How to Get a Meeting with a Busy and Successful Person
Matt Paulson (speaker) explains why he frequently turns down meeting requests as his profile grows and details four filters he uses to decide which meetings to accept: 1) topic fit (does the request match his areas of expertise and interest), 2) geography (local connections preferred), 3) existing personal connections (mutual contacts increase trust), and 4) reciprocal value (there should be something in it for him). He then gives four practical outreach tactics for getting meetings with busy people: obtain a warm introduction, make a specific request (time/format/topic), offer value to the person you’re asking, and follow up persistently but politely.
Chapters
Hey, guys. Matt Paulson here. It's Friday afternoon. I just finished my 16th and final meeting of the week, and it's been a really busy week, but it actually could have been actually busier. There were probably another 10 meetings that I had to say no to this week because I just didn't have time for them or they didn't fit into the types of things that I'm willing to take a meeting on. What I'm finding, as I become more successful in business and my name kind of gets out there more for writing books and being involved in the community, there are just a lot of people that want my time and attention. And I don't think this is a unique problem to me. I think it's a problem that anybody whose name is kind of out there has. So whether you're a business leader, a community leader, politician, anything like that, your name might be in a paper, or lots of people know you for a specific thing, your name tends to come up a lot. And then that leads to a lot of Facebook messages, LinkedIn messages, email, saying, hey, you know, about whatever. I would love to talk to you and learn about whatever. So for me, that's, you know, the startups, business, entrepreneurship, anything like that. You know, my name is the name that comes up in Sioux Falls when that topic comes up. So. So somebody says, oh, I think I want to start a business. Who should I talk to about that? And somebody would say, inevitably say, oh, you should go talk to Matt. He knows a lot about business and totally fine with that. But the reality is there are just more of those conversations that people would like to have than I realistically have time to do. So for any given week, there's probably 10 people that would like to have coffee and talk about business or talk about their nonprofit, in addition to all the meetings that I have for MarketBeat, for Fallen's Angel Fund, for the photo contest business, for the boards that I'm on, for Zeel, for the seminary. It's a pretty long list. So for me to be able to take a meeting is not always the easiest thing to do because I'm involved in so many different things. So today in this video, I kind of want to share some of the criteria and the filters that I use about whether or not I will take a meeting with somebody. Then hopefully, by sharing these filters, that will help you get the attention of any busy person that you want to get their attention of at any point in the future. So if somebody wants a meeting with me, there are kind of four things that I Use to evaluate. Is this a meeting that I want to take first? Does it fit in any of my buckets? Does it fit in any of my buckets? So does the topic of the meeting or the person, does that fit into any of the things that I already care about? Do they want to talk about entrepreneurship, small business? Obviously I care about that. That's kind of a check and deposit column for somebody. If it's kind of about a non profit topic and it's not an area that I'm uniquely interested in, that might be a no. Maybe somebody wants to have a conversation about starting a business in an industry that I don't know anything about and I honestly just can't be helpful if somebody wants to start a laundromat. I have no idea how to do that. Don't know anything about real estate. Don't know anything about washing machines. You know, I'm not your guy, so if I'm not your guy, you know, it's probably going to be a no. It's just there's no point in us having coffee because it takes an hour of my time and you don't learn anything. So that's going to be a no. But if you need help with a, an email marketing problem, I'm probably the guy because I'm really good at that. That's kind of the first question. Does that fit into something that I know about and can help with and care about? And if it does, I'm more likely to take that meeting. The second kind of filter that I use is geography. I get a lot of requests from all over the world. Different, you know, yes. You know, I get people on Sioux followers that want to meet or have me help with something. But I also get these requests just all over the place. I've written some books and because of that and because of my blog and the interviews that I do, I get requests from people everywhere. If you're from Sioux Falls or from South Dakota, or you were from South Dakota, or you know somebody that I know in South Dakota, that's going to be a plus for you. But if you are several states away, another country, and we just have no real connection that ties us together, that's going to be probably a no. And I may not even respond to that email because there are so many of them. I get emails at least daily from companies in California, New York looking to raise money, and they're just emailing every angel investor, venture capital person they can find on LinkedIn. I typically don't even respond to those messages. So Geography is a good filter because if they're around here, I know that might be more specific requests and that makes it an easier yes for me. The third filter I use is, is there an existing personal connection? So do we know any of the same people? And it's really easy to find that out. So you can just look at the Facebook profile of somebody and look for mutual friends. You can look at LinkedIn. I look at mutual connections and just, you know, do we know any of the same people? And if it turns out that we know 10 of the same people and they're all good people, you know, that might be a safe assumption for me to think, hey, maybe you're good people too and I should meet with you. But if there are no kind of existing personal connections, we don't know any of the same people, you know, that might, you know, it's probably a check in and no column for me. And then finally, the last filter I use is, you know, is there going to be something in this conversation for me if I have coffee with you, you have to bring more to the table than I'll buy you coffee, because realistically, I can buy my own coffee. I don't need you to buy me coffee. But if we can have an interesting discussion about a topic that I care about, that would be good. Maybe you can teach me about something that I don't already know about. Maybe you can introduce me to somebody that I would like to meet. Typically, it's not money that you provide the value with, because I'm not a consultant. I don't do the time for money thing. But maybe there's some other way to add value to me, which makes me more interested in adding value to you. My best business relationships, there's always a mutual exchange of value, whether it's money, whether it's relationships, whether it's information, friendship. It's got to be something. You can't just say, I want to have coffee from you so that you can teach me about this and, and give this to me so it helps me. There's got to be a two way thing going on. You have to provide value to the person you want to pitch in some way. So those are kind of my four filters. One, does the meeting kind of fit into any of my buckets for things that I care about? Two, is the person from around where I'm at. Third, is there an existing personal connection? And fourth, is there anything at all in it for me? So if you can kind of fit those four criteria, you know, I'm much More likely to have coffee or take a meeting with somebody. You know, those are the criteria that I use. But certainly there are some lessons that you can use to pitch if you're going to pitch anybody. So let's say that there is a business owner, large community based business, has 100 employees. They're obviously a busy person. But let's say you have an opportunity for them and you want to get their attention. How do you do it? The first thing that you really should try to get is a warm introduction. So if you can have a mutual friend introduce you, that is super helpful. Because if my banker Corey says, hey, Matt, I would like you to meet this person, then by taking that meeting, I'm doing a favor for my friend and banker Corey that's helpful to him. So I'm much more likely to say yes than if it's just somebody coming off the street and asking for help. So just figure out who that mutual person is that can make that introduction. Then you can just say, hey, would you please make an email introduction? I would love to talk to this person about this subject. So that mutual connection is really key. That's probably the best thing that you can do to get that meeting. Second, if you're going to make a request of somebody over email, LinkedIn, Facebook, messenger, whatever it is, just, just be very specific about it. Don't say, hey, would you be my mentor? That's like the worst thing you can ask because that could mean so many different things. But if you say, hey, person, I know that you are the CEO of this company with 100 employees in this industry. I would love to learn more about this industry and some different opportunities in that industry. Would you be available for a 30 minute phone conversation at a time of your convenience to discuss that question? Mark? That is a very specific request. The person knows exactly what they're signing up for by saying yes. And by being more specific in your request, you're more likely to get that yes. Third, just make sure there's something in it for them. Same thing I talked about with the relationships that I try to build. Maybe you can teach them about something. You can make an introduction for them, anything like that, where you can provide them value, you can help with them with something in their business, try to give them value first before you ask them for something. Then fourth, you do have to be kind of persistent. I can't respond to every email that I get or every message that I get. There's not enough time in a day to do that. So I might ignore the first message. If it's, you know, doesn't kind of fit some of my boxes. But if there's a second message or a third message, you know, that it tells me you're serious. So, I mean, people that are busy who you're trying to get their attention, they might miss you at first time. That's just the reality. I do a good job of staying on top of my inbox, but not everybody does. So if they see a second message from you saying, hey, name, I sent you a message a week ago, I would really love to meet, I think I can provide you value with XYZ and maybe you can teach me about abc. You know that second, that third message. By showing that persistence, you're much more likely to get that meeting. So if you're making that ask four kind of things, one, get that warm intro, be specific in your request, make sure there's something in it for them, and then just show some persistence in your request. Obviously, don't be annoying, but if they don't respond right away, send them an email a week later and do it a week later. Then maybe after that third email, if they still don't respond, take a different approach or, you know, at that point, move on to somebody else. So hopefully this is helpful to you guys. Hopefully it will kind of show you how to get the attention of somebody who's busy, successful, important, whatever. I think that's all I got. So I'll see you guys in the next video I do sometime.
