7 Ways to Get Meetings with Anyone

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.”     Michael Jordan

In this article, I discuss 7 simple ways to get meetings:

1: Networking & Getting Meetings by Using Your Hometown or by Using You Country of Origin

How do we network using our hometown or country of origin? In LinkedIn, at the top, click on "Advanced Search" in order to conduct, of course, an advanced search. 

Then you can type in your hometown or my hometown, which is Mississauga, which nobody knows where it is, but it actually has a bigger population than San Francisco! Then I type my postal code or zip code where I am now, which is 94010, California. Then I select a hundred-mile radius and then click "Search."

As you can see in the next image there are 198 people here, in the San Francisco Bay Area, in my zip code, that are from or worked in Mississauga.

Now if I scroll down I can see that these people that are from Mississauga and live here in the Bay Area, close to me, work at Genentech, Google, Apple, Oracle, etc.

Now let's assume that I want to work at Apple or I want to meet a potential customer at Apple. What I do is I click on that little checkbox to the left of Apple. As you can see, there are three people from Mississauga that work at Apple, close to where I live. Per the next image, you select "Send inMail".

Then, per the next image, I would then put "Hi" in the subject line, and then in my message I would use "please" and "thank you". Then ask for a coffee meeting and say we're both from Mississauga. (Please note that you need the premium version of LinkedIn in order to send inMails. Please sign up for the first month, which is free. Then you can choose to cancel it after 1 month.)

This person that I am trying to meet with might see that we have a connection in common, which you can see right on the right side, and he may think, "Hmm, I feel even more comfortable accepting this meeting."

Now as you can see I have fifteen inMail credits available.

And what that means is I can send fifteen inMail messages on this plan per month. Whenever you send an inMail, if the person responds, then it doesn't count as using an inMail and LinkedIn credits you one inMail back to your account. Lastly, I want to say that the farther you are away from your hometown, the more likely it is that someone will want to accept a meeting with you.

2: Networking & Getting Meetings Using Your Background or Heritage...Please Leverage Your Roots

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” Theodore Roosevelt

You need to leverage your roots. For example, say you're Lebanese, and you're going to be visiting New York, then (per the image below) I put in the New York zip code where I used to live on the upper east side, which is 10128.

There are over 11,000 people with Lebanon on their profile living in New York City….wow that's a lot!

Let's narrow it down a bit. Say we want to meet with someone that is from Lebanon that lives in New York City and works at Goldman Sachs, for example. So, as you can see now, there's 29 results.

Leveraging my Lebanese roots from my mom's side of the family actually got me meetings with a guy named John Mack. He was the CEO of Morgan Stanley and a great guy. Why did I get these meetings? Because I leveraged what we have in common and because I asked:

3: Networking & Getting Meetings Using Schools You Have Attended

"When you cease to dream you cease to live."  Malcolm Forbes

Always remember that people want to help you, especially if they have something in common with you. Just ask. So let's do an advanced search on schools that we have attended. Only in this case, I'm going to assume that I'm in Paris, where the zip code where I'm going to be, or the postal code, is 75001. I also enter in the name of my university, which is McGill University. And let's say that I want to meet with people that went to McGill University that live within, 15 kilometers of the Paris zip, or postal code that we just entered.

As you can see…wow that blows my mind, 1693 results!

Now let's assume I want to narrow it down a little bit more because I want to work at consulting firm McKinsey. I want to find people that work or worked at McKinsey that went to McGill that live within 15 kilometers of that zip code or postal code. It looks like there are 10 people that work or worked at McKinsey that went to McGill that live in this area.

Now, since Paris is really, really, really far away from Montreal, my chances of one of these people accepting my meeting request is very high. Remember, the farther away you get from home, the more likely it is that people want to meet with you that are from a similar background.

So here's what the inMail message would look like (less is always more….mention what you have in common…use please and thank you and never say why you want to meet…..or they will feel bad that they can’t help you with your request to get a job for example and decide not to reply).

Ya ya ya my title in the image above is a joke eh! ; )

Separately, I want to show you one more thing... per this image, select “my network” and then “find alumni” (for the schools you have attended).

You can do a lot of really cool stuff here. You can select notable alumni (per the next image), and I guarantee you that if you search for notable alumni from your school you'll say to yourself “I had no idea she or he went there!” Then you can contact them, or find a reason to contact them.

Play around with this, it's actually a lot of fun and interesting too. You can spend hours looking at it, trust me. You'll have an a-ha moment from a networking or job search perspective by messing around with this.

4: Networking & Getting Meetings Using Companies You Have Worked At

*"Once you realize that everything around you was created by people that are no smarter than you, you’ll never be the same."  Steve Jobs

* for the full (short) speech from Steve Jobs, please see this video:

In this next quick example, I'm visiting zip code 90210, which is, of course, Beverly Hills. Ya, ya, ya, fine, I watched the show when I was a kid. Then I'll enter in the company that I used to work for, which is Accidenture…..um…Accenture, sorry. Didn't mean that. Accenture is a great company.

As you can see, there's over 5,000 people in zip code 90210 that work or worked for Accenture.

I would then mention in the inMail that I used to work at Accenture. Actually, this guy Mark would be a great guy to meet.

Looks like we have 16 shared connections and he has over 100,000 followers, which means he has many connections from many people that choose to follow him instead of connecting with him, which is something you can set up in LinkedIn. I should probably meet with this guy!

5: Networking & Getting Meetings Using Organizations You're a Member of

"The more you dream, the farther you get.”  Michael Phelps

In terms of organizations on LinkedIn, let's do a search on a fraternity I was a member of when I was at university, which kind of helped me learn how to socialize or network better at a younger age. If I search for my fraternity called Phi Sigma Kappa, you can see that there are over a thousand results, but some of these results aren't right:

For example, somebody on the previous image at the top is listed as Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, which is not Phi Sigma Kappa, and it probably means this person was an honor student, which I certainly wasn't, so here's what I do: I put "Phi Sigma Kappa" in quotes, and we see that there are 454 results.

So, if we added my last name to the search, then of course my name comes up as well. Play around with this; look for people that are in organizations that you are or were a member of as this is another excuse to network and get in front of people.

6: Networking & Getting Meetings Through 2nd Degree Connections

“If you don't ask, you don't get.”  Stevie Wonder

Let's say I have nothing in common with someone and I need to do a really really really customized and narrow search for a certain criteria. In this example I need to find somebody that used to work at Genentech and I need this person to be a DNA expert. I also need this person, for whatever reason, to be a Stanford graduate. Here are the results:

There are 27 people that fit this criteria. There's a problem; let's pretend I looked through all 27 profiles and I found nothing in common with any of these people. I didn't go to Stanfurd because they rejected me (maybe it was because I am not smart enough to spell Stanford). I never worked at Genentech, and I don't even know what DNA means! In this case, we find a contact of ours that we have in common with this person.

If you and I are connected on LinkedIn, we're first degree connections. If your cousin is connected to you and not me, then your cousin is a second degree connection of mine. So in this case I have to find somebody that's a secondary connection to help me get introduced to somebody that I need to meet.

What can I do? Well I can select any of the four people that you see below that are connected to people I know. We can see that Lucy at the top of the image below has seven contacts in common with me, so let's click on the green “7 shared connections” to see who the seven shared connections are.

Brian is one of the seven contacts of mine who knows Lucy. His face is familiar, but where and when did I meet him?

Well let me click on his name to learn more….oh yeah, you can see here in the notes field that I met Brian when I lectured in his class in December of 2015.

If you come across as unique, impressive and interesting when you conduct meetings (after bonding with them and helping them), then you will go far. Wow look at this guy...he mentioned right up there on the top that he was an F-15 pilot, which is impressive, unique and interesting. 

After you connect with someone on LinkedIn (per the image above), please write down a note stating when and how you met this person.

I remember meeting him and now I can reach out to him and ask, “can you please introduce me to Lucy?” I'd probably send Brian a message like the one below. This doesn't have to be an inMail, because we're already connected. I don't have to pay for it. I don't have to use one of my 15 inMails, so I can say something like this:

“Brian,

Hope all is well, we met at Stanford in December of 2015. I'm doing research on DNA investments and was wondering if you could please, connect me to Lucy? Also, please let me know if you have time for coffee in the next few weeks.

Thanks, 

Chris”

There we go. We killed two birds with one stone by networking in that message!

7: The Mother of All Networking Strategies to Use is the Combo-Networking Approach

“Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.”    Kyle Chandler

The C.N.A. is the Combo Networking Approach and it rocks! Your chances of getting meetings goes up a lot if you list two or more things that you have in common with someone when you do an advanced search.

For example, let's assume I need to get access to somebody that works at Amazon in the Kindle department because I love the Kindle, and I want to work at Amazon on the Kindle product.

I conducted an advanced search. I searched for “Amazon” and “Kindle.” As you can see… wow there are 9,337 results!!!!

Now, I know the top two people here as they are actually first degree connections of mine. In fact, Fiona works at Amazon and she reached out to me and we have spoken a couple of times. She's cool. We actually talked about Canada at first before we talked about business. That's the thing we had in common.

Let's pretend I actually don't know anybody at Amazon or I don’t have any first degree connections that work on the Kindle product line or at Amazon. So now I must enter in something I have in common with people there. Let me start with my hometown, Mississauga. Ah-hah! There's only one result, though. This guy works in recruiting at Amazon…and it says Kindle!

I'll click beside the blue connect button on that down arrow to send him an inMail. BIG SCORE!!!! Pretend I reach out to him. And for whatever reason, he doesn't respond.

Let's try another angle. The place I'm from is right beside Toronto. Mississauga is basically almost part of Toronto. So let's type in Toronto. It's a bigger city. We will probably get more results. Wow; there are over 100 people with Toronto on their profile that work at Amazon and are affiliated with the keyword Kindle.

The second guy, Don, looks promising as he is a recruiting director. Also we have 20 contacts in common. Big score! I can easily reach out to him. He knows that Mississauga, of course is basically part of Toronto or beside Toronto…so he’s definitely going to respond to me. There is almost a 100% chance of getting a response…because of the 20 people we have in common as well. You get the idea. Just keep drilling down until you have more than one thing in common. Try to find multiple things in common if you can.

Networking Exercise: Please Contact 1 Person for a Meeting

“It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”    -Vince Lombardi

Let's put these 7 steps to work! In this very simple exercise, please do an advanced search in LinkedIn and send somebody an inMail that has at least one thing in common with you…maybe they work in an industry or at a company that you might want to work at (or they might be a potential customer of yours).

As we discussed earlier, you need to have a Premium LinkedIn subscriber account set up to send a lot of these inMails. Again, the first month is free and you can cancel and not get charged within the first month. It'll really help you a lot from a networking perspective. You know how to set these meetings up:

In the subject line only type the word “Hi”

In the message you basically type one thing you have in common, use please and thank you and keep it short like this:

John,

Hope all is well. I also went to Saint Mary’s High School. I will be visiting Toledo next month. Please let me know if you have time for a coffee.

Thanks a lot,

Mark

My in-class MBA and undergraduate business students that get the best jobs are never the ones with the best grades. Rather, my students that get the best jobs use the networking concepts in this article (and they ask often).

Please put a reminder in your calendar that repeats every week and never ends to remind yourself to send one inMail per week.

Thanks,

Chris

Download my new book for free at HarounVentures.com