing. Monthly in arrears, net 14, bank transfer or card. No prepayment, no deposit, no setup fee.
- The first one is free. Not an introductory offer and not a first-clients concession. Every account’s first warm conversation is free, whatever it turns out to be worth.
- Cap. You name a monthly cap in writing before anything is sent. It is a ceiling on how much goes out, not a promise of what comes back. Nobody has measured yield here yet, so a cap on what lands would be a number I cannot stand behind.
- Dispute. Seven days from the statement to strike any line, for any reason or none. Silence is approval, and I email you on day five.
- Notice. Thirty days, either side. No exit fee. You keep the target list, the message templates and every thread export.
- Pause. Any time, with a week’s notice. Nothing accrues while you’re paused.
- Downstream. Nothing after the handover is charged for. I don’t run your pipeline, book your meetings or chase for you.
Why $200, and when this doesn’t pay
why $200
Low enough that one warm conversation doesn’t need a business case; high enough that I can afford to throw away work that didn’t meet the five tests. The comparison is a seat or a retainer, which bill the same in a month when nothing lands.
when this doesn’t pay
There is a deal size below which this arithmetic stops working, and a close rate below which it stops working faster. I’m not going to put invented numbers on this page and call them an example. Tell me your average deal size and how often a first conversation becomes one, and I’ll tell you in the first reply whether I think this pays, rather than after your second invoice.