I recently agreed with a client to introduce him to contacts of mine who are extremely busy and highly experienced businessmen.
The purpose of the introduction was for my client to meet with them with a view to him getting advice and picking their brains about an exciting project he is currently developing.
Luckily I was able to set up the meetings as my contacts were keen to pass on their knowledge and accumulated wisdom.
In fact from my experience most people are open to these type of meetings.
But is there a better way?
Why not offer to teach them something that they don’t know in return for their help.
Surely it is a good idea to offer something in return e.g. information and current trends about your sector’s market, industry or technology.
This offer could be the decisive factor in getting the meeting as you are both learning from each other.
So phrase your meeting request as:
“I would like to meet up with you to see how you can advise me about an idea or two I have in relation to social media and in return I will tell you all I know about recent research on consumer marketing”.
This will of course force you to think about what it is that you know that might be relevant to the other party and how to explain it in a compelling, coherent and concise way.