The objective is that "their brand" strengthen yours by asking for their collaboration for some type of joint action.
This strategy is very interesting if:
They must be people with a good personal brand, who have experience, who work in leading companies or have developed systems/products that everyone talks about.
It can be one of your clients, known or unknown. You will be surprised how kind people are to collaborate on these issues.
you can generate content of great value to use later in your communications and that will provide you with contacts and credibility.
Search for known referents of your network and with whom you could have contact on:
Use search engines specific to each network, search by hastags and tools such as:
Make list and save list in fundamentals template:
This information will be saved to ask for your collaboration later (article, joint webinar, podcast invitation, ...) and thus provide social proof with influencers in your sector.
Check out what Josh Braun has to say about this technique (be sure to read the comments): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-braun_i-cant-believe-im-actually-speaking-to-activity-6664118771927535616-X0XC/
It is much more powerful than you imagine, especially if you are not well known in your sector or you have few contacts.
Begins with the Greeting
How are you XXXX?
Recognize something specific. Customize. This forges a strong emotional connection.
I've been listening to your podcast for the past few months/watching your blog/following your networks...watched the video of....I loved it when you talked about "Something specific." I changed my view on that subject completely!!
Clear, direct and empathetic question.
Surely you have many requests of this type, but we are creating a video interview program called "The Best References of XXX" where we interview industry leaders for 15 minutes.
Something very quick and concrete about 4 questions to know your opinion.
Reference of who you are and well-known names
We have developed an application specialized in training teams in mobility... and we would like to know your opinion on how education in companies can be transferred to these devices.
We are contacting X, X and X, as we think you all have a lot to contribute. (known names that although they have not said "yes", that this person knows "the level" that the program will have and feels "outside" if he does not participate).
Closing with an exit so that you don't feel pressured
We perfectly understand that you can't right now, we all have a thousand things and just time, but you would do us a huge favor if you could participate.
Signature certifying your admiration
a pleasurebe in touch and be sure to publish, we love your "analysis of what is" ... "Tuits whatever" ... "whatever reports" ...
Do you dare to participate?
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Modify what you think is convenient but that should be enough to contact you and they answer you.
If they don't respond to you, after 3-4 days you should carry out 3-4 very short Follow-ups to ask for a response:
"Hello referent, were you able to read my message? Would you be interested?"
With your list of referents, what we will do is contact them to propose something to them.
Prepare a list of questions (8-10) and ask for a 15-minute interview via Zoom or Hangout.
Set a goal to interview X thought leaders, customers, or analysts in your industry.
It will even help you get information about their problems and aspirations that you can use in your sales.
That knowledge does not appear in any report and your brand will be reinforced.
Maybe the next time you talk to someone, they'll recommend your product.
Or connect you with your next guest for a podcast.
Or they share the content with the thousands of people who follow them.
Or they invite you to their next event.
Or they recommend you for a chat.
Having a good relationship with referrers will be very good for your company.
It can be something as simple as telling you about their career, experience (everyone likes to "advertise themselves") or telling you about their vision of the future of the sector.
You can capture this in a blog article, send in a newsletter and share on social networks.
But without any doubt, if you can make a video with them, an interview by Zoom or Hangout, the value of the content will be much higher and more effective when sharing it.
Chop up the interview and use it in your automated emails, your LinkedIn profile and your company's.
If your brand is related to industry leaders, you benefit from their influence.