Recently an executive I was coaching in planning and delivering sales presentations wanted to know how to increase his contact with senior executives in other divisions of his organization.
I gave him the below template for an email pitch for the meeting.
Subject line: “New contact/Your wisdom – my growth/20 minutes
Message text:
“Karen,
We haven’t met before. As you are a top performer I feel you’d be an ideal person to help me grow as a business person. If you can spare 20 minutes (I’ll fit in with your schedule, including before or after hours) I’d love to buy you a coffee at a café near your office – to tap your wisdom. Whatever time-frame works for you would be fine with me.
Please let me know if you would be open to arranging this meeting.
Thank you for your consideration.
Cheers,
michael kelly”
Now this is just one template to use. You would want to adapt the language to your style. In addition if you get the meeting, make sure you plan well for the 20 minutes. In next week’s post I’ll have suggestions on how to conduct the meeting and what tough though-provoking questions you might ask the person.
The ‘how to apply’ for this post: In the next seven days, identify a top performing senior executive in your organization (or outside your organization) whom you believe you could learn from. Then in the subsequent seven days, email them (adapting the above template) for a meeting.