Research prospects and lead with genuine praise. Give them a concrete reason to meet, like upcoming industry shifts. Frame it as relationship-building, not recruiting, and skip anything negative about their current situation.
So let's talk about a couple of major components that are key factors in having success with them, okay? Here's 3 things you focus on. Number 1, affirmation, affirmation, affirmation. I've talked about this in a recent podcast. I'm going to bring it up again. There's 3 things here. Affirmation will get you in front of them. As an example, I checked out a few places to get some information on you before I reached out to you, and I was impressed with what I saw. And then I will mention what I saw. Okay, that's the first thing. The second part is you've got to give them a big reason on why they should meet with you. If you think there's significant market change coming over the next 24 months, talk about that, right? If you see a lot of consolidation going on in the upcoming year and you believe there's more to come, talk about that. But you have to figure out some big reasons why they should meet with you. And here's the third component: remove all tension. Okay, this is relationship building only. This is not recruiting. Okay, so if someone's willing to meet with me and they're willing to continue this conversation, then it's not a recruiting meeting, it's a relationship building meeting. So remove all tension. Okay. And then what that means is that when we get in front of them, we've got to be prepared To actually have a relationship-building meeting only with them. Okay? So you've got to have an agenda for this. Here's what I would tell you. As a side note, never, never use negative information about their situation, their company, or anything that's self-serving to you.
