DD Buddy – Alex Crosby
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About the Episode
Today’s guest attributes networking as one of the keys to success and shares some of his favorite networking hacks. Also, listen to the part of the show where he shares how you can get press from local news outlets.
Alex Crosby is President and Founder at DD Buddy.
Show Notes
Best Practices in Networking
- Get the referring person to make the introduction. When is that person meeting up with this other person? Arrange to meet up with them and get introduced.
- Learn from the experiences of other people. It is so much better to simply learn from the failures of other people. Through networking, one can listen to other people’s mistakes and from the comfortable wisdom of hindsight, decide on what you should do instead.
- Get students to pick up your cause. People love to help out students; If a student makes the pitch for you, it is not a sales call but a student learning the ropes of a sales call; If you have no students, use an email with an @edu email address.
- Approach people by asking them what they think of your idea. It works.
- Keep in mind that the person you may be talking to might not be the right person for your pitch but the people he knows might be the people you need.
- Think out of the box when developing your network. A good one is a networking hack by someone who posted a job for advisers. He explained that he needed expert advice on his idea and Fortune100 CTOs answered.
How to Get Press from Local News Outlets
There is no one more passionate than a student with a cause. If you have an app that actually has the potential of being a community mover, involve students because students have contacts they may not even be aware of. Sometimes, if students endorse something because it is community impacting, government agencies have to pay attention otherwise the press will pick it up negatively. But if the local government ends up being receptive, positive press is even better. Being a local endeavor, the press people are only too happy to recommend you to other local press people. Always end a meeting with the press with the question, “Who else should I talk to?”
Show Mentions
Fav app:
Pandora: (iTunes | Google Play)
Tinder: (Google Play)
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