Clever Counsel #14 - Stop asking for things
There’s an epidemic among us consultants.
It’s a widespread, pervasive issue. I see it play out on a daily basis.
Reaching out to ask for things.
More specifically, reaching out to people we don’t know or barely know, to ask for their time, effort and energy in order to advance our own business goals.
We ask prospective clients for time on their calendars, so they can get to know us and learn about our illustrious professional histories.
We ask fellow consultants, solopreneurs and small business owners to “keep us in mind” to partner on their client projects.
We ask industry veterans and thought leaders for free advice and mentorship, so that we can be as successful as they’ve been.
We ask well-connected people to personally connect us to opportunities or influential contacts.
We ask, we ask, we ask.
Yet RARELY do we couple that ask with an offer.
When I say “offer,” I’m talking about meaningful reciprocity. An offer to help the person in some real way - providing value, support, connections, engagement, door-opening opportunities, or even payment.
We have an epidemic of “me first” thinking.
And before you shake your head, telling yourself you’d never be so thoughtless… I want you to go pull up the last five messages you sent to people you don’t know, or don’t know well. Your cold outreach, your LinkedIn messages. Seriously - go find the messages. Re-read the last five.
How do they strike you?
Were the messages full of ideas to provide value and make their life easier?
Or were they mostly about asking for something?
If you’ve struggled to get responses from your cold outreach, consider reframing your messages to be all about the recipient and what you're going to do for them.
It’s okay to weave in an “ask” (such as inviting them to join a brief call), but that ask should be so enticing in its obvious value that they’d be missing out if they said no.
EXAMPLE APPROACH 1
"Let me know if you have 30 minutes this week to talk - I’d love to share more about my background and how I might be a valuable resource for your business."
[The ask is for their time, energy and attention. Even though you used the word “value” - what tangible value are you actually going to provide in this call? Assume that learning about your astounding record of successes doesn’t count as value...]
EXAMPLE APPROACH 2
"I’ve put together a list of 10 practical takeaways from my last project with (a team like yours) - Can we find 30 minutes on the calendar so I can share them with you?"
[The offer is to share 10 insights that may be useful for their team, based on your work with a similar team. It’s a clear payoff to join the call. Meeting you and learning a bit about you will be a bonus, at best.]
3 Ideas For Leading With Value
Before you reach out, go find the person’s LinkedIn content and leave a substantive comment (and like) on their last 5-10 posts. Then kick off your outreach telling them you’re loving their content and you just engaged with several of their posts.
Before asking for free advice or free connections, go spend $20 at Audible to gift one of your favorite professional development audiobooks and send it in a personal message, with a line or two about what you think they’ll get from the book.
Put together a juicy set of practical tips or strategies related to your field, and dangle it in front of the contact, offering to hop on a quick call to walk through them + share your best counsel.
