Week 57 - Are you ready for a ride? 🎢

Hey my friend, today let’s talk about persistence and emotional swings in conversations, and what people think about others 🤓🤓

Try This Yourself

Here is a message that I recently received on LinkedIn:

The fun part is that this answer came after 4 unanswered messages 😲

So even if a person doesn’t answer, it doesn’t mean they don’t care. I mean, yes, they don’t care enough, but it’s all about how persistent you are.

Throughout my professional journey—whether it’s building communities or growing the freelance market—I’ve had to send thousands of cold messages to people via email, Slack, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Facebook, you name it (and here I wrote about whom and why I connect now).

And I noticed that to get an answer from someone who doesn’t know you, your messaging has to be:

• relevant - CEOs usually don’t care about how to use the tool, compared to people who will use it—they need the data on how it will grow revenue, so you need to give painkillers for a specific pain, not just vitamins for the whole body;

• emotional - there are thousands of blank messages created with ChatGPT, and I bet those who get them long enough already have AI-generated-text blindness, so if you write as you (a real you) speak, it’ll be better;

• persistent - as I’ve shared before, people respond to the 3rd-4th messages, and I hear a lot that people usually stop after 1st-2nd, and that’s exactly where they miss an opportunity, so keep on trying.

Once again—REP (like sales rep 😁)—relevant, emotional, persistent!

So relevant and persistent is rather clear. But how to be emotional?

There is a technique in movie making called "tonal whiplash" or "emotional rollercoaster." This technique is designed to evoke vivid reactions by rapidly shifting between contrasting emotions like laughter and horror, or euphoria and devastation.

I’ll be super honest, I’m not a master of this technique yet, I’m still playing with it, but here is how it works for me:

1. Friendly, straight-to-the-point message of why I’m connecting with this person.

2. Very kind and guilt-removing reminder, like: “I know you're busy, so let's keep it async, I'm happy to hear from you anytime and continue exactly where we stopped.”

3. An emotional personal message starting with “look, I'm not here to sell you anything” that explains why I do what I do, and why we should collaborate, with a little bit of curiosity pinch in the end, “I mean, of course, if you're curious about getting the most.”

4. A little bit of a guilt-awakening message starting with: “okay, I tried, I just truly believe in giving value for free without expecting anything in return, so it's hard for me to stop, but it’s time to do it 🤷‍♂️”, and still finishing by recalling all the resources a person might find valuable.

With every message, I try to appeal to different parts of a person: business, professional, curious, personal-human, and even a little bit to a shameful part 🤓

Once, I’ve even sent an email (don’t try this at home 😲😅) to some part of a mailing list that didn’t open an email for over a year with a title: “Go f*** yourself!”, a text inside: “That’s exactly what I feel you’re telling me when not reading my emails.” and a CTA to either unsubscribe from this mailing list, or take an action.

This email went to 10000 people, and I had a 10% open rate, where less then 2% unsubscribed and others reactivated and turned into active readers. Of course, not a huge number, but better than zero 😉 And yes, some people were very unhappy reading such a title (that’s why I made a warning about not trying this at home), but afterwards I handled them in personal conversations 😏

tl;dr When you connect with people, try the REP-method: relevant, emotional, persistent. Talk to people who can really benefit from your proposal, be a real human, and keep messaging until they answer or block you 😁

Expand Your Mindset

When building relationships with other people, the number one question most people have in their mind is: “What will they think about me?”

We are always afraid to be judged (especially in the wrong way), and think that when we enter the room, all eyes are on us (of course, sometimes it happens, but if you’re not the president of some country or a movie star, most likely it’s not the case 😉).

Sahil Bloom wrote about it as The Spotlight Effect in his newsletter, and here is a quote about it:

“The Spotlight Effect basically says that we think everyone else is noticing and judging us, but they aren't. Even if they are, they quickly forget about it.”

I used to ask myself this question all the time, and I still do. But what Sahil said about is exactly what helps me deal with it—they aren’t!

I guarantee you that when you pass someone (and maybe even make eye contact), thinking they are thinking of how you look/walk/speak, there is a 99% chance they think the same—they think about THEMSELVES!

And when you remember this simple truth, it’s so much easier to just be your real self. Exactly as you are with people you know well. Because at the end of the day, why play pretend and try to be a copy of someone else if you can be your unique version of you? 😉

tl;dr Every time you think of “What will they think about me?”, remember, they think the same, but about themselves. So act as you usually act. And if they dislike you, well, there are 8 billion people out there 😏

So yeah, that’s it for this week, and if you have any questions, thoughts, ideas, or personal examples of how to build better human connections, please answer this email, or connect with me on LinkedIn, and let’s talk 🤗🤓

💡 What influenced me this week 💡

Thoughts of the week:

• “Take the action. Just start. Show up. Make the move. Walk the path. Because the change you want to see doesn't happen unless you create it.” - Sahil Bloom’s newsletter

• How uniquely beautiful different seasons are:

  

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Song of the week:

Book and quotes of the week:

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle

“In any emergency, either you survive, or you don’t. Either way, it is not a problem.”

“As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.”

“To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of the past for your identity and the future for your fulfillment.”

Tools that I use with referrals:

• Descript - for anything around podcasting and video editing

• Beehiiv - for a newsletter (that’s what you receive 😅)

• Text Blaze - to access message templates with shortcuts (like “/ty”)

• Exali - promo “FROMYURII” - indemnity insurance for independent experts in Europe

• Manus - for building complex systems and projects

Daily actions:

• tell 1 person what I’m thankful to them for

• read a self-development book/listen to a professional podcast for 15 minutes

• make a valuable post/comment on LinkedIn

• tag 15 people in my connections database

• connect with 30 interesting people on LinkedIn

• invite 5 people to join the 👋Friendworking newsletter

Weekly actions:

• transcribe one new episode of the Creator Spotlight and Personal IPO (bi-weekly) podcasts, learn something from them, and connect with guests on LinkedIn

• connect 2 people who I believe need to be connected

• invite 30 people to follow the Community ROI podcast (and ask for some feedback).

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or questions, please 👇

And if you’d like to have more 👋 Friendworking in your life 👇

See you next week! 👋