Congrats, you’ve made it this far! If you followed the previous steps, you should now have a strong foundation from which to move forward with. Think of it as a cake you just baked to perfection, now you just need to put the icing on it. Hungry? Good. Follow these next steps and you will be ready to lick the sweet spoon of success.
Step Two: The Approach | You know what you want and who to ask it from, now all you need to do is actually ask
DO’s
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Research, Research, Research: Yes, again. Read up more specifics on the person you’re reaching out to. This will help equip you with useful information to include in your “Reaching out” email.
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Help them help you: When you’re asking someone to help you with an introduction, the best thing you can do is give them specific information on what you’re looking for and why you want to be introduced. Make this even easier by offering to write up your own intro that they can change as they see fit.
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Be patient: Don’t be horrified if you don’t get a response within the first 30 seconds. Be respectful of their time – wait around a little bit, if a week passes by send a follow-up email.
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SPELL CHECK: ALL THE SPELLS!
NOT-SO DO’s
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Be vague and unprofessional: “Hey dude, remember that time you told me to reach out if I wanted to know peeps? Yea I’d like to hit you up on that offer send me some names over when you get a chance thx.”
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Give them more work: Provide specific names and companies. You probably won’t get a great response if you ask someone to send you a filtered list of everyone in their network who works in advertising but has a background in History and only eats seedless grapes.
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Not spell check: You knwo why.
