[Music] [Music] thank you I want to share a painful and comical experience with you when I was 18 years old I was looking to land a work position with Ryan holiday who at the time was director of marketing for American Apparel now wanting my email to stand out more than anything I decided that I would put my email together using Comic Sans yep I I really did that I thought it a good idea at the time now Ryan kindly responded to my message it certainly got his attention I was right with that I was over
the moon that he got back to me but he included a PS I would definitely recommend changing your font originally I thought this email was from a teenage girl painful lesson in this talk I want to ensure that you don't make quite so comical and horrendous mistakes with your emails see most people don't know how to write compelling emails most people when sitting down to write something to send off to a company send a machine gun blast of their resume to 200 different companies hoping that something will land now you don't have to be a
recruitment manager to know the kind of thing that I'm talking about whether it's from Friends whether it's from family or perhaps if we're honest we're guilty of sending such messages ourselves we all know the type of thing that I'm talking about such an approach rarely leads to a position of quality a position that you can become passionate about about and all too often leaves young people in a state of learned helplessness considering they've contacted everyone that they possibly can and not having gotten a single positive response I want to put a stop to this having
been on the receiving end of thousands of these emails and I'll tell you why in just a second I've come to see the Working World as something of a school disco on one wall we have young people who are driven who are ambitious who are purpose but who are lacking any real sense in Direction on the other wall we have entrepreneurs we have Business Leaders we have Experts of Industry who are doing great things but crying out for the smart serious and hardworking people on the other wall to come across and join their ranks and
help manage the burden of what they do the trouble is there's this chasm in the middle that no one knows how to cross now the people at the top with blogs with email with with social media have never been more accessible you don't even need to leave your wall to make contact with these people and the opportunities available for young people have never been greater because of that now in this talk I'm going to be take taking you through and uh looking to share with you a simple and elegant three-step formula that you can use
this is going to be a formula that I've used myself and I've had uh that I've reached out to many high-profile people using that I've had friends of mine craft emails using that they've gone out to reach incredible positions to and it's going to be something you'll be able to use right away so they take you through you can writing persuad of emails is truly something of an art form and it's something that hundreds if not thousands of books have been written about to save you the hassle of having to read them allow me to
let you in on the general formula the steps are simple dream problem solution what is the dream what is a problem that this person or this organization has and how can you position yourself as the solution so dream I know that the dream for you is to become a New York Times best-selling author or I know the dream for you is to build an Empire and dominate your industry or I know that the dream for you is to fully automate your business and go Sal dancing around Argentina whatever it is neatly packaged and used to
kickoff your email problem I know that while you're doing an incredible job of overall marketing right now you lack the bandwidth to tackle social media in the way that you would like or I know the problem for you is getting people to your Live Events you're doing all of this great work to promote them to Market them as best as you can but you're not getting the people coming along that you would like now everyone no matter who they are has problems there's no Pinnacle of success that you can reach when where there's an absence
of problem instead with greater success comes a greater quality of problem but there's no absence of problem in anyone Ralph W Emerson once said that every man I meet is in some way my Superior and in that I can learn from him I like to turn that on its head and instead say every man or every woman that I meet I have something to offer and in that I can add value to their lives solution the solution is you how can you add that value how can you position yourself as the solution to the problem
that you've been able to identify so to take you through a few real life examples of emails actually using this formula back in 2013 I was looking to contact author and marketer Charlie H this is someone who's helped make many New York Times bestsellers and because of everything that I read about Charlie he'd work with Timothy Ferris the author of The 4H hour work week I used the following introduction to my email it seems the dream for you right now now is to inspire a new wave of apprenticed entrepreneurs to become a New York Times
best-selling author yourself and to realize the 4-Hour Work Week in your own life now Charlie wrote the book on Landing work positions with people who inspire you a book called Recession Proof graduate his response Edward amazing pitch seriously perfect let's get on Skype can you talk this week now this isn't because I'm so amazing or I'm so talented it's simply that I've seen the patterns for what works I've seen the patternss for I myself and others in my position have responded to I've been able to deconstruct that and use it to my advantage to now
share with you problem a few months ago I was looking to contact uh remet sethy the founder of I will teach you to be rich a site that began about nine years ago as a personal finance blog that now has over half a million readers every single month now in an interview with RIT I'd learned that his subscriber B was quickly outgrowing the infu uh the email platform infusion soft which happened to be an exact same problem that I was working on with a company that I'm involved in because of this I put together the
following email too big for Infusion soft hey R Edward here I'm a big fan of your work I manage an infusion soft account for a similar sized organization we're experiencing similar Growing Pains getting too big for the system and are beginning to explore other options we're going to be dedicating some serious resources to find the best solution it could be good to Mastermind with your technical team as we go as this is something I know you're looking to tackle now this isn't following all three steps it's not following dream problem solution it's really just majoring
on problem and that's because I was really just looking to connect with REM I wasn't looking to open up a work position but the fact that RIT the CEO of a multi-million dollar year company and who has a team of over 30 people responded personally within 30 minutes should highlight the impact of understanding someone's problems as another example this is from my good friend and former teic speaker till gross he was looking to contact a company called joyable that works in the mental in mental anxiety and social anxiety space now I don't know anything about
the company and I didn't write a word of the email that I'm about to show you but I helped till rearrange things in the email that he was crafting to come up with the following hi Peter and Steve it's your mission to offer social anxiety treatment to millions of people who wouldn't have access to it otherwise one of the biggest problems with online courses that tackle social anxiety is high Dropout rates and low user engagement I would like to pitch you on another F tested and researched solution that could dramatically increase user engagement and minimize
dropouts or being more effective and cost efficient than a oneon-one coach the response the CEO responded within 30 minutes and wanted to talk to me I mean he was really really keen on talking to me we had a great call for almost an hour and hit it off he said he loved my email now these are just the patterns that I've seen as well as being more approachable there's never been a time where Founders and people that you're looking to contact have been as open and as public about their challenges and frustrations and so you
just have to be Discerning enough to spot what they are now because of this I have a rather Extreme Rule I like to say that if you're looking to contact a company or you're looking to contact a solopreneur that you should read everything that they've ever done everything that they've ever written that you should listen to every interview that you should watch every video and that you should and that you should study every page of their website doing so will give you the ammunition that you need it will give you the intelligence you need to
get inside this person's head understand their problems and know why they do what they do I'm continually amazed at the number of people who write into companies saying that they've listened to one interview or read one article about that company and that they're passionate about their message it's a joke you have to do your homework do everything you can to consume as much as you possibly can within a reasonable time frame and keep asking yourself the question how can I make this person or how can I make this organization more successful at what they do
solution the solution is you now employeers need to know that you're good very very quickly as you're competing with too uh far too many other proven prospects oh to the fried attention spans of prospective employers resumés are getting read less and less they're dull they're dry they're boring and it's hard to get excited about the prospect of reading the career history of someone you've never met before on the flip side alternatively stalking you on live for 5 minutes is a far more gratifying experience I get to see your social media profiles I get to see
where you've been on holiday the last few months I get to see the dumb things that you've been been posting now this isn't a revolutionary thought but judging by the people that I I come I see coming into my inbox and I know other colleagues do as well you must own and control what people see when they search your name online now on a defensive level cover up the dumb things that you've been posting cover up the dumb things you wouldn't want someone to see on an offensive level start a blog produce great content in
your area of interest and show that you are an authority or you have in iable level of interest in your area that you're looking to get good in this will become your well of credibility your reservoir of credibility to signal to someone that you can be the solution to their problem now there's three final points to the email and this really is the icing on the cake begin with a single line of intent at the top of your message this will make the whole thing more digestible it will give context to the message and it'll
make it much easier to read so something to the effect of I'm writing to you today to help make your upcoming book launch a success just nice concise and used to kick off your email number two disarm objections consider all of the reasons why someone wouldn't want you to come and work with them would it be paying you right away would it be the prospect of a 12-month contract right out of the gate would it be having to babysit you in their offices whatever it would be consider their objections and disarm them before or they
come up so something to the effect of I won't ask for a penny until I've proven what I can do and if after two weeks you don't like my work we can cut things off no hard feelings this will make it an absolute brainer for someone to at least try you out you're making it no cost at all and it will make your email much more effective number three add some sort of bonus as a PS to your message there's a psychological principle known as the recency effect which states that The Parting impression you leave
someone with is the one that will be most remembered so this can be something this can be a link to an article this can be a general suggestion something that will leave them with the aftertaste of you being someone who can help and add value to what they do so this will leave you with a line of intent at the top dream problem solution overcoming obstacles best your name PS bonus now this would be incomplete this talk would be incomplete without a list of the biggest mistakes that people make these are the things that make
me want to punch a hole through my laptop that make me grind my teeth so make sure you don't fall into these common pitfalls number one spelling and grammar I wish I didn't have to say this but again judging from my inbox I absolutely do proofread your email and further to that have someone who knows what they're doing proofread your message too as it's very hard to proofread something you've written yourself if you don't it will get things off on the wrong footing and look unbelievable L sloppy before you've even begun so number one number
two do not write LOL do not write haa or anything else that would suggest this is a text message to your best friend while being excessively formal will make me want to Archive your email just as quickly you need to strike the balance of being warm yet professional number three do not write a lengthy essay about who you are or what what you've done at this stage it won't capture anyone's attention to get someone's attention you have to write about them and their success not your own if they're interested they'll then ask you which is
then when you can present it number four don't use comic [Music] Sands number five do not have your message sign off sent from iPad or sent from iPhone or sent from Samsung Mobile whatever it is you use this looks terrible and suggests that you put no thought whatsoever into the email that you bashed it out in the back of a taxi somewhere even if you spent a week crafting it if you need to check your email over on one of these devices make sure to get this get rid of this at the end of your
email may I suggest all of your emails number six do not in any way suggest that when contacting an organization or an entrepreneur that you are looking to become this person's direct competition in the next 5 years no warm wants to spend that time training their next competitor and so if you have big plans that's great but keep them to yourself now this might seem like a lot of work it is if you take the time to research and assemble and craft an email in the way that I'm suggesting it may take you upwards of
a week for one email here's why I consider that time well invested it's my personal philosophy it's my personal belief that who you work with is as important as what you do who you work with is as important as what you do whether it's personal growth whether it's happiness whether it's fulfillment who you work with is as important as what you do now it's often said in self-improvement circles that you are the average of The Five People You spend the most time with given that everyone here is likely working up up Wards of 40 hours
of the 168 we get in any given week we might as well say you are the average of the five work colleagues you spend the most time with I don't spend 40 hours a week with my friends sadly most people don't with their significant other who you work with is as important as what you do so if you're looking for your dream job going out and sending a machine gun resume blast may seem like the quick way to go but I implore you to consider not just what you do but who you work with to
use a plan and a structure like this to go after someone you admire someone who's a leading expert in your field someone who inspires you someone you would love to work with that's how you land your dream job with one email I wish you the best of luck in putting it into practice thank you
