Last year, I read the book How To Get a Meeting with Anyone. It is written by Hall-of-Fame-nominated marketer and Wall Street Journal Cartoonist Stu Heinecke. If you don’t know him, you have probably seen his cartoons. Here are one of my favorites:

Cartoon by Stu Heinecke

The idea with Stu’s book is that you should have a list of people that you want to get in contact with and then use some audacious methods to get in contact with them. When I read the book, I was thinking about how this theory can be applied to the job hunt.

Your 100 list

He talks about something called the 100 list. This is a list that people should be creating in order to take their business to the next level. But it might as well be their professional career also like yourself. So, he advise people to write down the names of 100 people that you want to get in contact with.

Then you begin by researching these people on social media. Like on your list, you will have all their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles. Given that they are active on such forums. So in this first phase, you don’t actually connect with them. You just gather their information so that you can learn more about these people.

Preferably, the people on your list should be people that are experienced and influencers in the niche that you are interested in. Then when you have information about the person you do something to connect with them. For instance, Stu talks about how he send customized cartoons to people he wants to work with. You can imagine how special it feel to receive a cartoon that is made especially for you. He talks about some other great examples that you can use to connect to people.

Ways to Connect with People

These are just some of the ways that Stu mention in the book. Feel free to buy the book or listen to his podcast in order to hear more.

Podcasts, blogs or books

I know personally that this works. You can start making a podcast, blog or book that you start interviewing people for. This is a good way to connect to people, learn from them and also share to people that are interested. Personally, I help run a podcast about startup businesses. I find that a very nice way to get in touch with people.

The Gift

Sending something that the other person would like to receive. One of the best examples I have seen is a person that was job hunting in Sweden that gave his prospective boss an A4-infographic with a market analysis of the startup industry in their city (Malmö). Things like that and small projects always amaze me and many others. One recruiter told me he had never seen a software developer coming to an interview with a mockup of a product that the software developer had worked on for the meeting. Go the extra mile and do something that proves your skills and gives them something of value.

Four Levels of Contact

There are tons of examples in Stu’s book and you can also listen to his podcast for more inspiring examples. But I want you to understand another important concept in the book and that is the four levels of contact. There are these four levels:

1. Indifferent. The person doesn’t know about you at all.
2. Intrigued. The person knows about you and is interested to know more. The person will ask more about you.
3. Committed. You have a meeting with the person, have established trust and they are hiring you.
4. Sponsor. The person recommends you to others.

So, you can think about the people you meet in these four categories. This is very good because the purpose of the connection is so different in the various stages. Like in the first stage, when the person is indifferent. The only thing you want them to do is to make them intrigued. To make them want to meet you or get to know more about you.

So, how can you make that happen? The far easiest way I have seen with job hunters is to limit the initial connection with the person and let them become interested in you.

An awesome example from the community is Francis Awagu. He is a member of 400contacts and wrote a blog post about a firm. He was really writing it to inspire other job hunters but included a company name in it from a meeting he had before. We published his work and the company saw the blog post and got interested in meeting him.

So, try this out. First, make a list of people you want to connect to. Second, try to get in contact with them in some creative way. Third, think about just moving the person from indifferent to intrigued. Then in a later phase, you can turn that into a job. But the first step is to really just create some interest.