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A Shockingly Simple Way to Connect with Influencers · The Daily Writer

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Smart Business Writing Podcast, the show that helps you share your message, increase your impact, and grow your business through the power of writing.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to take a moment and think back on all of the good things that have happened in your career.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was getting a job that you loved.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was getting a promotion.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was connecting with a publisher, meeting a great new client, or scoring a meeting with somebody who is influential.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd be willing to bet that almost all of those good things that have happened in your career were due to the influence of somebody else.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: At every stage of our careers and our lives, we need the help of other people with influence, opportunities, or connections.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the question is, how do we create more of those connections with influential people?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there are plenty of ways to do this, but I want to share with you one very simple way that's been working for me lately.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's so shockingly simple that I can't believe I've only recently begun to use it more.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a little bit of backstory.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I do interviews every Friday on this podcast, but I don't just want to interview anybody.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: I want to interview the highest caliber people I can connect with.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: But in order to connect with those influencers, we often think that it involves going through a complicated web of connections on social media.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a simpler way.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Many of the people that you would want to connect with are involved in email marketing.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: They have a website and probably have some sort of lead magnet they give away in exchange for your email address.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in return, they'll send you an email with a giveaway item and will probably follow up with a series of emails or even a regular newsletter of some kind.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now I subscribe to a lot of these lists, probably way too many email lists.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But several of these emails were from thought leaders who I wanted to connect with.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I wanted to interview them for my podcast.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on their email list, so I get emails from these people on a regular basis.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the next time I received an email from each of these people, I simply replied to that message with a message of my own.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I asked a follow-up question about the content of the email, and in some cases, I just sent them a message back saying, thank you for your great content, and here's how it helped me.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: In every one of those cases, and this was four or five cases I'm talking about over the last few weeks, in every one of those cases, either the person directly or their assistant replied back with the message within a couple of days.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And as I engaged these people in conversations, I asked if they might be willing to do a follow-up interview on my podcast.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And each one of these people agreed to do it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I couldn't believe this was so simple.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: It just struck me as a shockingly easy way to connect directly with these people.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was honestly amazed that I hadn't really taken advantage of this before.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here at this point, I think it's important to note that you shouldn't take advantage of this in a bad way.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we should take advantage of it in the sense that it's an opportunity, but we shouldn't take advantage of people.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really important to engage in a real conversation with these influencers and leaders and successful people.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to do that and let that have value within itself rather than trying to use them just to get something that you want.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I genuinely wanted to interview each of these people on my show, and I genuinely appreciated their content and their message.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I consider this a matter of adding value to one another, not a matter of, hey, will you please give me something?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the way I usually frame a request for a podcast interview is to say that I want to feature that person and their content on my podcast.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: That way I'm not framing it as simply asking them for something.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I'm framing it as helping to promote them to my audience.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a very simple strategy that you can use to connect with anybody who has an email list.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that you're always going to be able to develop a direct relationship with that person, but since email goes right to that person's inbox, or at least to their assistant, there's a pretty high likelihood that you can at least engage in a conversation with that person.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So how about you?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Have you tried the strategy to connect with influencers and thought leaders?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, how did that turn out?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear your thoughts.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: As always, you can shoot me a message on Twitter at Kent Sanders, or you can find me on Facebook as well as, of course, Kent Sanders.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you want to try this strategy out with me, go sign up for my email list on my website, and then shoot me a message, and I will reply back, I promise.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I answer all my own email and I love to respond to messages.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can sign up for my list at KentSanders.net slash subscribe.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, thanks so much for listening, and until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you in the next episode.