How to reach busy people
It’s a simple formula: the higher level the person you are trying to reach, the busier they are.
Meaning they will have less time for lunch, coffee, phone calls, and to respond to your email.
Many entrepreneurs I work with get frustrated because they aren’t getting emails back from investors, or upset because I don’t have time to meet with them at their whim. Don’t let this discourage you, they probably still want to help, but you have to know how to ask. Here are some tips:
Send 3 sentence emails. Not 3 paragraphs, 3 sentences. If it can’t be read in 15 seconds, it won’t. (ref)
Don’t ask for meetings, ask for the one thing you want. If I can have a conversation over email rather than in person, that’s what I want. I definitely prefer to meet people at networking events or have them drop in Launch Pad then to schedule lunches or meetings without a clear agenda.
If you don’t hear back, ping her again. Try a DM or a quick email. The reality is most busy people can’t / don’t read all their email, so if you’re off the front page, you’re probably buried. Don’t get frustrated and send a passive agressive email, just ping her again nicely. You’ll be surprised how persistence pays off.
Don’t send attachments, send links. I’ll click through to blogs & projects way before I read resumes. I’d much rather get an actionable eventbrite invitation than a PDF attachment invitation I have to send an email reply to.
Make it easy for people to do what you want. Pre-write a tweet and send it to them and ask them to tweet it.
Use good plain text formatting. HEADERS are great capitalized and phrases are emphasized by bolding them.
Write a clear subject. I like giving context at the beginning with brackets [Invite] or [Response needed]. Assume that the subject is the only thing they will read on their phone and give them enough information to want to open the email. Subject lines of “hey” or “following up” get deleted.
What tips do you have on reaching out to busy people?