This is How I Meet New People & Get Warm Intros in 24 Hours

If you’re a subscriber to our email list or one of our beloved clients, last week you received the first notice: on April 25th, we will be hosting an all-day IRL Business Development Bootcamp in Nashville. So from now until then, we’ll be talking all Bus Dev, all the time. And as always with our education, my goal is to be as generous as possible, sharing plenty of helpful, actionable tips before then. So today, I’m starting with how I personally find new people to meet and ask for warm introductions to them. It works 100% of the time and happens within 24 hours.

As with all my “brilliant” tips, it’s the simplest thing in the world; you just have to do it. Here it is…

Ask a common connection for the introduction, and then offer to write the email.

My origin story for this comes from the Chief Administrative Officer of a $300M business. When I was helping with her business’s annual strategy, she said to me:

It’s so much easier for me to edit someone else’s draft than to start from a blank sheet of paper.

Mind blown. I immediately tucked this away as a tactic to be really helpful, to really powerful people. And over the past 12 years, I’ve used it to help others accomplish a lot, at a rapid speed. Such as:

• Creating usable templates for you(!), like this widely-used out of office email
• Taking “the lift” off clients, when I’m getting them started on CEO work they’re resisting
• Empowering our team to have ownership over their work, relationships, and communication, via playbooks, templates, and training manuals

And accessing introductions, to meet new people. When I get the email started for someone, I control the message; and I influence the speed of completion.

Here’s how it looks: I’m in a Bus Dev 1-1. I’ve come in prepared with a specific ask, or our conversation has led me to ask for an introduction or favor. I make a direct request:

“Would you be open to introducing me to ______?”

They say, “Of course.”

(Or maybe not! Maybe they say, “I actually don’t know ______ that well.” No problem! Most of the time that will not be true, but it may be once in awhile, and of course that’s fine). But assuming yes, I then ask:

“Would it be okay if I send you a draft email that you can edit to your liking and pass along? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but you’re doing me a favor, and I want to make it as easy as possible for you.”

They will 100%, no-doubt-about-it, say yes. Everything about the above statement is true: You’re making their life easier. Who doesn’t want someone to make their life easier!?

Then: follow-up, follow-up, follow-up within 24 hours.

Here’s a recent example of my own. This did not come from a 1-1; actually, I spotted someone on Linkedin who piqued my curiosity, and I saw that we had a mutual connection. Here’s what it looked like (literally).

I texted our common connection:

(She also responded with a glowing, specific description of this person).

So then immediately, I emailed this:

She made the email intro within 1 hour, and I had a meeting on the books within 90 minutes (thanks to my trusty Calendly link).

And the icing on the cake was when my introducer emailed me this:

Though I think of this tip as a magic trick(!), I promise: there’s nothing tricky nor deceiving about it. It comes from a place of making someone else’s life easier. Afterall, you’re asking your introducer for a favor. You should be bending over backwards to make things easy for them. You owe them!

And there’s one last caveat I want to give. You know that I say the following about anything that has to do with relationships. If you practice this tip, it must come from a place of generosity and an authentic desire to be helpful. If you start wham-bam-spamming this all over the place, people will smell your inauthenticity from a mile away. Please be kind. Generous. Be you.

PS – We hope to see you in Nashville on April 25th. There’s plenty more where this came from! A little logistics note: we’ll be capping attendees at 20, and our Advisory Practice clients and email list will receive first right of refusal. So please stay close and stay tuned for details in the coming weeks.