Know Your Role (And Find It!)
The first step is having a solid idea of the specific role you are looking for, down to the company and title (if possible). Next, you need to make sure that role is available.
Locate Potential Influencers
Now you are going to find someone who not only knows about the role, but could potentially have an impact on hiring for it. Time to fire up LinkedIn. In the search bar, I want you to plug in the company name + title, vertical/industry, preferred city. However, before you hit “Search,” we need to remember that you are looking for someone who can influence the hiring process.
With that in mind, I usually use a title that is one level up from the position that I’m looking for.
Obtaining Contact Info
Now, we’re going to reach out and set up an in-person meeting.
What’s that? You don’t have their email address? I got you covered! Here are 3 strategies you can use to find almost anyone’s email address:
This one is obvious, I know, but it’s a big time saver and definitely worth the 10 seconds it takes to check. On the person’s profile, right under their picture, there can be a button labeled “Contact Info” (I say “can be” because people have the option to remove it). Occasionally, people will have their email address listed right there – voila!
If not, let’s move right along…
Reverse Lookup
Head over to Voila Norbert and enter the first and last name of the person you are searching for, as well as their company’s website. Once it spits out their email you can confirm it using PeopleSmart or MailTester.
Matching Formats
If that doesn’t work, you can try finding someone else’s email at the company and use that format reverse engineering your target email address. For example, using Larry Page again, if I know that my buddy John Smith’s email is jsmith@google.com then I can assume that Larry’s email is lpage@google.com (it’s not, sorry).
Once you have the format, you can use the same two resources (PeopleSmart or MailTester) to confirm your target email address.
Research, Research, Research
Now that you have your potential influencer, it’s time to do some research so you can effectively reach out and build that relationship! Start with the usual suspects – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. and look for common points of interest. To be honest, most people are better at this online research thing than I am, so I’ll get back to the meat here.
One thing I will say is, don’t skimp! The more you get to know this person beforehand, the better your chances of landing a referral from them.
Some people have said to me, “Isn’t this a little weird? I feel like I’m kind of stalking this person.”
I totally get it. However, this information is critical for quickly building a strong relationship and getting that referral!
Also, in my experience, people tend to expect that you’ve done some research on them. The key is to understand what is kosher to bring up out of the blue and what isn’t. People are OK with you checking out their LinkedIn, but they may be a little weirded out if you mention that picture from Saturday’s Bar Crawl that you saw on Facebook.
My general rule of thumb is this: if it exists on LinkedIn, it’s fair game to bring up. If you found it somewhere else (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) use a different method. For example, if I see that my influencer is a skiing fanatic, I may bring up that I went on a ski trip a few weeks beforehand.
Sending The Email
Now that you have your potential influencer and their contact info, it’s time to reach out. Not only is this one of the scarier parts of this process, it is also one of the most pivotal. To help you get past that hump, I’ve included the exact email script that I used to reach out to people. In this case, I’m reaching out to Tim who works at Google:
Subject: Quick Question
Hi Tim,
My name is Austin and I currently work at Cultivated Culture. I was browsing through LinkedIn and came across your information – I hope you don’t mind me reaching out of the blue here.
I saw that you have extensive experience in Google’s Technology B2B vertical and I’m very interested in learning more about that space. I would love to have the opportunity to run some questions by you, as well as tap into any advice you may have given your knowledge of the industry.
I know that your time is extremely valuable so please don’t feel to need to respond in depth. If you do have 5 minutes to chat, I would really appreciate it.
Best,
Austin
There are a few key points to the email above:
Address the person you are emailing by name
State who you are and make it personable
Include some flattery that positions the person as an “expert”
As for the subject, Fast Company did a study where they emailed 1,000 C-level executives from Fortune & Inc 500 companies. They found that the subject line “Quick Question” made up 66.7% of total replies. That was good enough for me so I tried it out and saw similar results.
All of this said, the script is just a framework. You will most likely need to tweak your emails to fit the situation. When that time comes, I recommend checking out Sam Parr’s incredible guide on how to cold email like a boss (Sam has started conversations with Jeff Bezos and Brian Lee (aka Jessica Alba’s co-founder) via cold email!). It’s the same guide I used to help craft my email templates.
Now hit Send!
Prepare For Your Meeting
In order to prepare, we have to know what we’re preparing for. The goal of your meeting is to position your influencer as an expert, make them feel special, and build a relationship.
You will not and should not mention anything about the opening at their company. People innately enjoy helping others and if you follow the steps above, they will bring this up naturally. You will want to prepare a list of questions that gets them to open up about themselves and the company. I like to ask them several softballs to get things warmed up and then hit them with a few questions they are guaranteed to remember.
Here is a quick set that I’ve had success with in the past (I’ve found the last one really seems to stick):
I saw you worked at [Previous Companies]. How did you end up going from [First Industry] to becoming interested in [Current Company]?
You hear a lot about [Current Company] in the news, but I’d love to hear more about why you love working there. What’s your favorite part?
What is one totally unexpected lesson you’ve learned from working at [Current Company]?
The “Million Dollar” Question
Regardless of the questions you choose, there is one that you must always be sure to ask:
“What is the biggest challenge your team is facing right now?”
Really dig in here, get them to be specific. This information is going to be critical in helping you land a referral from this person, as well as getting the offer further down the road.
Your Homework: Adding Value (In A Big Way)
Okay, so you met with your influencer, things went great, and you identified a major pain point that the team is having. Now we’re going to focus on that last part.
Over the next week you are going to research the heck out of your influencer’s problem. Then you are going to come up with a solution and draft up a proposal for how you would solve it. Your proposal should include:
A summary of the problem (to illustrate that you understand their pain)
A step-by-step framework of how you would solve this problem
A brief outline of how your skill set positions you as an asset to implement that solution
Following Up With Your Proposal
Now we’re going to reach back out to our influencer with the proposal. Here’s the template I used:
Hi [Influencer],
Thanks again for taking the time out to chat last week!
I spent a lot of time thinking about what you said regarding [team’s biggest challenge]. In fact, I created a short framework that should help you solve it! Please find that attached.
If you have some time, I would love to chat about it in more detail.
Please let me know if you have any questions, I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Best,
Austin
It’s very important that you do not mention the open position in any of your emails or the proposal. Be patient and wait for their response. When they do get back to you, they will not only bring up the opening but they will ask you if you’re interested. Kindly accept and play it cool.
You’re in!
Next week, in Part 3, we will talk about how to breeze through the interview process!
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