Before I send a newsletter or sales letter to 50-2,500 friends and acquaintances (my entire network), I show it to about a dozen trusted advisors and ask for their thoughts and ideas.
Most are favorable, some critical. This reply comes from the Alix, the Executive Director for a national training company. His clients are Fortune 500 companies like Bank of America, Home Depot, and Wal*Mart. I met Alix 25 years ago. He was one of my first paying clients and biggest fans. Since then, we've developed a close friendship and he has encouraged me a lot. I, likewise, have encouraged him.
Alix crossed out some of my text and gave me more powerful, direct words. His ideas are highlighted in yellow. Friends like this are priceless. I can't imagine sustaining a consulting practice without their thoughful input.
Dear Sandra,
I'm writing to ask for your thoughts, advice, ideas—and HELP on behalf of CareerLab. We want CareerLab to be customer-driven: where do our clients want us to go/grow? What opportunities should we be looking at to provide more value? Where are we wasting time? Give me your help by reading this letter and providing me with some feedback. Here's where we've been in the recent past; now where do we go from here?
In the past two years, we have (to use a baseball analogy) had some big hits as well as some strike outs. Here are seven examples of "extra base" hits:
- A page of "extra base" hits were itemized here, and Alix gave the following advice: I would suggest prioritizing your messages and place the most important or mission-critical ones first. For example, #3 and #4 are more mission-directed so they might be better placed first. (The chronology doesn't matter as much as what's going on in the past several week/months.)
Okay, now you've seen where we've been and what's happening at CareerLab right now. The question for you is: where should we be going? How do we leverage what we're good at? Who are we ignoring?
Sandra, your advice and assistance are enormously important to me. Take 10 minutes right now and respond to this letter. Then, look for a follow-up call from me in the next two weeks to ask if you have any thoughts or ideas about people we should contact, or specific opportunities we should pursue.
I appreciate your taking the time to consider CareerLab's situation, and I look forward to talking to you soon.
Your friend,
William S. Frank