Hi Reader,

How's winter treating you? Ours has been cold, but very green here in Toronto - not usual!

If you're new here, welcome! 😃

A few weeks ago, some of you decided to dive right in and set up some emails that were queued to send this past week.

What happens if you sent 30+ emails and only heard back from 1 so far?

That’s amazing!

For the others, you’ll want to follow-up with another (short) email after a week or so to indicate you’re still interested to speak to them.

Persistence is key.

After a 3rd follow-up within a month, just let it rest.

People are busy and that is understandable.

For the contacts that DO end up responding,

you’ll want to prepare some very well thought-out Qs.

Plan out these questions in order of most important to least, with a timeframe in mind.

To be respectful, I actually recommend setting a timer (if you asked for “20 minutes of your time”) then when the 20-minutes is approaching, say

“I’d love to keep chatting for a few minutes, but I want to respect your time”

OR

“I do have a few more questions for you but want to respect your time — are you able to spare another few minutes?”

From there you can gauge whether they’re eager to keep talking (or not).

Some will invite you reach out again should you have any further questions, and others won't.

If you feel like the conversation was amicable and you still had additional questions for them, you can always ask if they'd mind if you email them with any follow-up questions.

They might say no.

They might say yes, and then never reply to your follow-up Qs.

And that's A-ok.

Move along!

What happens if you didn’t find an email address?

If you did not find the person's company email address, your second-best bet is to send a connection request on LinkedIn.

1. Grab those contacts you flagged to revisit in January

2. Click "Personalize invite" (Don't push "Connect" otherwise you won't have a chance to add a note)

✔️ Personalizing your request will increase the chances of them accepting it.

3. Keep the personalization short and sweet (there is a 300-character limit).

Here are a few ideas (choose only one 🔸 for your message)
​

"Hi [first name],

I’m looking to re-enter the workforce after a career break and am interested in [industry/role].

🔸 I’ve been following X company’s Y initiative. I came across your role in its success and would love to learn more about [company/industry/role]! Are you willing to chat for 20 min at some point this month?

🔸 Your career path as a X-to-Y stood out to me. If you have 20 minutes, I’d love to learn how you started working in the field.

🔸 I loved your recent [mention popular article or post]. I'm eager to learn [how you started working in the field / more about X company / the most relevant skills for X role, in your opinion] if you can spare 20 min at some point in these next few weeks to share your wisdom?

I appreicate your consideration.

Thanks, [Your first name]

The above ideas hover around 300 characters (depending on the length of your name and how you tweak).

A good idea is to copy/paste your message in an free character counter

(I like this one )

And then tweak from there to ensure it's 300 or below.

Last:

⭐️ When they accept your invitation (whether they've replied yet or not), ALWAYS thank them.

"Thanks for accepting my invitation to connect, [First name]"

Happy connecting!! 🤗

And, as always, hit reply to this email anytime if you have questions and I'm happy to help.

Here with you every step of the way,

rebecca joy