[mecHacker]

yeah, so the people who would make time to grab a beer with me when I was visiting their town, would not respond to my texts. And that's why I asked for the specific language you'd use. I'm using something like:

"Hi XYZ... I've started consulting, and I'm looking for new business opportunities. I'd love to talk to you about this... could we catch up over a call sometime next week"

may be there is a better way to do that. I've limited 1st degree network, and I don't want to burn it all, so I stopped sending these messages after all the first 4-5 didn't seem to go as planned!