Lesson 4: How to Reach Out Without Coming Across As Clingy or Needy
By this point, we’ve done a lot of prep. Let’s review, shall we?
1. We’ve talked briefly about the importance and benefits of networking.
2. We’ve gone over the key mistakes to avoid when networking.
3. We’ve talked about the things we can learn from Benjamin Franklin and we also touched on the Grease the Wheels principle.
4. We made a list of everyone we know and we assigned each one of them a letter – H, I, R, E for people that have the power to hire you, for people that can give you information, for people who can refer you directly, and for everyone who loves you.
5. Now, we’re ready to conduct our outreach.
One of the things that come with this tutorial is my list of networking templates. Click here to access them all. Now, as you use these templates, please do make sure to tailor all of them so they sound like you. Consider using these templates more as guidelines than fill-in-the-blank codes.
However, there are a few rules you really, really must stick to.
Write with a smile. This will force positivity into your writing. I know this sounds a bit corny, but it really works. Scientifically speaking; smiling lowers your blood pressure, so your emails will sound less stressed; smiling improves your mood, so your emails will sound more optimistic; and smiling can provide stress relief – if you’re looking for jobs quite aggressively, you may be sounding tense in your emails. Tricking your brain into relaxing can help us sound a little less needy. And as I mentioned earlier, the less pressure we put on our contacts, the more eager they will be to respond.
Start your note with something that ties you together. For example, I went to UCLA, which is a huge, huge school. As a result, I have a giant list of contacts that has something in common with me. I usually start my emails to folks who went to UCLA with something like “As a fellow Bruin,” or “As someone who shares your dislike of USC’s football team…”
Keep your emails very short – 125 words or less. This will help you maintain a high response rate.
Get someone to proofread your emails for you. You picked a buddy to give you constructive feedback a few lessons ago; if you don’t have a buddy, you can email me your notes and have me look them over too.
Now, let’s go through my templates. Each template has instructions next to it to show you exactly how to use it optimally. All notes are in blue.
Now, even though these emails are specifically designed and tested to get responses, you will not get a response 100% of the time. If someone is very responsive initially and then drops off, please don’t make the mistake of getting discouraged! Factors outside your control will dictate how responsive someone is to your messages. Keep your chin up and keep feeding people into your pyramid:
I’d be more than happy to look over any notes you plan on sending my way. Simply email them to me at fatemah@careertuners.com.