What if you could ask anyone anything? (and get an answer)

Well, I’ve got good news for you: you can.

There’s a caveat of course – you need to have their email address.

But once you have that then all you need to do is keep your email very short and your request for advice very specific.

I’ve seen too many emails where the sender spends a paragraph or two explaining who they are and what they’re doing before getting to their request.

If you get a long email then you have to spend time to read it before you can reply. And then you feel like you have to respect the length of their email by writing a similar length one in reply. It’s easier to let it fester in your inbox for a few weeks before archiving it and forgetting all about it.

Then comes the request asking for “any general advice or tips you can give me”.

Here’s some general advice: when you buy beans, store them upside down in your cupboard. That way when you open them they’ll just fall straight out. No scraping around with a fork to get them all out!

Odds are that anyone that you want to get advice from has likely already been interviewed by the business media and their general business advice has already been published multiple times.

Ask something specific.

Keep your email short.

You’ll be surprised how quickly and frequently event the busisest of people respond