Protocol for Introducing Yourself
Oct 23rd, 2009 by July Ono
Protocol seems to be a lost art these days so this is a lesson on how to make a great first impression when making contact with a complete stranger. Be prepared because it shows when you aren’t.
It’s a fantastic experience to be inspired by someone you admire and respect. In the emotional rush, you send a vaguely written e-mail asking for help or for a referral. To make it worse, you sign off only with your first name.
From my end, I see an e-mail from an excited person named Jane or John and their e-mail address. Their message says they need help and not much else. There is no last name, no address, no phone number, no commitment. I call these anonymous e-mails. The onus is placed on your role model/mentor to come through for you in your time of need. You have just sabotaged yourself.
Considering that I manage 8 different businesses and receive hundreds of e-mails every week, an e-mail like this is a time management issue. It becomes low priority if you don’t spend the time to explain how you discovered the resource that subsequently inspired you, where you currently are in your life (financial, personal, career), what your 10 year long term goals are, why you want to achieve this (your big why), your mission, vision and purpose clearly stated (you can have both corporate and personal mission/vision/purpose statements), and your short term action plan, preferably in increments of 3 months outlining your first year. Also helpful is sending a bio/resume explaining what you have studied to date and your experiences.
Put yourself in your mentor’s shoes. You are a multi-millionaire managing multiple business enterprises. You read your own email from this perspective. How would you respond?
So here is the plain and simple truth that you most likely won’t hear from other mentors because they are just too busy to respond.
Signing off as “Jane” or “John” is deemed unprofessional and the mark of an amateur. Business people want to deal with professionals. How you craft your message should appeal to the CEO/President as if they are reading correspondence from a peer/admirer.
Anonymous sign-offs is an indication that you are hiding information. That is a red flag indicator in my due diligence toolkit.
No explanation leaves everything else to guess work. My role as a mentor is about guidance and direction, not so much about giving answers. Getting answers is easy and requires no work. Getting you to think is the most precious gift a mentor can give you. Sometimes we can see that in order to get a specific result, the answer you think you want is not the answer you need. There are intermediate steps that are absolutely essential to support the foundation of your desired goal.
If you aren’t getting the results you want in your life, you may be curious to observe how you respond to situations and what your underlying motivation is. In the real estate business, the successful people are givers. How can you educate and empower the people who are already in your life? Because, if you aren’t doing this right now, getting into real estate will only magnify this deficiency.
This advice is for those of you who are serious about getting into real estate investing. Your first point of entry is to get your newsletter started. Contrary to popular belief, real estate is not about real estate, in my experience. Real estate is about people. And you can’t buy real estate without gaining their trust and without trust you won’t find the money. This process is explained in my book Your Million Dollar Network (www.yourmilliondollarnetworkbook.com) and is the one of the pillars of my real estate success, and those of my students.
