Today, my guest Jason Treu is going to teach us some great insights into how you can actually get in touch with influencers and get them to respond to you. Jason Treu is an entrepreneur, a sales leadership trainer, and a business and executive coach where he works with entrepreneurs and corporations to help them gain clarity and lock into their zone.
Jason is a bestselling author of the book Social Wealth: How to Build Extraordinary Relationships, having sold around 30,000 copies and ranks number one in four Business and Self-help categories. Jason is a leading expert on human behavior, daring leadership, and relationship building.
Here are the highlights of my conversation with Jason:
Jason’s coolest sales experience when he was the customer
The power of connecting with influencers:
– Helps you gain more confidence
– Influencers can introduce you to people
– They can teach you things and be your valuable resource.
– They can be your mentor.
– This speeds up the process of learning and mastering different things so you become more successful and happy.
Leveraging on conferences:
1. Email the speakers ahead of time (or potentially some attendees) and set meetings to optimize it.
Not many people email these people ahead of time and instead, they try to catch them at the show and this is not the right thing to do since you fighting with a flock of people who are also trying to get to these influencers. So just get an appointment with them and spend some time with them. This makes the conference worth way more money than you’re paying for it.
2. Sending them an email with an intention to personally connect with them is way better than sending a cold email.
Conferences are one of the best places to go after the people you want to connect with. They are the easiest places to reach out to influencers since they would usually have the time to meet with someone.
Finding your influencers:
1. Find a list of people.
You’ve got to know who you’re going after or you’ll just be floundering around.
2. Get to know your industry better.
Read some sales or marketing blogs and see who they’re referencing and what’s going on. Going after the top people in the industry is very difficult. So try to find up and coming people. Immerse in the industry itself and you’ll start to see people who are risers and climbers who are doing great things.
3. Research their needs.
Join their newsletter. Follow them on social networking sites. Read past articles on them or their blogs. Google them and see what they’re doing and what they’re up to. Put them on Google Alert. Or try to learn about them inside of your network. Regardless, you need to figure out how you can add value to them.
How to build great relationships with people: Give first.
A common mistake among people is they start asking for things. When you give, you put yourself psychologically for the other person inside their inner circle. Especially for influencers, everyone is asking them for something. They keep getting requests after requests. Start giving to them or try to engage with them, then you’re creating a lot of value and you stand out from everyone else.
How to email influencers & get them to respond to you:
1. Send them an email and write on something they’ve done.
Write them about what they’ve done and the impact it’s had on your life or a little comment. People love to read that because it strokes their ego.
2. Don’t ask them anything. Just say something really nice.
Sign the email with a simple “thank you” where they don’t need to do anything about it. Influencers get asked by people all the time and this would make them feel guilty that they can’t respond since they are too busy so now they never want to respond to you and they’d probably just delete your note. Lost opportunity.
Instead, write them a note where they won’t have to respond to anything. They would want to keep this kind of email and not delete it. This is great because if you email them the second time, they’ll probably research to see if you’ve contacted them before.
3. In your second email, look and see what kind of help they need.
Investigate on whether they’re traveling somewhere or they’re talking about ideas important to them or whether they’re speaking at upcoming events. This will help you understand how you can add value and help them. Try to figure out where you can insert some value that you can help them.
4. Express gratitude publicly.
Once you’ve expressed gratitude in your first email, express your gratitude publicly by doing a product review or a book review and do a video on it.
5. Think of ways that you would make you stand out.
Send them a card or a gift. You can promote causes like throwing a Happy Hour to raise some money. Or say to them that you’d be up for volunteering some of your time. Tag them on social media. People notice things because they’re out of the blue.
Other creative ways to stand out:
– Sign up for their program and become their star student.
– Send clients their way.
– Contact them and help them if you’re an expert in your field.
– Contact them in critical moments (ex. if they’re launching certain projects, offer a service you could do)
– Connect them with other influencers and other people that could add value in their life.
– Send them an eBook on Amazon.
Jason’s Major Takeaways:
1. Do things in a really short way with people. Keep your email short and concise. Add value. Be a big supporter of them in the process.
2. It’s going to take several contacts for you to get through. Let go if they didn’t get back to you after you’ve followed up one time.
3. Get a list of 10 people to start with. Try to get them in person so you can forge that relationship with them.
4. Get out there and be aggressive. Do whatever you can to meet people. Be creative. Be consistent.
Episode Resources:
Check out Jason’s website www.beextraordinary.tv
Jason’s book, Social Wealth: How to Build Extraordinary Relationships
Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
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