- It may be a lack of confidence that prevents you from reaching out to people you don’t know.
- Why?
- You might get rejected
- sometimes when making the pitch for a meeting or conversation
- sometimes after making the pitch
- What can you do to minimise the probability of rejection when making the pitch?
Tell the person you want to engage that I’m interested in your ideas. I am interested in your perspective
- This taps into his or her desire to help or be viewed as an expert.
- Most people derive satisfaction from being asked for their opinion and ideas.
- It is important to make sure they know
you are only interested in their ideas, not their resources. Resource networkers vs idea networkers
What to do to keep the door open to future conversation once get the opportunity?
Be interesting
What makes someone interesting?
2 things:
- Breadth of experience matters in a big way
- (China, Italy, Australia), experienced widely(Broadway shows, scuba diving), read widely(novels, history, different subjects) or networked widely(yes, I know so and so; we met when ..) - then you interesting to someone.
- make sure you perfect your elevator speech on the
topic you want ideas about.
- If you can tell interesting stories about problem or challenge you are trying to solve, that will spark an interest. Being able to tell short, interesting stories on a variety of topics increases your interesting quotient. #actionItem #rephrase