"Who's ready to learn how to network?!?!"
Everyone in /r/startups - "Me, me me!!!"
"Well, lucky you, Mr. Entrepreneur, this is going to help you get meetings with some of the top executives in your area."
I don't know why I started with that corny dialogue... You were probably staring at your phone or sitting at your computer with no emotionless while reading it, and in reality, you weren't saying "Me, me me!!!" Haha. Anyway, for those of you who know me on /r/startups, I have posted 2 things recently that went to the top of the subreddit for a while. The first post was 4 tips/reminders to everyone who wants to start a business, and the next post was about researching your competition. For what it's worth, those posts had a combined score of 200, so the response has been pretty good. I enjoy making these posts, and I like answering any questions and responding to PMs! Let's learn how to network!
I'm just going to start with the most simple and effective way to get meetings with other successful people. Make/update your LinkedIn profile to look like someone who is worth getting lunch with. Even if you just have an idea right now, make your LinkedIn title "Founder at The Greatest Company Ever". Obviously, it's a good thing if you have some sort of progress on your idea, and to get there you should probably read my other 2 posts. Once your profile looks somewhat respectable, search CEO, CFO, CTO, CIO, CMO, Founder, or Co-Founder and just start adding everyone. Some people may look down upon this and say that you should only add people if you have a relationship with them prior to adding them, but you've gotta start somewhere. When my company was in development, myself and my partners would try to get lunch with a different CEO, Founder, Co-Founder, etc., every single day. Lunches have led to many meetings with the top people in the city and also some valuable partnerships. Even if the lunches aren't amazing, at least someone new knows who you are and they can be a potential user for your current company or next company. So to the question, is it all about "who you know"? Not completely, but knowing the right people can DEFINITELY speed up the process of certain things!
It's also good to go to networking events to meet new people. Just approach someone and ask them what brings them to the event. If you don't have a super cool company like some of the people there, just tell them that you're there to meet new people and learn from some of the experts in the startup space. Another tool to use is RocketReach. You can use it to find pretty much any email. If someone doesn't connect with me on LinkedIn and I need to talk to them, I'll just find their email on RocketReach. Another quick tip for emails... For the title of your email, write "Introduction - Your Name". You'll see much higher open rates and responses.
So now you have a meeting with "big boy/girl CEO", you need to know what to say! Honestly, just grab lunch or coffee with them and be yourself. Ask them about their company, what they have had successes with, and what kind of hurdles they have had to overcome. Also ask them for advice as a beginner entrepreneur! Don't go into a lunch trying to pitch for an investment or ask them to partner with you... They won't like that. If you can teach them something that they don't already know, they'll remember you and see you as a valuable person. For example, I'm extremely good at marketing and I try to teach people a little bit about SEO, paid Facebook ads, and how people generally think while reading things on the internet. Maybe your skills are around software development, UI/UX, sales, etc. Try to teach them something with confidence but not arrogance.
I used to get a little nervous for some lunches because they were some of the top startup guys in my city. Eventually you grow as a person and become better with people. No time to waste, start getting lunches with the top executives in your area!
As always, if anyone has questions about SEO, marketing, managing software development, starting a business, raising angel money, raising VC money, etc. I'm always here to answer anything!
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April 03, 2017 at 01:15PM
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