Might you have heard from Dave Smith yet?

I thought I had a blog post about this, but I can’t find it, so maybe it’s still in DRAFT. What I’d like to say is, often in these types of email introductions, there is an assumption that the person in transition and the person making the introduction have already talked about it. The assumption goes that you want to meet the person you’re referred to. So – this is a fine point – it’s tradition for the candidate to respond to the referral first.  Nothing bad happens if they respond to you first, but it indicates your interest in finding out more about the subject of the introduction. 

Since this is in email and I’m not sure how clear I’m writing, what I suggest is that you go ahead and contact Dave.  The procedure is to Reply All, thank the referrer, say you’re looking forward to connecting. Then when the second person responds, you drop the referrer off the email thread to go ahead and make your plans.  Make sense?

Hope this helps,