As we talk about in the chapter “It Takes a Network,” a good way to strengthen your network is to make an introduction between two people who would benefit from knowing each other.
When you introduce two people, you’re in a unique situation:
1. You’re at an informational advantage: You know both parties, and usually you know why the two should get to know each other. Meanwhile, they know nothing about each other.
2. Both people are presumably busy, so you want to make it easy for them to take action and quickly decide if it makes sense to get to know each other.
3. You’ve instantly bestowed social pressure on both the recipients. Because you know each of the recipients, they will feel social pressure to respond (whether you intend this or not). The worst introductory emails make busy people resent having to respond to someone they don’t know, whom they aren’t sure why they’re being introduced.
Read our article that covers three types of email introductions.
