I got the following note from a friend this morning.
Hey. Over the past 6 to 12 months, I seem to be getting more requests from individuals in the City-1, City-2, and City-3 asking for introductions to you.
Curious as to your preference in how to handle some of these.
Many words on the web have been written about double opt-in email intros. This is the best and simplest way when you know the person asking for the intro and think the intro would be a good one.
To make the double opt-in easy for you to do:
- Have the person send you something to forward to me.
- Forward it to me and say “I vouch for this person” (or any other context you want to provide). G
ame for an intro? - If I say yes, then connect us.
But, how about the situations where you don’t really know the person. In that case, someone is asking you to do work and use some social credibility in a situation where you don’t really know how much to provide.
If you don’t know much about the person, simply say “I think Brad is pretty easy to reach – his email is public – just send him a note.”
If you think the person is interesting and want to help, simply give out my email. I already get hundreds of random emails a day. I like getting them because there’s occasionally magic in them, so rather than fight it I just let it be part of my life.