The other day, I got a message on LinkedIn from someone that I barely knew (I had met them at a Meetup some years ago, and hadn’t talked to them in at least three years). The message was something like:
We have a new xxxx service with a “xxxx.” business model. It’s great for xxxx. Please share it.
No.
Now, there are probably 200 people that could send me a similar message and I’d be happy to check it out and support them. Clients, friends, even friendly competitors. If you’ve taken the time to grow trust with me, I’m more than happy to reciprocate.
That’s the idea behind books such as Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, where you take your time establishing a relationship before you ask for more. A better example might be more along the lines of not proposing on the first date, and even better is the classic adage of people wanting to do business with people that they “know, like, and trust”.
Earning trust takes time, but it’s not magic. Put in the work, and the trust will grow. Again, there are literally hundreds of people that I trust enough to take a message like the one above and help them push it forward. In this case, though, I suspect that same message went out to hundreds of random people and likely did more harm than good.
