Hi, I'm Jenny Rae, the managing director of Management Consulted and I am here today to talk about cold networking.
I've got a great story about cold networking.
One of my friends, who is not in the consulting industry, went through the process of cold
networking using the same exact methodology that I am going to talk about today.
And when she did that, she was able to get a very high powered meeting in her field,
with somebody, who after the third meeting was preparing to write a check for one hundred
thousand dollars to fund an event that she was doing.
And, at the meeting they said, "how do we know each other actually."
Because, in her initial email, she did such a good job of making it appear as though they
had a common connection, that he felt guilty the entire time that he didn't remember her
– when in fact, it was the first time that she had ever contacted him.
So, what I want you to understand with cold networking is that it is really important
to make cold networking feel like it is warm networking.
Because, if somebody feels like they already know you, and they feel like you know them
– not in a creepy way, but just in a familiar way – it will leave them questioning whether
or not they have actually met you before.
And you will get pretty far down the process of actually making them into a warm contact before they even realize it.
So, first of all I am going to talk about some key guidelines to make cold networking
effective, and then I am going to talk about two tools that are really essential in the
cold networking process. So, here are some of the key guidelines.
The first one is, use any method necessary for research.
What you are looking for is not only the person's name and their email address – which are
the two most critical pieces – but you also want to know their position, their history,
their interests, anything that you can possibly know about them.
Linkedin is definitely a fantastic tool to utilize in order to understand these things.
And it is not to bring everything up in your initial email to them, it is to pick something
the two of you might have in common, and to refer to that in the email.
So it is really important that you do a lot of research about someone before you go and
contact them, so that you can tailor that initial cold email to them to make it seem
as warm and familiar as possible.
The second thing is that you want to contact people via email.
When you contact them on Linkedin they automatically know that you don't know them.
So, it's really important to contact them directly, because that leaves the question
open – "wow, I didn't give this person my email, I didn't exactly know how they contacted
me, but their contacting me direct to my email box, so I am going to make the assumption
that they have the email for a reason, and we should probably be talking to one another."
So, if you contact them by email you can kind of break that barrier, and they don't have
access to the same amount of information form you that they would have if they were on Linkedin.
So, it is really important to keep that strait-forward.
The third thing is that you want to email somebody twice at most.
But oftentimes the second email is going to be the one that will be the most fruitful.
So, it is beneficial if somebody does write you back after the first email, that's great,
you want to wait one to two weeks in between emails.
But if you do give somebody a curtesy follow up, and just say, "Hey, you know I sent you
an email two weeks ago, just wanted to follow up on it, do you have a chance to have a call sometime in the next week."
If you say that, that kind of leaves them pondering – "I'm not sure how I know this
person, and I'm not sure why I would do a call with them, but I suppose it's worth it to go for it."
So, there is some strategy in how you approach them and how often you approach them.
The next thing that is important is that you want to find a point of connection with them.
Like I said, in Linkedin, when you are doing your research, you want to make sure that
you identify – Oh, you know I went to this school, or I am interested in something, I
noticed that you are an orchestra player.
You also might just say, I understand that you are the director of recruiting, and you
don't need to tell them where your information came from, but if you say something like that
then they'll leave themselves wondering – "well how do you know this."
So you never want to say, "I found your information on Linkedin, or I was looking you up on google.
You do want to kind of give some inference to those points of connection.
And finally, the fifth and most important thing is that you want to drive the conversation to a call.
So when you are cold networking with somebody, there is nothing that they are going to be
able to do for you aside from answering a couple of questions, unless you have a call with them.
If you are able to get them, not to answer questions by email, but have a fifteen to
thirty minute call with you, they are much more likely to determine in that call whether
or not they'd be willing to advocate for you, hopefully they'd be very impressed, and really
excited about you, and then they will get really on board with pushing you through the process.
If you keep it on email, they'll answer your questions, but they'll never speak up for you inside the firm.
So, make sure that as you're going through the process, you're driving this to a call.
Now there are two tools that are going to be really important for you as you are going
through the process. The first is an elevator pitch.
You want to make sure that when you open up, both your conversation inside the email, talking
about who you are, how amazing you are, and why they should talk to you, that you are
giving them quick pertinent pieces of detail that will be the ones that they will be excited to hear about.
Top grades, top schools, top companies that you have worked for – anything that is particularly
interesting, and it may be one or two things that are just a little bit wild.
You traveled around the world and wrote a book, or you sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
– those are two things that I have done, they are things that I would include in my
email to show that I am a totally normal person, or at least abnormal in fun ways.
So, you want to make sure that as you're highlighting that, you're communicating it.
Your elevator pitch is also important to present when you're actually going to the call.
So when you're going into an informational interview.
So, it is important to have the key pieces of your story together that you can present
in thirty minutes, because if somebody has a call with you and they don't know you – that
first thirty minutes, Im sorry, first thirty seconds is a really key, key proving period.
So, make sure that when you are going into the informational call, you're making sure
that that first thirty seconds, you're able to make a really dramatic impression on them.
Favorably, dramatic impression.
Finally, the second tool that's really helpful is hero stories.
And I'm going to talk about these in great detail when we get to our FIT interview series.
But, basically, hero stories are quick, thirty second to one minute stories that help highlight
the benefits that you bring to the table and illustrate them in one key story.
So, if you are highlighting leadership, a story about leadership, if you have a story
about impact, you'll have a story about that.
And instead of just saying, I do this and I do that, and I statements – you are able
to say, let me tell you a story about a time when I.
And oftentimes in the actual informational interview, you are able, not just to say,
I've done this or I've done that, but your able to say, let me just quickly give you
a quick illustration of what I have done.
Having your hero stories prepared is really powerful.
Hero stories can also fit really well into the introductory email that you sent.
You might have one hero story about a timer where you just saved a company, or did something
just dramatically impressive.
So having one of those in your introductory email could be important.
So these are some key guidelines and two key tools that are helpful to have in your tool
belt when you're thinking about cold networking.
Make sure that you expect the best.
A lot of consultants are very nice, you may be surprised at how many of them do actually
email back to you, and also get excited about promoting you inside the firm.
We're excited to talk about even more on networking in future videos. in the meantime you can
check us out on our website at managementconsulted.com