Named Introduction Versus Open Chain

Our global relationships represent the reason for our ability to connect dots and build fruitful relationships. We value them immensely, have built them over years and years, and will do nothing to ever jeopardize them.

That sentence is not decoration. It is the difference between a named introduction and an open chain. A named introduction is how a file that can be stood behind usually moves. An open chain is how a name is worn out before anyone has decided whether the file is real.

This note is about that difference.

What a named introduction is

We rely only on those with whom we are personally acquainted, and those who are introduced to us by longtime partners. A named introduction is the practised form of that rule.

Both sides have said, in writing, the capacity in which they act. Both sides have agreed that the name may move. The introducing firm — whether TCG, a family company, or another brokerage — is prepared to stand behind the connection it is about to make. The receiving side is not asked to perform against a rumour.

Names travel once, to the people who need them, and they travel with consent. If the file is not there, the name does not travel at all. A short no is more useful than a wide circulation.

What an open chain is

An open chain begins with a name and no mandate. The name is forwarded “in case it fits.” It is copied onto a second list, then a third. Each layer adds a procedure, an instrument, a claim of exclusivity that cannot be exclusive because the same name is already elsewhere. By the time a serious desk sees it, the relationship has been shopped.

We will not circulate a company name through an open chain in order to see what comes back. We will not market an allocation we cannot substantiate. We will not invent an end-user so that a conversation can continue.

The damage is not only commercial. Relationships built over years are not built to be forwarded. Once a name has been through five inboxes, it is no longer an introduction. It is inventory.

Working with another brokerage

Some of the most fruitful relationships we hold arrived through another brokerage that already sat close to the principal. That is welcome. Authentic brokerages that already hold valuable relationships, and wish to work them with care rather than add another layer to a chain, are among the desks this firm was built to hear from.

Three courtesies make the cooperation possible.

The introducing firm is prepared to say, in writing, the capacity in which it acts. Principal, family company, or broker: the sentence belongs on line one. If the capacity cannot be said, there is nothing to introduce.

A fee arrangement is agreed before any name or document travels. Associates and introducing brokers work with us under a clear fee arrangement before any introduction is made. That is not bureaucracy. It is how a name is kept from becoming a circulating asset.

The same name is not placed into circulation while we are working the introduction. Exclusivity that lasts forever is a promise we do not make. Exclusivity for the life of a live file is ordinary hygiene. We have ended conversations for that reason — not because the other desk was unserious, but because the name was already moving somewhere else while we were still on it.

We would rather share a closed transaction with a serious counterpart than preside over a conversation that was never real.

How a name actually moves

A first exchange is a conversation, not a template. Two considered paragraphs are enough — who you are, in what capacity you act, what you seek to source or place. That note is set out in full in our earlier piece, A Conversation, Not a Template. Once interest is genuine, we put the understanding in writing. Names are exchanged only with consent, and only when both sides are prepared to say in what capacity they act.

Proof of product still precedes pressure. The introduction does not replace the cargo. It only decides who is allowed to see it.

If a second lift follows, it is usually quieter. That is the point of not having shopped the name.

How to begin

Please reach out to us with potential opportunities and we shall advise on a case-by-case basis. Write to business@thecristianigroup.com.

If you already hold a relationship you would like us to work with care, say so in the first line. We will follow your channel. The fuller account of how a file moves sits on How We Work.

Replies are handled by the firm, in our own name.