Its like asking someone on a date while also asking them for a raise.
Its hard and even if you do it right, it might not work!
The Harvard Business Review has a killer strategy:present your most interesting, valuable, credible self.
By establishing your credibility up front, you make it clear that the interaction will be fruitful.
What sounds like confident bona fides to one person will sound like bragging to another.
So you have to writespecifically to this one person.
Search their social media, any blogs, any interviews.
Find their interests and obsessions, and see if you have any in common.
take a stab at figure out which common ground they actually care about.
But you might connect over a shared interest in Sleater-Kinney, or lawn bowling, or Texas barbecue.
you might refer specifically to the place they mentioned that interest in public, and mention it very lightly.
They dont have to know you searched for it!
It doesnt have to be something overly clever.
I keep a correspondence with an author friend thats 50 percent about our shared appreciation of Jorge Luis Borges.
because we have overlapping takeaways from his work.
He tells them how horrible this approach is, usually in a quote-tweet.
And dont reach any further than feels comfortable.
You want to look interested and interesting, not desperate.
To that end, as Clark recommends, always give your recipient an out.
Say that you know theyre busy and you wont mind if they cant respond.
Frame it in those termscant instead of wontto keep it casual and avoid any hint of a guilt trip.
Youre not worthy, youre not worthy!
But thats not appealing.
you gotta convince this person that you kind of know what youre doing.
People dont like to give their advice or time to an idiot.
You cant do that either!
The line is different for everyone, but you dont want to sound like youre selling a car.
