Get a meeting

– So you’ve identified the executive that you want to meet with. Now it’s time to get the meeting, which is not easy. So remember that going in warm is always better than going in cold. If you have an existing relationship, someone that you are connected to inside of the company, of course you start there. But for many of us, that’s not a path that’s an option. So what do you do? Well, I would start with looking in Sales Navigator and look at the TeamLink function to see who on your team or in your company might be connected to someone directly inside of that company. Then you can leverage the relationship that you have and you can ask for an introduction. An executive is many more times more likely to accept an introduction when that intro comes from someone she knows. Speaking in my own life, I get so many cold outreaches during the day, I’m not going to respond to any of them. But if someone I know says, “Mike, you need to meet this person,” of course I’m going to take the intro. So go in warm when you can. If you’re lucky enough to have an executive in your own company who’s connected to someone in your prospect company, that’s a relationship that you do want to leverage, but you really have to be thoughtful about it. Because engaging with one of your executives is almost as tricky as engaging with a prospect executive. And it depends a lot on the company culture that you have. Some companies, it’s expected that your executive will do everything that she can to help you get into your prospect company, but in other companies you got to work a little harder, and you may not find total alignment within them. So bring those same skills and those same practices that you would in engaging with an external executive to getting your internal executive onboard. Figure out something that matters to her. Help her understand that this is in the prospect’s best interest. It’s not something you’re trying to take. It’s something you’re trying to give. Make it really easy for her, and you’ll get engagement. If you’ve exhausted all possibilities of going in warm, which happens sometimes, if you’re going to go in cold, go in custom. Do not write one of those form letters that inserts your prospect’s name on a whole bunch of language that no one’s ever going to read. Put in the time. Respect your prospect with your homework. Write something that’s completely custom, that takes her needs into mind, and recognize you’ve got about three to five seconds to gain her interest and her attention. If you can’t make your point in there, it’s going to go away. So be very thoughtful. What are you including in there? What’s your subject line? Can you reference something that she’s written, said, talked about publicly? Can you offer a piece of value, maybe something about her competition, maybe something that would make her want to read on? And if she does, in that InMail that you’ve written, or that email that you’ve written, you’ve got about one to two more sentences to get to your call to action. Next, if all that good work didn’t pan out, here’s an idea for a Hail Mary. I open every FedEx that I receive. Sometimes it’s junk. Sometimes it’s valuable. But I open every single one. That same thoughtful InMail message that you sent to the exec or that email, maybe she didn’t open it. Maybe it was perfectly crafted and you offered all of your value, but she just never opened it. Print it out, put it into a FedEx, and send it to her. She’ll open it. Whether she’ll act on it or not, depends on the work you put into it.