Take the back door!!
Don’t do what everyone else does. Find a different way to connect. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in business, it’s to rely on people who are more fabulous and wonderful than I am. Before I left for New York, I tapped the savviest people in my network and said, “I’m going to New York. Do you know anyone I should meet with while I’m there? Here is my goal. . . . ” This produced a list of referrals too long for me to visit in just one week.
I took those contacts and sent out e-mails with the subject line, “So-and-So referred me.” That subject line alone guaranteed me prompt and friendly responses. Even if someone couldn’t remember the person who referred me, I still got positive responses and–yes–I even got appointments.
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Press Tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.3 Responses to “Sticking Your Foot in the Door”
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May 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
What do you mean meet people more fabulous than you? Are they like bankers,entrepreneurs, or is it just the public in general? I would like to get the work out on my company and get it to grow bigger, let me know if you have any pointers. Thanks!
May 30th, 2008 at 6:20 am
I postdated a post about this topic back when I did this post, and it hit the blog today. Take a look.
I consider most people “more fabulous than me” :)–but in honesty, that leads me to ask the people around me and in my network for help, referrals and ideas. You may already know people around you who might have a good connection at a specific publication or a friend from high school who is now a producer at “XYZ.” It’s amazing what kind of referrals you get when you start to ask people.
Most of the time, if someone doesn’t have a good lead for you, her or she will know someone who might have a good contact and will refer you there. Sometimes it’s a long process to find the right person with the right connection, but it’s something we should all be doing constantly.
I’ll do another post about making a PR plan so that you create opportunities or excuses to contact people in the media. But for now–my biggest message is to focus on your personal network and find people in your community and online who are smarter and more “fabulous” than you are and genuinely add them to your network.
Also, do you use any social networking utilitites like Facebook or LInkedIn?
July 1st, 2008 at 4:32 pm
This is a great insite. I have learned first-hand that using traditional means will not help you get your foot in the door. As a result, on my website I posted an exercise that will help anyone “work their network.”