February 5, 2018
What would you like me to say?
Has a friend ever asked you to act as a reference? Or to introduce them to prospective clients in your contact list? Or to connect them with an influencer you know?
It’s WICKED HARD, right?
You really want to help your friend out, but you have no clue what to say on their behalf.
Even if you know them very well, you probably find that you can’t come up with a single word that doesn’t sound like complete fluff.
You start to get very stressed out. You procrastinate. You secretly hope they’ll forget about the whole thing.
Good news!
I get requests like these fairly regularly and have found a solution...
When a friend, colleague, student, or some other acquaintance asks me to write something on their behalf, I say:
“Sure! Draft whatever you want me to say and I’ll tweak as necessary.”
The shocking truth is that probably 95% of people who ask me to say something about them, have no idea what they want me to say.
In practice, this means that the vast majority of the time they never send me a draft - and I’m off the hook.
But every once in a while, someone will send a draft to me. We tweak it into shape very quickly, and I happily forward to the desired recipient.
If you would like a friend to intro you to someone (e.g., a podcast host, conference organizer, ideal client) please DO NOT expect them to magically know what to say on your behalf, ESPECIALLY if you yourself don’t know what to say!
Do them the kindness of figuring out what you want communicated BEFORE contacting them.
Make it easy for them to do what they want to do naturally - i.e., connect two of their contacts for a mutually beneficial partnership.
Yours,
—J