What's the Best Way to Respond to an Email/Linkedin Introduction?

I get introduced a lot over email and LinkedIn, and I get asked a lot on how to respond to that. Here is the formula I use to reply.

First I thank the person who introduced me and I say something nice about them, example:

"Thank you Jennifer for introducing John, you always introduced me to amazing people."

This is a very authentic statement because Jennifer always does that. Do not compliment people for something they didn't do, or it will appear fake. Do make sure that you always speak in your own voice.

Then I would leave a double space to indicate that I finished speaking to the person who introduced me. Then I will start speaking to the person introduced to me.

There are a couple of options here; if the person who introduced us explained why he or she introduced us, and the reason why we should connect, my response will build on that so I would say something like:

"Hi John,

It is very nice to meet you, Jennifer speaks very highly of you.

I'm super excited to know more about your adventures, blog writing and the new things you're working on for your LA project."

If Jennifer introduced us without explaining a lot, then I would say something like this:

"Hi John,

It's very nice to meet you

Jennifer always introduces me to great people, so I can't wait to learn more about you and what you do."

Then I would make a request to set up a time for us to meet or get on the call if they're not at the same city, so I would say something like:

"How are the next two weeks looking for you, I'm free on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday morning. What works best for you?

Looking forward to hearing back from you

Enjoy a great day"

Finally, I see a lot of people mention sometimes "great to e-meet you" or "Great to meet you through email" that is perfectly fine, I just dropped that after using it for a few times, because it's kind of obvious that we are talking over email and it is electronic, so "nice to meet you" did the trick for me.

The most important thing to remember is to always be authentic and to speak in your own voice, be upbeat, positive, appreciative of the person who introduced you, and welcoming to the person being introduced to you, that is how you get more intros :)

Note: in the email when I reply I make sure the person who introduced us is in the Cc field and I move the person I'm addressing to the To field. If the person who introduced us is very important and busy, I move them the Bcc field so they know I responded and they don't get all the back and forth that comes after.

I hope this helps you respond better and more effectively to email introductions to build long-lasting relationships with awesome people like you.

Would love to hear from you, your ideas, feedback, experience, and questions on this topic and this article.

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