How to ask for, and execute, a valley-style business introduction

A Silicon Valley kabuki protocol documented by Pete Kazanjy author of Founding Sales, the startup sales handbook.

Image result for alley oop gif

A well executed intro assist is a beautiful thing.

When you ask someone for an introduction.

  1. Identify for the introducer the target that you want to connect with (not “Can you help me get into Gusto?” But rather, “I would like to connect with Josh Reeves at Gusto.”).

    You can do this by looking for the relevant target person on LinkedIn, and seeing if the person you’re requesting an intro from actually has a relationship with the target. (Why else would you be asking for the intro from them?) If you’re not sure who the target is, then state this and ask if the person you’re requesting the help from knows who the right target is.
  2. Ask. Ask the intermediary if they’d be willing to connect you with the relevant target.  Note that you will write everything up for them to forward along, so all they’ll have to do is hit “forward” and add some comments.
  3. If they say, yes, write a “Self Contained Forwardable Email” as noted here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2013/03/27/the-art-of-the-email-introduction-10-rules-for-emailing-busy-people/#3c08d7337f7b 
  4. Specifically, write it as YOU (not written as the intermediary. They’re going to forward it with their own comments.)
  5. They’re NOT going to blindly introduce you. They’re going to forward it along and ask the recipient if they would be open to connecting. So there should not be “CC’d here.” No one is going to CC you. They’re going to forward it and see if the recipient opts in.
  6. Include all the content that would get the end target interested in coming back to you. Including “what’s in it for them.”
  7. Send it to the intermediary, and now the ball is in their court. They will forward it along to the target, with their comments.
  8. If they are able to connect you, follow through IMMEDIATELY (as in, <1 hour SLA if possible) to demonstrate your seriousness to the end target (and as a courtesy to the introducer).
  9. Send a meeting invite to book the time. Be specific about who the attendees are in the title. Put the email context in the invite body to remind them. Be specific about venue or who is to call whom at what number / a video call hyperlink. Generally you should call them. Put that in the “location” field of the invite. You will likely be traveling to them if it is a live meeting.
  10. After you are able to connect, especially if you are able to achieve your goal, make sure to close the loop with the introducer to let them know you executed (because a. It’s a nice thing to do, b. They’ll be more apt to introduce you to someone the next time.)

Here’s a reference architecture:

Subject: “Potential Introduction to Monster alliances team re: job distribution?” or ““Potential Introduction to Alison Schurman of Monster alliance team re: job distribution?”

Hi there Pete,

Thanks for the help connecting with Alison.

As we discussed, we’re an early stage startup that helps job seekers more efficiently discover, apply, and process potential job opportunities. We do this using machine learning and AI, along with some really great automation and user friendly software. It’s kind of like a job candidate CRM. This is a link to some more information on us.

I would love to connect with Monster, in that they are a source of job postings that we aggregate together (along with Indeed, Dice, CareerBuilder, and others) to help those candidates better process and manage their job search process.

We would like to discuss being part of their publisher program, since we have hundreds of thousands of users searching our aggregated job postings every month, and I believe that Monster is always looking for more traffic and applicants to send across.

Thanks for being willing to pass this along, and I hope I hear back!

Jeff

On response:

Thanks Pete! Putting you to BCC.

Alison, glad to connect.

As noted we have a serious amount of job seeker traffic, and would like to see about getting Monster job postings in front of them, and monetizing that for our business.

It’s my understanding that your team is always looking for high quality sources of traffic like that.

I would love to get 30 minutes to discuss later this week to discuss.

I have openings at:

1, 130, 2, 230 on Wednesday

2, 230, 3, 330, and 4 on Thursday

9, 930, 10, 1030 on Friday

If anything in there works, let me know and I’ll send you an invite.

Of course, if none do, let me know, and I can propose some times a bit further out.

Thanks!

Jeff