The power of warm intros

Make networking easier on yourself by utilizing the help of those you already know.

I have stumbled upon some helpful networking tips over the years, but the best opportunities in my experience have come from warm introductions. While I'm sure there is hard science behind leveraging the warm intro in networking, I will share how my background and experiences have shaped my ability to network. Further, I will provide more tactical examples of how I went about building relationships in the ETA community before raising search capital for White Cedar. This post is not meant to make networking sound transactional; it's quite the opposite. My goal here is to provide you with a few approaches to increase the probability of success when you are looking to expand your ETA network as a prospective searcher.

Some background 

As a first-generation college student, I had a difficult time getting to know the right people who could help provide guidance before entering the workforce. No one in my family worked in business, and most were against the core of capitalism. However, I had always been fascinated with the businessmen for some reason. Maybe it was the power seats you’d see in the movies, the confidence, or their financial freedom (or at least what I perceived at the time). Whatever it was, I knew I would enter the corporate workforce after my basketball career.

Playing basketball at Cornell enabled me to meet some alumni of the program that were instrumental in providing timely guidance as I transitioned away from the game. Their coaching on resume building, email communication, general presence, and countless other soft skills were invaluable to my younger self, whose backup plan was to pursue a professional basketball career in Europe. I didn't know much, but I was determined to figure it out.

Besides their selflessness and generosity, something small that stood out to me from these mentors was their connections and how they could open doors for me. At the time, one living in New York introduced me to his roommate, who was also a former Cornell student-athlete with the same major as me. One thing led to another, and because of their support, I landed a summer internship in the Ralph Lauren corporate office. Now, I wouldn't have to keep putting my ankles through so much pain on the basketball court.

I share this experience to highlight some important lessons I learned during that transition:

1. Personal upbringing shouldn't be an inhibiting factor in going after one's goals in life.

2. People are more likely to help you than you think, especially when you can bond over mutual interests and connections.

3. No one will help you if you don't ask, so always be willing to ask for help from those you admire.

4. Those with personal and professional success are givers, not takers.

If it weren't for my good fortune of being on that team, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to build those connections and the trust that is so important in building professional relationships. And without those moments early on in my adulthood, who knows where I'd be?

Connection and trust

The warm intro is built on a foundation of connection and trust that doesn't guarantee success, but it sure beats blindly reaching out to random strangers. Why is this? I think it's pretty straightforward. Us humans are judgmental creatures who lean on first impressions and high-level information to make initial assessments. Subconsciously or not, we use one's appearance, social network, education, job, location, hobbies, and more to determine whether we'd want to associate with that person. I find this deeply rooted in our need for security, but it's not without its flaws.

For a simple example, consider LinkedIn. Many of us use the platform to showcase the experiences that make us attractive as job candidates and connect with our professional network. We all have core connections but occasionally receive requests from individuals who don't belong in our immediate network. We don't need to play out a scenario to know that we'd all be more willing to accept a request from a stranger who went to your alma mater than another individual, all else equal, with whom you have no educational connection whatsoever. Although there are some exceptions to this rule, the more we have in common with someone, the more we are willing to engage with them in a friendly way. We're more likely to let our guard down and provide valuable time to a stranger when there is that connection.

You can utilize this powerful rule as you look to gain credibility in the ETA community. Chances are that you know someone who has touched this path in one way or another, and that's all you need to know to get going. Now, let's dive into some specifics.

Breaking down networking anxiety

Last summer, I received 1-on-1 leadership coaching, where I came up with one goal to work towards by the end of the program. Mine was to improve my selling skills as I looked to get ready for fundraising. Since I had a steep learning curve to prepare for that process, my coach and I concluded that I should use networking in the ETA community as the perfect testing ground to practice influencing others. 

I began this process by building a list of 50 individuals in a ‘Networking Notebook’ with the following variables as columns (one individual per row): 

• Name

• Category of individual (i.e., searcher, operator, investor)

• Current stage of search (if applicable)

• Search fund or company name

• Location

• University Affiliation 1 (i.e., undergraduate)

• University Affiliation 2 (i.e., MBA)

• Keynotes (i.e., athlete, from Michigan, self-funded)

I utilized the framework from A.J. Wasserstein's How to Prepare for a Search Fund During Your MBA to list those 50 individuals to ensure I had a range of perspectives about the search experience. However, I found that many on the list had positions of leadership that were somewhat intimidating or a bit distant to reach out to via a cold call or email. I struggled. Who should I reach out to first? Then who? And will this give me the knowledge needed to fundraise successfully? Some of this was just the irrational fear of failure and my introversion, but most came down to not knowing how to prioritize.

As we went into the next 1-on-1, the coach recommended I think about my list like a pyramid. Begin with conversations where I could fail and there'd be a little downside (the foundation), and over time, work my way up to those more high-stakes/serious conversations (the top). This approach meant starting with peers and first-degree connections that I knew well. Then, I could gain confidence talking through my story, asking thoughtful questions, and learning about the varying experiences of searchers and small business operators in my network. Over time, I'd become more comfortable facilitating these conversations and taking those learnings into more challenging calls. Here's what my cadence looked like in an additional column in my spreadsheet: 

• Phase 1: Peers

  • Close friends, business school classmates, stronger 1st-degree connections

• Phase 2: Extended Peer Network

  • Warm introductions (and some cold outreach) to searchers from all business schools, undergraduate and business school alumni, other relevant personal connections

• Phase 3: Experienced

  • Professors, investors through warm introductions, high net-worth individuals with 1st or 2nd-degree connection

• Phase 4: Prep to Launch

  • Investors with ideal partners in your cap table, searchers and operators outside of your immediate network

Investors of search funds fell into Phases 3 and 4, and I will likely get some pushback on recommending waiting to engage with those investors later on down the road. While I agree you should connect with investors as early as possible, as I mentioned in my last post, I needed to educate myself a bit more before feeling comfortable having those introductory conversations with potential investors. Should I have chatted with some of them earlier on? Absolutely, but the four-phase framework I used above enabled me to meet many investors through warm intros that would not have been possible if I had rushed into them too early. In fact, all investors in my cap table came from phases 3 and 4, many of them from a warm introduction from another investor.

So you might be asking, "how did you structure these conversations, and what did you ask?"

Asking good questions

I recommend extensive preparation before each conversation to get the most out of networking. Look at their LinkedIn profiles, Google search results, and other info you can dig up online to gain a preliminary narrative of their backgrounds. It will help you lead the discussions more effectively and develop tailored questions. Going into these calls, I wanted to make the experience as easy as possible for the person taking the time to talk with me. That means leading all scheduling and being flexible if things come up for others. Get a premium Calendly account if you need extra support.

Using the same spreadsheet, I created a new tab for each contact, jotting down the agenda and questions I planned to ask. I shared that agenda at the beginning of each one and then dove into my questions that varied based on the person's background. Here's a short list of some of the questions I asked:

• What is your thesis, and how is it differentiated from the typical searcher?

• What level of flexibility is there with investors and your thesis?

• What did the general process and timeline look like for launching your search?

• Is a checklist or other resource available to prepare you for fundraising?

• How did you build out your search infrastructure? (i.e., CRM, sourcing, email campaigns, internship programs, processes)

• How did you think about investor selection and composition? 

• How do investors evaluate prospective searchers, and what was your experience?

• What search fund investors have you enjoyed working with the most? Which ones have you avoided?

• How flexible are investors with the amount of capital raising, and how do you allocate the search budget across different expenses?

• What were the deciding factors for you to pursue the X model vs Y model?

• Major lessons learned while raising capital? Early days of the search?

We will each have our own questions as we prepare, but these were common questions I asked early on in the process. I'd take these with a grain of salt. As I evolved and met with more people, the questions became much more specific to the challenges I was facing at the time as I got ready for fundraising. Prepare your questions based on what you are looking to learn and where your weaknesses are, and use these questions as a guide if you are stuck. Again, I'd recommend A.J. Wasserstein's article above to guide your question building.

Overall, the average call went around 35 to 40 minutes in duration, some a bit shorter and some much longer. I always ended each conversation with the ask for a warm introduction to others in the community. You can only do this if you ask thoughtful, prepared questions. If you manage to do that, I found that people are willing to go out of their way to help out and pay it forward, especially in the ETA community. Even if there's no direct introduction via email, they can still give you the names of people to reach out to, which can also be helpful. With the right amount of flexibility, generosity, and curiosity, you will be on the path to raising search capital (or launching your very own fund) in no time!

Building successful relationships

I hate to add this last paragraph, but this all goes without saying; we must focus on being friendly, respectful people throughout this process. It is challenging to develop relationships through networking, so why make things harder on yourself by being aggressive and arrogant when people take time out of their days to meet? I'm not saying that each contact you meet needs to turn into your next best friend because that's unrealistic. However, it takes constant communication and persistence if you genuinely want to develop a relationship with someone throughout this process (i.e., searchers, investors, operators). If you say you will follow up on something (i.e., quarterly updates, fundraising), then do it. Life gets busy, and it's easy to lose touch with friends and colleagues from the past. Do what you can to give and not take.

This week, we've covered much about networking as a prospective searcher, centered around the idea of the warm introduction as the enabler to get you to the people you need to meet. There will be failures along the way, including conversations that don't go so well, and that's okay. It's all part of the learning process and will adequately prepare you for having to sell yourself to a business owner throughout the course of your search.

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Thank you to the dozens of people who have subscribed to Maverick in the past month. I am grateful for your support and encourage you to reach out if you'd like to connect over a call in the coming weeks. Let's get together for a coffee for those in Chicago. Please drop your thoughts in the comments below, and let's chat!