Meeting and building a relationship with strangers
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you will need to successfully create new relationships with strangers, such as potential customers, mentors and employees.
This requires that you approach them in such a way that they clearly understand that you have some shared objectives and there is a potential payoff for spending a little time together.
There are many ways to do this and here we discuss some of the easiest to master.
Your product or service idea has payoffs
Your proposed product or service are potential payoffs. As we described in sprint 2, your proposed product or service is designed to make groups of people very happy, so happy they will want to give you money in return.
Asking someone to help you make your product or service a reality can be a potent objective you share … depending upon what you ask in return. You cannot expect that a stranger will want to expend too much time and attention with a stranger offering a happiness inducing dream.
The first thing you must do is ask for help. If you are asking for help from a person already doing this, then you set yourself up for success. Asking someone for help makes that person feel good because they helped a stranger. Asking them to explain how they do this thing and how easy or hard it is to do, is also a form of asking for help.
You are then in position to offer, “I am working on an final design for a unique and cool xyz as depicted in this drawing—or free sample. Can I please get your brief opinion on which of two features to include in the final product?” You are offering to share payoffs for two different shared objectives. First, you are validating the person as an expert. Second, assuming the person is of a demographic who would care about your product or service, you are offering a quick happiness-producing dream of the future.
All this won’t work with the wrong demographic, or if you look scary, or if it sounds like a sales-pitch. Your introduction must sound like a sincere request for help. It also won’t work if the stranger perceives you want too much of their time.
If the stranger is very excited by your concept, then they will gladly give you extra time, so there is no need to imply up front that you expect to spend more than a moment with the stranger.
If you practice this a few times it starts to become very easy.