How to Contact Anyone Successfully

This article tackles a skill that can change your life. Social media is an incredibly powerful communication tool. We can reach pretty much contact anybody in the world...

I’m going to share how I’ve contacted, and met, some of my favourite people and how you can do the same. Whether you want to say thank you for the value they provide, or you want to pitch to them an idea or a service, it can be achieved.

YOU ARE JUST ONE MESSAGE AWAY

One of the main reasons why I love LinkedIn so much is that we are just one message away from almost any professional in the world. When I first started using the platform, I couldn’t believe you could send a connection request with a personalised note. This is a golden opportunity to get noticed.

Window-openers vs. Door-knockers

I first heard this concept on the My First Million podcast. Window-openers vs. door-knockers is a great way to visualise two different mindsets for how we live our lives. We can take the passive approach of waiting for clear-cut opportunities, ‘open windows’, where we can see the outcome. For example, when looking for work, we might only apply for jobs that are advertised.

In contrast, there is the “door knocker” approach. We don’t know what’s on the other side, but we knock on different doors because we are optimistic about reaching a positive outcome. This is being proactive and looking to make things happen. For example, you might consider the dream companies you’d love to work for and get in contact with them directly.

Here are two examples from my own experiences:

• Mark Wright was the winner of the UK’s television series The Apprentice in 2014. He spoke at my university and in his talk, he mentioned that the only social media channel not run by his team was LinkedIn. I created a LinkedIn profile, messaged him, and was offered a 3-week internship. This was my first taste of marketing.
• More recently, I found myself on a group Zoom call with one of my all-time favourite entrepreneurs who runs an 8-figure business. I suggested improvements to his LinkedIn content and now I’m on his radar. I used to listen to his podcast every day driving home from work. Now I have his personal email.

The best thing about reaching out to people is that you can get into their circles and learn directly from them. The CEO of your favourite brand is busy. But they are not impossible to reach.

Let’s break down the process of contacting people into 3 stages:

1) The importance of research

2) The perfect message

3) The irresistible offer

TAKE THE TIME TO RESEARCH

How many of us have contacted an influencer or a celebrity in our lifetimes? I know I have. I’m pretty sure I’ve asked Richard Branson before if he was busy…

You have to do the research. Your message must be worth their time to receive a response.

Is it better to spend 30 minutes writing the perfect email for a chance of a reply, or to spend 5 minutes writing an email that has no chance at all?

Do you think spending just 5 minutes of your time is worthy of a response? This is really important and I want to hammer this home. Most of the time, the reason you are reaching out to people is because YOU want something. You want them to notice you. You want to sell them something.

In a great cold email, the person receiving the email should benefit far more than you will from the exchange. That’s how you can get their attention, and hopefully, a reply.

Let’s say you are a Graphic Design student looking for work experience and there’s a firm in London who you would love to work for. An example of research would be to find out the structure of the company. Who’s the Head of Design? How many people work in their team?

Why not connect with a graphic designer already working there? Ask them about their role and what they enjoy most about working at the company. Once a relationship is established, mention their name in your message to the Head of Design. Your chance of a reply will double.

• If you don’t know the person you want to contact, use LinkedIn to search by [Job Title] for [Company]. Combine this with a company’s “Meet the Team” section of their website to find someone.
• When you’ve identified an individual, research them. Find their social media profiles. Do they have a personal website or a blog? If you can identify a common interest this will be useful.
• Identify the best medium to contact them. Where are they most active online? Do they state this anywhere, for example, “I’m most active on Twitter.” What’s the platform they have the smallest following on? Contacting them there may improve your chances of a reply as they receive less messages.

Can’t find an email address? Just find the general format of their company email, e.g. most email formats are name@company.com. Hunter is a free Google Chrome extension that can help with this.

WRITE THE PERFECT MESSAGE

So you know who you want to contact and you’ve identified the best place to contact them. You’ve taken the time to learn more about what they are interested in and you’ve identified a good angle to go in with. Your message should be all of the below:

• Personalised
• Interesting
• Concise
• About them, not you
• Sent at the right time
• Clear in purpose

Consider the messages you don’t reply to. A great way to check personalisation is to hide the person’s name with your hand. Is it clear who the message is for, or could it be sent to anyone?

Don’t send the first message you write. I believe that the average cold message should take around 30 minutes to create. Remember, they didn’t ask for this message. If it’s an email, the subject line is important, too. Don’t use clickbait, but aim to catch their attention.

According to research conducted by MailChimp, 73% of emails are not opened. Don’t be afraid to follow-up if you do not receive a reply. Done correctly, this shows enthusiasm and will not be seen as annoying.

MAKE THE IRRESISTIBLE OFFER

When contacting somebody you must know what your desired outcome is. Is it to get them on the phone? Is it to do some work for them? This has to be clear so they can easily reply with an answer.

If you email somebody saying: “Hey, I’d love to work for you, I’m a huge fan! If there’s anything I can do just let me know.”

You are essentially asking THEM to do work for you. You are asking them to go away and consider all the things they might need help with. This will just be seen as a chore. Don’t ask for permission, either.

Say you wanted to write a guest blog post for your favourite website. Don’t contact the owner of the website asking for permission. Go ahead and write the guest post and then email them saying if they’d like to read your work. This is far more powerful. Show them that you’re serious. Spend the time upfront to improve your chances.

You have to make it as easy as possible for them to say yes.

You never know what could happen… so just try!

This article was first written in my weekly newsletter, which you can join today to get the good stuff first! I'd recommend that you check out the original email of this article to see screenshots of a successful exchange I had this year using LinkedIn. It's worth a look and there are some great resources to use like email templates for outreach.

Thank you for reading! 😁