 What about reaching out to influencers? So the person asked here about reaching somebody that they really feel like they would have a connection with, maybe professional benefit for each other, somebody who has a way bigger audience than they do, not like a celebrity that, but somebody that they might write back that's not a household name yet, but way bigger audience. And it feels the person who is wanting to reach out to that influencer, it feels a bit of like a cold call, right? Yeah, I get it because that person doesn't know you yet. And so I wanna speak to this because over the past couple of years, as my audience has grown, I'm not a celebrity by any means, but I have certainly gotten more and more cold emails, cold direct messages, cold Facebook messages and things like that, people who wanna connect with me and whether it's LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, email, et cetera. And I'll speak from my perspective as somebody who feels like they need to, I feel like I need to keep my time very tight and keep my connections pretty tight as well because I don't want to give the impression, I'm still learning how to do this. I don't wanna give the impression that, hey, I'm just sitting around all day posting content and you're welcome to just ask me whatever because I had nothing better to do. Oh, you had a question? Let me send half hour answering the question. Who's got the time? I don't even want to spend five minutes, not even three minutes answering a question from a random person, right? And I'm developing templates over time on how to be gentle about it and to say buy a course for me essentially and come to a Q and A call and that's how I do it these days. So I'm thinking about the person who's wanting to reach out to this influencer and what should they say? Should they reach out and what should they say? Here's my perspective from the little micro influencer side of things who is very busy and good time manager. So you might say I manage my time as well as a larger influencer might, okay? So if you were just a message me and say, oh, George, I connect so much with your content and maybe here's why, maybe we could be friends. Do you wanna do a Zoom call? I'll be like, you're being too forward. Why should I give you any time? Why should I give you any time other than just having read your message and not clicking spam either? Now, why? Well, George, I was so nice. I said very specific things about why your thing and my thing could relate and I'm like, but still I could do that with it. I get three of those messages a week. If I did that to all three people, you could say, well, George, maybe the universe wants you to do that. Okay, but I'm the one reaching out to other people to say, hey, you wanna get in oftentimes people say yes. So no, don't reach out to influencers cold to say, can we hang out or can we talk even through messaging? Cause they don't have time for us. I don't have time for you. You don't have time for others to do that to you, right? Like in the beginning, it's true. When you just want clients, when you just want any interaction, I get it cause I was there for many years. Someone messaged me. They wanna be friends. Sure, you're my best friend now cause no one else messages me. You know, it's like, I get one of these every three months and that's fine. But once you start getting more and more, you're like, okay, I have to find the strategy to do this. So that's all the influencers you're wanting to reach out to, just imagine it's a good exercise to say, what if they got three of those a day? Just as thoughtful as yours, just as serendipitous. And oh my God, what a synchronicity that we have this in common. Imagine them getting three of those a day. How would you like them to respond? Do you think they're gonna get on a Zoom call with all three people a day? That's a good exercise because you go, no, no, that doesn't make any sense. Instead, here's what I like. First of all, I do like it when people share my stuff, right? So like on Instagram, it's easy because you could share someone's Instagram post as a story and it's not too intrusive to your followers cause only your most dedicated followers see your Instagram stories. Same thing with Facebook stories, right? Posting on stories is a lot less intrusive to your audience than making a normal post, a normal post in the Instagram grid or timeline on Facebook. Stories is only for, the only the biggest fans will see your stories, okay? That's how it's been designed. So sharing on stories is like is a, it's essentially a very low cost way of saying hi to an influencer. So I get people doing that to me all the time now. I get, thankfully, I get at least one or two of them a day and people share and here's the key. When you share someone's Instagram post, you have to at mention or target them or not at mention them, tag them, sorry, not target, tag them. And what happens is that influencer will get a private message request. It's a message request, but most of us, at least me, most micro influencers, people who are not celebrities yet with, but even celebrities with teams, they have teams that check the message requests because there might be something important in there, right? Message requests. So we get tagged as a private message, we check the message request and we see, oh, so and so has shared your post and tagged you in the sharing of it. And the more thoughtfully you can share the post, not just share, click share, tag and then go, but that's generic and it's not very thoughtful. But if you could say, oh, George Cow's work has blah, blah, blah and this is why it resonates so much, then I'm gonna pay attention. I go, ooh, this person is really nice. I'm not gonna go ahead and say, hey, why don't you jump on a call Zoom call together? We're not at that level yet, but at least you have major presence known to me. Again, when I say me, I mean imagine this as any influencer you're reaching out to. You've made your presence known to me in a very thoughtful, nice way. At least I know your name at this point or at least I've taken a quick look at your profile probably or I'll click like or love for the share. And if you do that several times, obviously now you're kind of a household name in my mind, right? Cause oh, this person, second or third or fourth share of mine that they've tagged me. This is actually a good thing to know when you do share someone's Instagram post as a story, you might as well tag them because then they'll know that you shared it. There's now everyone watching this and now they're gonna send me a billion messages right now because otherwise I do get a lot of people sharing my Instagram posts and they never tagged me. So I don't know who shared what on Facebook is different. When you share someone's Facebook posts, they can at least see if you shared it publicly. That's fine. But on Instagram, you have to tag them, tag their Instagram URL, Instagram handle in order for them to don't get a private message. They'll see that you shared it. So once you share several of their posts and do it in a thoughtful way, add a note, like add a paragraph why you resonate so much then you are essentially recognized in their mind whenever they see it, oh, what a nice, that's the nice person. That's the nice fan who always shares my stuff. How cool is that? Great. Now the next step is more, the first step is easy, sharing their posts. The second step is more tricky because what do you wanna do now with that? The second step, you could say, well, I'm gonna go ahead and invite them to a Zoom call. Yeah. Like I said, I protect my time so well. I don't even do any exploratory calls anymore. If someone wants to hire me as a client, I don't even take clients anymore. Like I literally says, you wanna pick? No, I don't take one-on-one clients anymore, right? Which is what most influencers are. That's where they are at as well. So I don't do exploratory calls. Someone says, I wanna join your programs. No, I don't have time for exploratory. Come to my, buy a course, come to my Q and A, that's my exploratory call. Or rather, all my videos that I post publicly for free, those of our thanks for exploratory calls, right? That's how I gauge fit with people. You like my videos and you probably like my programs or come to a Q and A and then we'll interact that way. So no, I'm just asking for a call for an influencer. I think that's too forward and that's rude in my opinion. It's too forward. So instead, there's two strategies that I can think of. You either get introduced through a mutual friend that the influencer respects. Now, how do you know, right? You go to LinkedIn, you search that influencer and see if you have a mutual connection on LinkedIn or go to Facebook, find that influencer on Facebook and see if you have a mutual friend. Because that mutual friend can take this a long way to say, hey, so let's say Grant was trying to reach me and Grant and Mira are friends and Mira is a friend of mine too. And so Grant will go to Mira and say, hey, Mira, do you know George well enough? I'm trying to connect with him more because maybe a collaboration or project of, would you feel comfortable making the introduction? So through a mutual introduction is much better because I respect Mira. And so Mira makes that introduction. I'm much more likely to say, well, for Mira's sake, I'm gonna at least respond privately to this person and see how I can help. I might not jump on the Zoom call with you. Maybe, maybe not. But at least through messaging I can help you in some way or give you some guidance or shares. So then the question is, whether you go through a mutual introduction or not, the question is what is your pitch, I guess, or what's your invitation? Why do you want their time? So now you might, what's not okay is to say, like, okay, I just received this today, by the way, this is a good example. Somebody that I actually do respect, because I'm gonna use names, fake names, okay. These are not real people. Let's say Jane, Jane, okay. Jane is trying to get me, George, to promote Jane's next program, next course. That's Jane's agenda. Jane wants that to happen. Jane wants me to promote Jane, okay. Jane went through Tad Hargrave. I can use a real name, because Tad, Tad is a friend of mine, a respected colleague. I love Tad so much. And Tad likes Jane a lot too. I actually have heard of Jane. Jane has done some work that publicly I've heard of and has heard good things about it. But Jane just approached me today and said, George, Tad is promoting my next course and thought that you might wanna promote it too. Here's what Tad has to say about it and gave me a paragraph from Tad. Oh, Jane is wonderful, trusted colleague and friend. You can't go wrong promoting Jane's stuff. And I'm like, Jane, I used to like you, not so much anymore. But it's like, Jane, your first message to me is just say, George, promote my thing. And here's why, because your mutual friend Tad says you should promote my thing. I was a little pissed by that, because I'm like, what's in it? I mean, yeah, what's in it for me? Oh, commissions, fine, that's fine. But I could promote anybody. There's so many people I could promote to get commissions. But every promotion slot costs me social capital. Right, it costs me every time I send an email. This is true for anybody, right? And every time you send an email, you get unsubscribed, right? Every time you promote something on social media, that's one less spot to promote your own thing or someone else's thing, right? Every promotion costs. So you can't just say, you're gonna pay someone commission for this. That's not good enough. Now, what's good enough to say, Jane might've said, George, if you wanna promote this, I'd be so grateful. I'd be happy to give you free access to it. But she didn't even say that. Be happy to give you free access to this thing. So you could take a look, you don't have to promote it, but at least have free access. You can see, you might learn something yourself or you might enjoy it. You might see how I do things. I'd be grateful for feedback, just as a gift. Don't have to even promote it. See, that's much more gracious. It's much more like, come on, you know, like, right? I'm just honestly surprised sometimes. It's like, in real life, you wouldn't do this. How come it's okay to do it online? It's like, right? Anyway, so Jane, that's what Jane's message is like, promote my thing, not try to say it in a nice way because Tad said so, okay? All right, not good enough. Not gonna promote her. Now, I said very nicely back to Jane. I was a little bit surprised. I wrote back, oh, Jane, I've heard good things about your work. This is not the right fit for me, but maybe we'll be able to collaborate in some other way in the future. Now, what I hoped Jane would write back would say, George, I've heard great things about you too. I mean, at least look at my website or something. I would have wished Jane would have said, oh, great, look, I love your stuff too and please let me know if there's something I can promote. Jane didn't say that. Jane just said, great, I'll keep you in mind for future projects. I'm like, what the fuck? It's like, essentially I'm like, now I know what kind of person Jane is and I'm gonna stay away because it's not a gracious person. It's like always, like the person's thinking of themselves and how can this person promote me and benefit me? But there's no, like, yeah, it's like, if you want someone to be a friend or a promoter, you have to bend over backwards or not bend over backwards like until it hurts, but you have to be so gracious to become a friend and then maybe they'll promote you, maybe, right? So back to what should we say to an influencer, ideally get introduced, but even getting introduced, what should your pitch be? The pitch should be, like I said, something that the influencer goes, it doesn't cost me anything. I don't know who you are and you're giving me a gift. It should be that. And what should be the gift be? Now, the gift isn't, here's my book for free. Now, books are not good gifts, especially to the busy people. Books are homework, okay? Courses are also, courses are a little bit more interesting to me because at least I can see, I'm more interested in seeing how they run the course because I can learn something from that. The course material may or may not be good. I've seen so many courses, I'm like, whatever, but how they run a program, that's more interesting to me. How they market something, that's more interesting to me because I can learn something from that. But, so maybe not a gift like, hey, you don't know who I am, we're fine, we're introduced or not. Here's some homework for you, here's a book, here's a course, no, don't do that. But the simplest gift, can I promote you to my audience? Can I interview you? Now, the larger your audience, the more it's an actual gift. Like, if I check you out on Instagram and you have 100 followers, you interviewing me is, it's, sometimes I say yes, sometimes I say no because I have almost 8,000 followers. You have 100 followers, is it a gift or is it more just a, I could spend my time doing other things, right? Now, if you have 800, if you have a 10th of my audience, 800 followers, okay, I'm a little bit more interested now. If you have half of my audience, oh, definitely. Sure, you can, you wanna interview me, that's a gift. So, you know, I, but okay, so interviewing me is a gift, especially if I don't have to prepare anything. A lot of times you go, oh, hey George, I wanna interview you, great, that sounds wonderful. And they give me all this homework, like please answer these 25 questions to follow me. This is just homework for me. This is a pain in the ass. Why would I, right? Like you gotta make it so easy for me. Like right now I'm running a summit, okay? I made it so easy for my speakers out, you don't have to promote the summit. And I'm gonna ask you just a few basic questions. Like I'm gonna find your photo. I made it so easy for my summit speakers, like I'm just sitting back and you're just gonna ask me a few, and then you're even gonna pay me? Yeah, I'm sharing the money with my summit. So like this is, I'm just giving you an example of how gracious you have to be to become business friends with somebody. You see what I mean? It's not that easy. So like I said, you can interview me if you have a large enough audience or another interesting gift would be this. George, I'm doing some research that might interest you. I'm just gonna ask you like two really simple questions and you could record your answer if it's easier just three minute recording or something like that. And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to collate all the answers and I'm gonna share it with you because you might be interested. Maybe it's some kind of industry research or just something that I don't know. There's some kind of question that I believe you're interested in and you contribute to that. And not only am I going to share the answers with you but I have also promote you as one of the people who gave an answer. And so some people call this a roundup post. You may have seen this online. It's like expert roundup, right? It's like you go to 12 different experts, you get a quote from them each and then you do a nice blog post with 12 different posts. I mean, that's one way, that's a very basic research but it might be more in-depth research where you're like, I'm gonna ask you for a quote or I'm gonna ask you a question that you can quickly respond to. Again, it's gonna take you five minutes and I'm gonna do a bunch of other research, a bunch of other legwork that you don't have to do on a question that you're, now that's interesting to me. It's like, oh, okay. And what's even more interesting is if you said, I'm gonna sell the answers, it's gonna be a product and you don't have to pay for the product because you gave your part of it. So I'm gonna give you the product for free. Cool, right? So one, yeah. So anyway, just a couple, this has gone a bit longer than I expected but I, as you can tell, it's a bit of a soapbox for me because I get these kinds of messages too often and I'm like, people wouldn't walk up to you in real life, right? And go, you don't know who I am, but I want you to buy me dinner. That's essentially what you're asking someone or you have no idea who I am but I like half an hour of your time. Like you wouldn't do that in real life. Why are we doing that online? It doesn't make any sense. People just don't have that connection. Like it's the same thing as real life. Like, in real life, you wanna become someone's friend, you have to be super gracious too, right? You have to be like, find creative ways to invite them to something that they really want. So think about that. And yeah, so in other words, I don't think some really well-worded message of synchronicity cuts it anymore. Especially the larger the influencer, the less that matters because they get, imagine them getting three of those amazing, you know, we were born on the same day in the same town and we have our sisters have the same name, whatever. And I've done these, I might have the exact same educational background. Doesn't matter. I have the same interests. We also like this obscure band or we have this obscure teacher. We both like none of that. All those synchronicities you can mention, I'm getting three of those messages every week. So you have to think more creatively beyond that and say, how can I be, how can I be gracious beyond this? And I'll tell you, it's not. So last thing I'll say about this is it's because nobody else is gracious, if you are a little bit gracious, it goes a long way and you really are special. In other words, people invite me to interviews all the time. So that's already more gracious than can I have some of your time? But if the interview was more interesting, like they have a sizable audience, doesn't have to be bigger than mine, even if it's half the size of mine or even a third of the size of mine, great. Even a quarter of a size of mine. I'm like, okay, fine. A tenth of a size maybe, right? But if the interview also was on something where I'm not just regurgitating the same thing I say in every interview, that's much more interesting too, right? Like George, I would like to interview you about your spiritual path, right? Like Leia did that, right? Like Leia is here on the live call. I would love to talk about that. Like I never talk about, like if you're gonna interview me about what is marketing, what's authentic business, I'm fine with that. If you have a large enough audience, I'm promoting myself, great. If you have a small audience, I don't wanna talk the same thing that the 12th interview I'd done in the last quarter of something that kind of gets boring. It's like, George, I wanna talk to you about your dog, buddy. It's okay, all right. It's fun stuff. No, that's not a great example, but like, yeah, the spirituality thing was interesting or politics, right? Like I have some strong opinions about that stuff. No one ever asked me about it. And so that's a bit more interesting. So yeah, like find some kind of angle that you think, wow, that person probably would love to talk about it. No one asked them about it. Yeah, so I hope this is helpful and I look forward to seeing if you have any other ideas or questions below. Yeah, and I just wanna say I appreciate that the chats here, thanks to Nam and Mira and Lea and Liz and Grant and others. Mira said, it's counterculture. You know, we have to practice graciousness to resist the pressure towards selfishness that we're all under. I agree. Building a business is not easy, of course, as you've noticed. And it's so easy for us, myself included, okay, to just reach out. And there are some influencers like Gary Vaynerchuk who are spreading, I think a wrong message to say, just DM a thousand people and you'll get 10 people saying yes. It's terrible, terrible message because you're DM direct message. Basically people like Gary are saying, just send a private message to a thousand influencers and maybe 10 of them will say yes to promoting you. I'm like, you have just set up a poor relationship or the beginning of one with 990 other people. Like, why would you do that? And plus it's painful to painful to message even five people and not hear back, let alone a hundred or a thousand, are you crazy? Like, what a painful task that is. Like, why would you do that? But instead, if you take a moment and I know I'm speaking to myself too because I have the tendency to like message and influence, hey, can we interview each other? Like maybe, maybe not, you know? So I have to slow down too and go, instead of messaging 10 people, if I graciously message one person, that is better for number one for the relationship and better for my spirit too, for how my day was, because I thoughtfully messaged Grant. You know, like thoughtfully, instead of I have half an hour, I'm gonna message five people in the half hour, like just, hey, why don't you interview me or can I interview each other? You know, take half hour, think about Grant and really go into Grant's world and say, what can I say that is gracious? Like, what can I do? And that's just being the gracious human being that you normally are when you take yourself away from the pressure of networking or building the business or whatever it is and go, I'm net-caring, I'm net-caring, I'm really connecting with one person at a time. And they may not write back, but at least I've practiced compassion, I've practiced graciousness and isn't that itself worthwhile as a human being to do? Instead of practicing the hustle and grind of sending out messages to 10 people in half an hour, you know? So it's part of the personal growth benefit as well.