I’m joined by Jonathan Courtney, Co-Founder and CEO of AJ&Smart, to delve into my proven strategy for meeting anyone. We explore the frameworks and techniques I employ when sending cold DMs, offering you actionable advice on how to effectively use these methods to connect with anyone you wish.🚀 My FREE 5 day email course to learn how to build a business of the future using the ACP funnel:https://www.communityempire.co/free-course🎯 To build your own portfolio businesses powered by community you might enjoy my membership.You'll get my full course with all my secrets on building businesses, peer-groups to keep you accountable, business ideas every single month and more!Spots are limited.https://www.communityempire.co/📬 Join my free newsletter to get weekly startup insights for free:https://www.gregisenberg.com70,000+ people are already subscribed.FIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/FIND JONATHAN ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/JicecreamLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-courtney-4510644b/To improve your rankings your business on Google and using AI for SEO, sign up to boringmarketing.comEpisode Timestamp00:00 Intro02:00 Greg’s Framework for Meeting Anyone07:17 How Jonathan Met NYT Bestselling Author, Jake Knapp08:13 Boring Marketing09:08 The Canvas Strategy12:01 How Greg Met Weezer Frontman, Rivers Cuomo15:16 The With or Without You Strategy19:35 Part 2 of the Weezer Story24:25 The Value-First Mindset29:29 Step 1 of Greg’s DM Strategy34:29 Step 2 of Greg’s DM Strategy36:56 Step 3 of Greg’s DM Strategy40:42 Remember to Follow Up
How the hell do you get in touch with literally everyone on the planet? Like, how do you do networking?
This strategy is, is foolproof. Like you, you are able to pretty much meet whoever you want via this strategy and, and you don't need hundreds of thousands of followers. And most of those relationships began by just me literally reaching out on places like Twitter. I'm sure a lot of people are listening to this and they're like, well, Greg, like you have 300,000 followers.
Of course, it's easy for you to like DM people and they're going to respond. But I've literally been doing this my entire life.
How do you figure out how to deliver value to someone who's already, let's say, 20 years ahead of you in the entrepreneurial journey?
So the first thing is... And we are back.
Hey. Hey there.
Hi. Hello.
We're doing this again? Are you giving it a name yet? Is it Sipping Time?
It's Sipping Time with Jonathan Courtney and Greg Eisenberg.
Hey, everyone. I'm here to ask Greg questions. The things that maybe you've been asking him on comments and Twitter are things you've been wondering about. And I think this is the show where occasionally, depending on when Greg wants to do it, he's the one being interviewed and not guests being interviewed. You know what I mean?
I know what you mean.
I watched the episode we did that came out on Sunday. I was looking at the comments and I forgot we talked about this constipation thing. We talked about doing the reverse Brian Johnson where you try to get your age markers up as high as possible so you die as early as possible. I think that's going to be game-changing for some people.
It sounds like something we would talk about.
Yeah. Greg, I have a topic for you. I have a question for you. And this is something I actually genuinely have been wondering. And there's probably a couple of different angles we can take on this. But I think one thing that one of the most valuable things I think your audience would love to know is how the hell do you get in touch with literally everyone on the planet?
Like everybody I know, every investor, every entrepreneur, every company owner that I end up working with already knows you before I meet them. How do you do networking? Like... I don't understand it. You're everywhere. You're everywhere all the time. How does it work?
So I do a lot of cold DMs.
On Twitter or?
Just in general, email, Twitter, you name it. I'm not afraid to just reach out to people. And I'm sure a lot of people are listening to this and they're like, well, Greg, like, You have 300,000 followers. Of course, it's easy for you to DM people and they're going to respond. But I've literally been doing this my entire life. My whole life just reaching out to people.
And when I was a teenager, I'd reach out to people and I'd try to add value to people's lives. And I was in my early 20s. Reach out to people and try to add value. Someone asked me the other day, they're like, I heard you talking on the podcast about having a mentor and I really want a mentor.
And which is by the way, like I would never call my mentor, my mentor, you know, that's like being caught with my pants down, you know, like it's just, you're my mentor, Greg. No, no, no. You know, it's like, too late. You're my mentor now. Mentor me. Mentor me. Yeah. It's just something that, it's an unspoken thing. It's just like you have someone generally they're like 10, 15, 20 years older.
They've been through things that you've been through. Um, and most of those relationships began by just me literally reaching out on places like twitter and being like hey i see that you're you know you've built this thing not can i pick your brain for an hour oh fuck that fuck that yeah yeah i hate that that's the word dude or like the people oh let's grab a quick coffee i'm like why who are you
Quick, quick, let's grab a quick coffee so I can pick your brain. So let me pay $2 so I can pick your brain for 90 minutes and just like hide back your afternoon.
There's a great meme that maybe your team can pull up. I posted it on my, I don't know if I can share my screen right now, so I'll just kind of post it to you.
Exactly. This is what I'm talking about. This is how not to do it. And I'm happy we're having this conversation because so many people don't realize that this is not how you do it. So the question is, how do you do it?
That's what I want to talk about. So can I pick your brain on a few different angles of this and try to be the voice of your audience here? Yes. Okay, first of all, most people, the first thing they say, as you already said, is, oh, easy for you to say because you have a big audience.
So now let's assume we're both talking about this from the perspective of people who started out doing this without audiences. And then the second thing is, okay, the people you're reaching out to are probably already very successful. Um, usually in the case that when we're reaching out to people, they're a lot more successful than us.
At least I know for me, when I reach out to people, they're more successful. Um, and so they don't need a lot of the things you can provide. How do you figure out how to deliver value to someone who's already, let's say 20 years ahead of you in the entrepreneurial journey, even if you don't have a large audience, for example, like what would be your, what was your process?
Well, I think you need to do the work. So the beauty about today's world is let's just say you wanted to get in touch with me, there's literally hundreds of podcasts of me talking about things that you know I might be interested in. Coffee, you know that I like Miami, you know that I'm Canadian, you know that I drive a Volvo. There's a bunch of things that you can grab. And here's a hack.
On a lot of people's Twitter accounts, you can actually go to their likes. So you can actually see what are the things that they're liking. It's kind of stalkery.
I didn't know this was public, oh God.
Yeah, and I literally just hid mine this morning because I was like, I do this to other people. So I was like, I don't want other people to see what I like. But the point is, if you can see what people like and you can watch interviews of them, you could understand how to position it so that you have an offer that connects with them.
Yeah, let's give some examples. I'll give one from a perspective of someone who had actually literally no following. Back in 2016, I was reading, so I'm running a design agency. And I was reading a blog from GV, Google Ventures. They had this blog and it was about, they were talking about this thing called design sprints. This guy called Jake Knapp, who was blogging about it.
He was kind of like this person who I was like, oh my God, this is like the Silicon Valley designer that I would love to meet, who like is doing all the things I would love to do and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Eventually he wrote this book called Sprint, became a New York Times bestseller. And I was still like, oh, my God, this is this is amazing. Like I'm reading this book. It's so cool.
I'm here in Berlin. I have no Internet presence or anything like that. And again, I'm just like this, you know, random person living in Berlin.
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I was trying to figure out what could be a way that I could reach out and hang out with someone like Jake without just being like, hey, can we grab a coffee? And I read this article from Ryan Holiday. It's called the Canvas Strategy. Have you ever heard of this?
I haven't.
it's like a systematic way to figure out how to deliver value to people who are ahead of you. And one of the things it talks about is that if you're the person who can clear the path for those in front of you, you can also kind of choose the direction, which is a cool way of thinking about it. And so what I actually did is... First of all, I had to come up with an excuse to be in San Francisco.
So I offered to talk at this kind of design and tech conference in Silicon Valley. This was an offer to do this for free, of course. And then I was in the region. And what I did is I reached out to Jake and I said, I have an idea of something to pitch you that I think would benefit you spreading the word of Sprint all around the world. It would also make you money.
And I've taken care of like 90% of the details already. And he was like, cool. So I went to the GV office and pitched him this idea of traveling around the world and teaching design sprints. But I would use my marketing skills to sell out the event so that he wouldn't have to think about it. And I would take on the really annoying part of setting up the locations and doing all of that stuff.
He was like, yes. And this, first of all, we became really good friends. And this opened up. So many doors to me that I could never have imagined. A lot of the Silicon Valley clients that we work with today are because of that relationship that I built with Jake. But initially, instead of just being like, hey, can we grab a coffee?
I really deeply thought about what types of things he might find interesting and thought about like, what's going to be really annoying if he wants to go and teach this around the world? Locations, filling those locations. And so I just presented an option to him that was super easy and cleared the path for him spreading the knowledge of Sprint around the world.
And that was a cold, pretty much a cold outreach from me to the team at GV. I didn't even have Jake's email address. I just emailed GV. And this is the kind of thing I do all the time. What's maybe one or two examples from you? So...
I think that if you want your cold DMs to work, you should create content on the internet. You should publish content on the internet. Because the hack is publish content on the internet. One in every 20, 50, 100, even 1,000 pieces will go viral. See who likes your content. And then once they like the content, if it's one of those people that you really look up to, DM them instantly.
So I'll give you... Uh, I'll give you a non-financial example of this. So I grew up, one of my favorite bands, you know, this is like the early two thousands. Who is it? Yeah, it was Weezer, you know, alternative rock. Yeah. Okay. You approved. Okay, great.
He approved.
Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So, um, Loved it. And I played guitar, as you can see in my background. And you actually can't even see it. But on that guitar, there's a strap. There's the same strap that Rivers Cuomo, who's the frontman of Weezer, that's the strap that he used.
Get a new name, but it's okay.
Exactly. Fast forward to about eight months ago. And... I tweet something and it just, it goes ballistic. It goes viral.
What was it?
It was... What was the tweet? The internet used to be an escape from reality, but now reality is an escape from the internet.
Oh, that's good.
Yeah, yeah. That's good. So I tweeted that.
Nah, it's shit. I don't like it. Nah. Nah, it's shit. I thought about it again. I don't like it.
Well, it doesn't matter if you don't like it because you know who liked it. Rivers Cuomo.
Mr. Rivers Cuomo.
Yeah, he liked it. So it's like 11 p.m. I'm just about to close my eyes. I'm aimlessly scrolling in bed. Oh, I know that problem.
My eight sleep hates when I do this.
And I see he likes it. So I go and DM him right away. And I say, and this is a tip for whenever you DM someone busy, be short. So I say, I bet you hear this a ton. Your art has been life-changing to me. Often in LA, would be cool to hang out sometimes.
sometimes interesting yeah so sometimes you wrote it wrong no i said it wrong i'm a better typer than i am uh sayer of things so let's just break it down a little bit i bet you hear this a ton your ideas your art has been life-changing to me so saying the word art to like a musician like he's like oh it's art you know it's like this is something that's a compliment i think
Yeah.
Any thoughts?
I'm with you.
You're with me? Okay. Then often in LA, I know that he lives in LA. I did the research, right? Do the research. And then I wrote, would be cool to hang out sometime. I'm not like would want to pick your brain. And you know what I mean? It's like very like nonchalant. Like if it works out, it works out. He responds instantly. Let's do it. I'll be here until June. What part of the world are you in?
So then I respond. Love that. I'm based in Miami, often in LA. I'll hit you up next time I'm there. And let me know if you ever come to Miami. I give him my number. Then he goes, we'll do. We're in Tampa in a few weeks with Green Day. And he just puts his number in there.
Fuck, man. There's so many things you just said that we need to talk to your audience about here. That's amazing. Two things. One, you did something that I don't even know if you know there's a label for. There's this when you're reaching out to people who are, let's say, who in this case, you were trying to reach up to this person.
There's this concept, and I think it was Daniel Priestley, again, I keep referencing this guy, who came up with this concept of with or without you energy.
I'm pretty sure that was Bono by U2.
With or without you... That's true. I didn't actually think about that. That's probably where it came from. So this idea of with or without you energy, when you reach out to someone, you don't want to be like... What's his name again? Not Bono. What's his name? John Rossman? John... Whatever. The Wheatus guy, right? Wheatus? Weezer? Weezer? Rivers Cuomo? The guy... Rivers... John Waters?
All right. Like... Okay. So... So you reach out to Rivers. And if you were like, hey, love your music, whatever, love your art. Can I come visit you? He'd probably be like, go. That's weird. But if you already say that... The important thing is you're kind of like, I am there. That is something I already do. And it would be something that is just on my way. It's on my journey.
That makes it seem less intense for people. One example of this for me... It's a bit weird to mention this online or on the podcast, but I think he wouldn't mind it. I really wanted to meet Noah Kagan and just saying, I'm in Austin. Not like a week before or two weeks before. Just, I'm here right now. And I was also looking around what he's looking for. He wanted help with his YouTube channel.
Not to say that I helped with his YouTube channel at all. But just reaching out and being like, hey, I am in Austin. What are you up to? Sends me his number, invites me to his house. These types of things are so... There's a lot of nuance to it that you did there. You didn't just reach out and say, hey, can I hang with you? You said, I'm already going to be in these areas.
And that's a weirdly important thing. The other thing... You and I were speaking to the same person last week, Blake, who actually is my mentor because I pay him to be my mentor. And you somehow were already talking to him. But we were talking about this topic in the mastermind last week.
And he said, one of the weirdest things with people who are very successful and very powerful is they give out their number so easily. And giving your number and just being like, hey, here's my number, like whatever. That is also something that a lot of people don't do, but it's actually super powerful.
And in the background here is someone that I've been messaging with who I never thought I would have the number of. Once you cross that boundary, once you deliver value or a compliment, or in your case, it's content, or it's like figuring out what they want and what they can resonate with. And then combine that with that with or without you energy.
It's not like me not meeting you is going to hold me back or anything. And then a little number on top. Those things seem to be some juicy elements of connecting with people who could be your mentors or not even mentors. Sometimes it's just people who can connect to you or people who you just really would love to meet.
Totally. Yeah.
And, and people are lazy about it, dude. People are so lazy. People reach out. I'm sure people reach out to you every day and they say, Hey, can we grab a coffee? Like, You're not trying to be mean. I guess you feel like, how do I even respond to that? It even feels sometimes a little bit insulting if you're a busy person. You're a busy person, Greg.
And if someone just says, hey, can we grab a coffee? And you're like, who are you?
What's the why? Everyone is busy. That's the truth. Everyone is busy. And the people that are going to be lazy with those types of DMs, I don't want to spend my time with them. I'd rather support... People who... Non-lazy people. Non-lazy people. Because those are the people that I think are going to actually do cool things in this world.
And then going back to the river story, what's really cool about reaching out to someone who's above you is all of a sudden, if you show value to that person, they give you access to their whole world. Exactly. So all of a sudden... Like forget Weezer for a second. Green Day, like I'm hanging out with Green Day. Like that's really cool.
You know, and what ended up happening with that story is I texted him and he's like, I'm in Tampa in a few weeks. I was like, okay, great. I'll see you there. And I went to hang out with him at the show backstage in front of like 50,000 people, which was really cool.
Dude, you really hold back. You keep your story. You really hold stuff back. I can't believe that this is... I thought the end of the story was going to be you messaged him. The whole thing actually happened.
Oh, the whole thing happened. So I'm backstage. I brought a friend with me. Thanks for the invite, by the way.
I didn't want to go anywhere.
Well, you're more of a YouTube fan. If I was meeting Bono, I would hit you up. So I'm backstage. And now all of a sudden... I can't even believe that he's hanging out with me. He could be hanging out with all these cool people, but he's hanging out with me. And I don't want to make this conversation about me at all.
So 100% of the conversation is about trying to figure out what is interesting to him and how can I add value to him. And what did I know about the situation? I knew that based on the like of his tweet of mine, like obviously this idea of, being too glued to our phones and social media addiction was something that he was thinking a lot about. So we started talking about that.
And from that, I learned that he's actually a bit of a nerd like me and you, and he's really into AI and he's really, he's like, oh, I coded up this like discord bot. So all of a sudden now I understood that. And I was like, oh, let me tell you, let's talk about how we can make your discord bot better. Let's talk about how you can make an interesting community for Weezer.
Oh, hey, we just worked on something for Fred again that I think might be really interesting for you. And then it was just at the end of the conversation, he was like, oh, dude, I want to hang out with you again. Like, let me know next time we can hang out.
I think that another thing here, I'm just trying to break apart the kind of principles here. You also, I sometimes draw this for people when I'm showing them the canvas strategy. If you're watching this, if you're not seeing this, it's basically a circle. This is where you are. You're on, you're at this part of your life. The Weezer guy is here and then here, all of his connections, right?
And you like want to move up this ladder or whatever it is. But a lot of people are not humble enough to also realize that they are below somebody. And I think for me, one of the things and because it sounds weird to say it, it's like, I am below this person. It doesn't mean you're below them as a human. It just means that maybe they're ahead of you in certain parts of your life.
And I think it's very difficult for people to be humble enough to assess where they are. And often in your case, what would have happened is you would have gone, if you were not humble and you didn't understand the laws of power, you would have gone there and talked about yourself for two hours.
But you understood that the dynamic stays in place, essentially, and that you still have to deliver value. And this is something that once you understand it, once you understand that there is this like dynamic in the world, you can really, really connect with a lot of very interesting people. I think.
getting too comfy with people, getting too cozy with people after you meet them the first time is often a way or getting too familiar and overstepping boundaries. That's like next level ninja shit to not do that when you actually get in the door.
I mean, this literally has changed my life, this way of communication, because now all of a sudden I could literally meet I want to say this. I don't want to sound pompous, but I'm pretty sure I can meet almost anyone via this strategy. So what is it? It's content. Throw out content that's applicable to people and attract them. See who likes it. DM them. Keep it short and sweet. Meet them.
Go to where they are. Add value to their lives. That's it.
I think as well, it's just another example is we're doing this podcast right now, which is going to give me extra exposure. We're doing it because I thought for a long time about how to bring value to you and your content universe. And I was reading your tweets and I was looking at your show and then I was looking at other people's shows and I was like,
I wonder if there's a way that I can just take some of the heavy lifting of maybe like an extra episode so that Greg can still grow his podcast. He can do his own advertising on the podcast. I can be in the background and I can still bring value while getting connection to you, learning a lot of stuff, but also getting connection to your audience.
I was joking about this earlier with my girlfriend. I was like, if I didn't understand this world, then if you think about how stupid it can be, right after this episode, I'm like, hey, dude, I'm just going to send you over an invoice for the work I put in for this.
just like this super short-term thinking when people play these games you know it's like oh hey actually now you have to pay me to do this totally even though i am getting a massive advantage because i have no audience that's also a thing if people are wondering like how do you grow an audience nobody listens to my podcast great like two weeks ago nobody was listening to my podcast i went on greg's podcast and now more a lot more people are listening to my podcast
but i also had to think about how to bring value to greg's life um instead of just being like hey dude you put me on my podcast there's a level of like you you just you have to have some level of understanding your position in the hierarchy of whatever it is you're trying to do um and that's very tricky for people their entitlement comes on very fast when people like Often someone will meet me.
They'll like put in some effort and then they're like super entitled immediately. Why didn't you hire me? Like what? What are you talking about? You know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?
I know exactly what you mean. I know exactly. Tell me. Yeah. You do. And I think with you specifically, you sent me a message with a loom. A loom video of a pitch to you. I pitched it to you. You literally pitched it to me and it was... I don't know, maybe a four minute loom. And I'm not going to lie.
I put on 1.5 X. People listen to this podcast.
I'm fucking 10 X. You know, at least I put it on at least 1.5 X, but I was listening to this and I was like, okay, what do I have to lose by recording a 30 minute conversation with Jonathan?
A lot.
Nothing. 30 minutes, you know?
Yeah. Your entire reputation.
So I was like, you made a pitch to me. You, you did in a fat, in a,
easy to consume way for me i think loom by the way so underrated as like just a great way to pitch people yes and you're using you're sharing your screen you're you're showing visuals and i was engaged the whole time we did it you show you you came to that conversation prepared it was fun of course we're going to do another version you know another episode so it
And I also don't know if you noticed this, but when you asked me at the end of the podcast where people can find me, because we talked about your newsletter and all of that stuff, I actually didn't tell where people can find me. I asked people to go and write reviews for your podcast and your Spotify, and I didn't tell people where to find me at all.
And that's like, in my opinion, part of being valuable is also not just... fully taking advantage. You don't have to like squeeze every situation dry. You can just see where things go and enjoy them. Like I think there is something to that as well. I don't need anything to come out of this. It's an enjoyable experience.
By the way, side note, in the comments of the last YouTube video, people said something about us not looking at this, like looking everywhere. And now I'm recording in a camera that's over here. Like it couldn't be. I'm like, hey, how's it going, guys?
Well, the problem is I'm looking over here. Because I want to look at you, but my camera's over here.
And we're not professionals, okay? You need it more extreme. You need to make it more extreme so that it's clear. You need to put the camera behind your head.
But I think it's okay to speak to that person who commented, listen, me and you are learning in real time. But at the same time, we're human beings. We're human beings. And the reason why you listen to this show is because you want an inside take from two people who are in the trenches who are sharing how they're feeling, you know, not filtered.
And if we're going to, if our eyes are all over the place, like sue me, my last name is literally Eisenberg. What did you expect? Eyes in Berg.
Oh my God. We got to end it right there. Do you think people are going to be able to take actionable... Okay, I want to leave you with one thing. So if somebody today... Let's just pick Noah Kagan as an example. Somebody wanted to connect with Noah Kagan today, and they'd love to do it within the next three months, but they do not have... We haven't even talked about the idea of doing free work.
We're not going to go into that today, but they don't have content out there. They don't have a social media platform. But they would love to work with someone like Noah Kagan, Kevin Rose, whatever, someone who's like influential. What would be some actionable steps they could take over the space of two weeks?
So the first thing is their profile. So let's just use Twitter as an example. It can't be empty because if you're going to DM, and you'd be surprised, by the way, how many people have open DMs on Twitter. I mean, my DMs are completely open. Anyone can message me and I actually read all of my DMs. I don't get back to everyone, but I read everyone and I get back to the most interesting ones.
So I would say, Your profile is your calling card, is your business card. So your bio needs to be super tight. Your profile picture needs to be there. You have to have something. A real photo. Yeah, a great photo. The person should be able to scroll on the timeline and be like, some of these things are quite interesting. I connect with some of this content. So that's step number one.
And could that just be retweeting other people's stuff if you're not like...
No.
It should be the person's own opinion.
It's pretty lazy. It's pretty lazy just to do a straight up RT. However, doing a quote retweet is a different story.
And actually, just if you guys are listening to this and you're like, oh, easy for you guys to say because there's so much activity. I have been tweeting only for the last maybe three weeks and I get like one like per tweet. Like I am an example of the opposite of Greg where I don't really have a social media presence.
And reaching out to people on Twitter has been so powerful in the last few weeks. I'm shocked that I have just not been doing it. So you're definitely, you don't have to be like, it doesn't have to look like people like your stuff for this to work. But I guess it does, it helps if you have a picture and stuff going on.
I would recommend that you change your username.
My one?
Yeah.
From Jicecream?
In my mind, it was always Jicecream.
Someone here, I remember one time somebody met me and they thought it was something even worse. So wait, is my username Jicecream? I thought that's just my handle. Isn't my name Jonathan Courtney on Twitter?
Yeah, but if someone named Jicecream reached out to me and I didn't know who they were, I would probably report a spam message.
Really?
Report as offensive.
You looking at my... Wait, so why would it be offensive? Jice cream. Is Jice... Is that like something dirty?
It's just something I don't want. I'm not like waking up on a Monday morning being like, you know what I need today? Jice cream.
It's true. I actually, so my name on Instagram is also J ice cream. It's, it's actually my Xbox gamer tag, which, you know, I wasn't ever thinking of becoming a business guy. And so this was my, like making my Xbox account when I was like 12 or something. Um, Yeah, I don't know if I can change it. I love it too much, J. Ice Cream.
The thing is, I'm trying to now become successful in spite of my name being J. Ice Cream. Okay, apart from that, is it okay to have posts which have not many likes?
That's totally fine, as long as your take is interesting. And you don't need to create all the content. You can just quote retweet someone else's tweet and add your opinion on it.
Yes. Yes. That's what I've been trying to do. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. So that's step one is like, get yourself and would you start with one platform? Like, would you start with X?
I would, I would start with X because if you're listening to this, you're in, you're in the business entrepreneurial tech world. That's where a lot of these people are having these conversations. And it's also where you have the ability to DM a lot of people for free because a lot of people have open DMs.
Even though Twitter's dead, right? Because I heard two years ago that because Elon Musk took over, it's dead. So it doesn't exist anymore. Crazy that you're using it even though it's dead.
Yeah. And I'm not saying that it's the best platform, but I am saying that it's a great place to start.
Yeah, I definitely get more responses from people on X than anywhere else.
Yeah. So then I would, what I would do, step two is make a list of the five or 10 people who you want to meet in the next 12 months and set tweet notifications for those people.
Yes. Do you know the dream 100 concept? No. Okay, I'm not going to talk about it now, but if anyone wants to figure out how to... You can't just... Well, if you want... The Dream 100 concept is a... So you just said, like, choose 10 people who you'd want to meet and then set notifications for them.
There's this concept about growing a business where if you want to grow a business, one of the best ways to do it is by making a list of the 100 people who have access to the audience that you want.
and then in that so you have the list it's basically a google sheet you would create on the left would be the their name then you would have their all of their different social profiles uh and then you would have like you know the amount of people who are following them and then you have like a list of all the things that you think they want so if you're doing this by yourself dream 10 is probably better but you could create a google doc here
where you're also when you're watching all their content you're collecting almost an uh a an archive of the things that they're interested in so you're creating your own profile and i'm sure someone will use ai to do it but yeah the the concept of the dream 100 thing is that you have a way then to track all the people you're reaching out to and apparently
If you actually reach out to 100 people, then maybe 20, 30 of the people will respond to you. And this is one of the best ways to get in front of the audience that you actually want to get in front of because you can get on their content, etc.
But Dream 100 is something you can Google and watch videos about if you want to see a practical breakdown of even how to decide who you would want to reach out to. I just didn't want to take you off track.
I appreciate that. But I also didn't want you to be the person who says, I have a secret, but I'm not telling.
Oh, no, I just didn't want to annoy your audience. And they're like, Jonathan keeps interrupting you.
Don't be afraid of the YouTube comments, man.
No, dude, your YouTube comments are extremely kind and constructive, honestly.
It's amazing. Say that to the camera, though. Say it to the camera. Look at the camera.
Your YouTube comments are very, very constructive and I am responding to almost all of them.
Yeah, same here. They're awesome. So, okay, step three. Once you've got the list, you're going to get a tweet notification from Rivers Cuomo, let's say. Your job now is to reply as soon as possible, but also reply extremely thoughtfully.
Got it.
You'd be surprised. You might look at someone like Rivers. Oh my God, this person has 2 million, 3 million, 4 million followers. There's no way this person's looking at his or her replies. No, most people look at their replies. And if you say something that is smart, some of these people notice it. For example, on Twitter, I notice it's like the same group of people who always reply to my stuff.
So if someone reaches out to me, I'll recognize their profile picture and I'm more likely to have my brain picked or have coffee with that person because I know that they care about my content and they care about startup ideas and they care about all the stuff that I care about. So we're like, we're cut from the same cloth.
Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So you would turn on the post notifications for the people that you would like to get in touch with. And every time they post, you essentially respond. Would you also say that like retweeting and then like quote posting? I don't even know what it's called, like quoting what they did. Would that count as a replying to what they do?
Absolutely.
Because then you're spreading their message to other people, to my one follower.
No, I think that's that's right.
Yeah, this, this definitely I've, I've been, I'm actually trying to get, um, I want this guy, a man who used to be the CEO. You probably know him. I should have just asked you. I want him to coach me a man, the ex CEO of, uh, AppSumo.
And, uh, I've been, I've, I'm in his like waiting list and I'm, I'm like replying to all of his, and I'm jokingly saying, yeah, it's because I want you to coach me earlier. And I'm definitely getting noticed. If you know him, tell him to coach me.
Great. I'll call him up.
Yeah, call him up. I want to pay him. I want to pay him and I can't pay him because he won't let me coach him.
He's trying. He has got like a waiting list. He's trying. No, I think this is... This strategy is, is full proof. Like you, you are able to pretty much meet whoever you want via this strategy and, and you don't need hundreds of thousands of followers. Now you have to be okay with rejection and you have to be okay with silence. And that's not easy.
And you cannot be entitled. That's the worst because you also don't know. Like sometimes someone will reach out to me, right? Um, on YouTube or LinkedIn or whatever. I'm not on X so much or on Instagram or they'll email the company and they won't get a response from me just because I don't see it. And then like a couple of weeks later they'll send me like an angry message.
I'm like, are you fucking serious? This is the first, that's also now the first time I'm seeing an interaction with this person. You know what I mean? Like, that's the thing you gotta be, you gotta be really okay with silence.
You gotta, when I'm reaching out to, when I'm in LA and reaching out to people who are like way above me, if they ghost me, if they don't respond to me, uh, the best thing I've ever done is just not pushing and not being irritating. And then like the next time I'm there, sometimes I meet them and it's just that they were away.
Just don't, uh, I think that's very important to be very okay with silence and to be very okay with rejection and,
and not be entitled because they might change their mind a couple of years later if you're doing something more interesting i also think it's okay to follow up so for example i'm trying to do you know colin and samir do you know who that is of course yeah i know them personally no i don't not at all i do know of them but i don't know them personally at all are you trying to get on their show i know them personally
and bastard of course you know them fucking personally of course you do greg literally knows everyone i want dude i never meet anyone who doesn't know you personally that's actually a good story i cold dm'd colin and samir tell us tell us exactly how it went so i think the way it worked was
They tweeted about monetization of their channel, and I replied with an idea on how they could monetize their channel. So going back to, I had tweet notifications for them. I replied thoughtfully with an idea for them. And I just DM them after. If you ever want to talk more about this, hit me up. And I arranged a meeting in New York to chat. I wasn't in New York.
I just like flew to New York, you know?
But just were you, they were there and you were like, oh, I'm going to be there anyway. As in you went out of your way to meet them.
Yeah. I didn't tell them that, but yes, correct.
Yeah, of course. But you, you with or without you'd them, you Bono'd them.
I Bono'd them big time. And it was a great meeting. I was happy I met them. It was a very inspirational chat. And I was thinking, who would be cool to have on the pod? I thought Samir would be really awesome. Colin would be equally as awesome. But I have Samir's phone number. So I sent him a message April 21st. Hey, love you to come on my podcast.
it's a top tech podcast, not your typical creator audience. Cause he usually goes on podcasts for creators. So I'm trying to think like, how could I, how can I, how can I get him excited about the podcast? And I wrote past guests include Alexis Ohanian, Morgan Housel, Jonathan Courtney, Jonathan Courtney, Jonathan Courtney, Jonathan Courtney, J ice cream from Twitter, J dot ice cream.
And then I, I posted a, a tweet of me with, when Kevin Rose came on. So I had the credibility of Kevin Rose. And then I was like, if that sounds fun, let me know. It's called the Startup Ideas Pod. And then he goes, happy to come on. But the problem was, Samir was impossible to schedule with. And impossible, just impossible. So I followed up one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times.
And then he just texted me today, finalizing a travel schedule by end of day today. We'll give you a time tonight. But I had to look like an idiot for a lot of times to do it. And that's just the price you pay to use this strategy.
I have a little hack on maybe, maybe something different you could have done there. And you're better at this than me. So take this with a pinch of salt, Greg's audience. There's someone who I'm, so I'm running this mastermind. Don't worry, I'm not going to sell it on your podcast already sold out. I'm running this mastermind in LA and there's the speaker. I want to, I want him to speak at it.
I won't say his name on the podcast right now because I'm still working on it. um he agreed like he was like i'm in no problem let's do this um we agreed on everything and then uh he was like i just need to chat with my wife to to make sure that like the dates are good and i didn't get any response then for a little bit and so i followed up and i was like hey just uh
you know, confirming, are you still in? But I didn't get a response. And then so I spent I sent another email just saying, hey, just just checking in. And he said, oh, absolutely. Just I'm still in. I'm still excited. I just need to really make sure of my life. And then I was like, wait a minute.
This is an opportunity for me to make this easier for this guy, because clearly he's way like he's just got a different life to me. This person has way more going on. And also, I want him to speak at my event. I actually really need him to speak at my event. It would be amazing for him to speak at my event. And so I wrote him an email and his response to it was, I love that.
And we'll tell you about the email in the next step. No, I'm just kidding. The email I sent him was, OK, how about this? The event is happening anyway. And how about two weeks beforehand? I'll just reach out to you again and see if you want to come so you don't have to think about the scheduling. And he was like that was the thing he was super excited about.
A lot of the things that I noticed about people who are very important and who are kind of higher up in this hierarchy Dude, they have so... I mean, the amount of stuff you and I have going on. And I mean, I am like here in the business world. You're here in the business world. And maybe Colin and Samir are here. I don't know. Kevin Rose is like in space. These people have so much going on.
It's unimaginable. So if you can just make it so easy. And they often, I think, like spontaneous and impromptu ways of doing things. So I wonder two things that I would do if I was trying to get this guest. on my podcast. And I had a couple of these bigger guests on my podcast before and I had this challenge. One is
finding out without them even knowing who their assistant is and just going around them and trying to see if I can schedule it with them.
Uh, the other thing is literally just having a slot, like, but, but soon like a slot that's happening in the same day and reaching out to them in two weeks and being like, Hey, I actually have like a slot today, tomorrow, the next day in the next 72 hours, often I noticed that people like this
tend to like to do things sort of last minute because it doesn't have to add on to their really chaotic schedule. It's just, oh, I'll just put it in right now as it was today with you, right? We were chatting, we were messaging and I was like, how about like today? It just, it sometimes works out better when you do these things on a very short scale, I have found.
Agreed. I think that's a great tip and I think that's a great place to end. I want to see who people end up meeting from this.
Yeah. Before people start reaching out to you, Greg, just to make sure you actually remember the things in the episode. If you just reach out to Greg and say, can I pick your brain? Nothing's going to happen. You know what I mean? That's not the point of this episode. Make sure you didn't listen to it on 10x speed.
There's probably some bits in here that would help you get in touch with someone like Greg. But yeah, dude, that's it. I hope that's valuable for your audience.
I hope so too. I hope so too.
It's another experiment. It's not like a news topic. It's not like a tweet. It's like a general thing that I see you doing out in the world that I think some of your audience would find valuable.
Well, Jonathan... I think people could follow you at Jicecream on Twitter.
Give me some likes. Give me some attention out there on Jicecream.
And if you want us to continue doing episodes like this, comment on YouTube. We are in those comments. And subscribe.
to the youtube channel and share with all your friends that's all we ask it's not a big ask small ask it's not a big ask at all it's barely an ask it's a micro ask it's the only way we know very small barely visible it's the only way we know that people are enjoying it because if if not we'll just we'll stop doing it yeah you know yeah
I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah, if no one likes it, we're not doing it.
Yeah, exactly. That's the lesson here.
Yeah. The lesson is if no one likes it, don't do it.
We're kidding. We're kidding. But I will say, if a lot of people like this, a form of content, you want to do more of it. So, for example, that's how the Startup Ideas podcast came. I started... Like this podcast was called where it happens before. And people were just really resonating when I started talking about startup ideas, enter the pivot startup ideas podcast.
So that's, that's the history there.
Yeah, I think people should also know that this does not replace the core podcast. This is sort of like Greg's still going to interview people and give you that other stuff you like. This is more like a BTS, you know, behind the scenes of like, Greg has a crazy guest on his podcast. How does Greg contact these people?
That's kind of what I was thinking, you know, like in my mind, I was thinking in here.
Great mind.
I'm trying to like push my temples to show that it's my brain.
All right, man. It's been real. Take care. Later bye.