Video summary
Reaching busy founders and startup leaders who have already achieved significant revenue is challenging because their time is extremely scarce and they are inundated with cold pitches from various service providers. These executives often rely on AI to filter incoming messages, meaning your initial human vetting is bypassed in favor of algorithmic sorting. Consequently, the most effective strategy is not to attempt direct contact through standard cold outreach, which is frequently ignored, but rather to gain entry through their trusted circle. Since these leaders rarely buy services without a strong personal recommendation, building credibility requires either performing high-value free work that genuinely helps them or establishing relationships with the vendors they already trust. By becoming a valuable resource or a reliable partner to these service providers, you can indirectly earn the attention and trust of the top-tier founders you aim to reach.
To build this necessary visibility without being lost in the noise of social media algorithms, one should focus on thoughtful engagement rather than generic commenting. Successful leaders often post content on platforms like X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, or Substack where they receive few comments, presenting a unique opportunity for genuine connection. Instead of joining crowded comment sections, you can stand out by being the first to offer a meaningful response, recording short video acknowledgments, or resharing their content with added value. This consistent, high-effort engagement helps transform strangers into acquaintances over time. Once this rapport is established through public interactions, you can leverage your social skills to deepen the relationship, eventually moving from digital familiarity to a professional partnership where they feel comfortable considering your proposals.
Another powerful method for breaking into these exclusive circles is conducting original research projects that address specific, non-obvious problems faced by these leaders. Since many issues cannot be easily solved by generic AI tools, presenting a comprehensive report or white paper based on deep human-led research demonstrates unique value and expertise. You can approach potential clients by offering them the chance to contribute their insights to your study in exchange for public credit or access to a private summary of findings. This approach positions you as an expert who understands their pain points deeply, making it much easier to secure interviews or consultations. Additionally, starting a podcast that initially features mid-level leaders can serve as a stepping stone; once you have established credibility with these accessible figures, they can introduce you to higher-profile contacts, creating a cascading effect that allows you to reach the most influential founders in your industry.
Ultimately, the key to reaching elite founders lies in demonstrating undeniable value and leveraging existing networks rather than relying on volume-based outreach. Whether through producing high-quality podcast episodes that are edited into shareable assets, conducting original research, or engaging authentically with content creators, the goal is to become a person of interest who solves problems others cannot. By starting with mid-level leaders who are more accessible and building a portfolio of successful collaborations, you create a foundation of trust that higher-profile executives will recognize. This strategy ensures that when you do reach out, you are not just another pitch in a crowded inbox, but a proven partner who has already validated your capabilities within their ecosystem.
Read the full video transcript
Let's say your ideal clients are
founders or startup leaders or other
kind of executives.
How do you reach them? Particularly when
you are
not yet at the level where you're
constantly you know masterminding or
networking with people like them. How do
you kind of get in get in? Okay. So
Here's Yeah, it's a great question
actually and I always say hey, before I
say anything, please pause this video
and comment below with any ideas that
come to mind. It's always good practice
to brainstorm without using AI, okay?
Brainstorm with your old organic human
brain and I'd love to see whatever
response you want to give below. Let's
let's get some ideas going. Um,
okay.
And just to clarify the the questioner
said not just any startup leaders or
founders but
companies that have already reached at
least a million in revenue startup
company small companies at least a
million in revenue and and plus. How do
we reach leaders like that? So, the more
successful a business is, the
the tighter the leaders time because
obviously they have to manage the
business and grow the business but they
also have so many people coming at them.
Can you imagine, right?
If you are able to find a a a founder's
um, contact information,
you can bet that there are a hundred
other people who have found that
information who's trying to get get to
them to do all kinds of work. Whether
it's video editing work or or some kind
of marketing work or you know, PR kind
of work or you know, AI operations or
whatever. Um, these people are getting
getting inundated. And then, of course,
now if there's if there if they use AI,
these leaders, they use AI which
I would guess all of them do. They're
having their AI vet you.
So, you're not no longer being vetted by
the human themselves. The the AI is the
one who is surfacing to them. Oh, yeah,
you received in another 100 cold DMs
last night and I read all of them and
they're all pitches. But this one seemed
kind of interesting. Okay. So I'll I'll
tell you from
Okay, I'll just say this from a from a
fellow busy person,
I've been I've been full-time in my
business since 2009 and and I have been
full-time ever since. Uh six figures.
And as a fellow busy person,
I ignore
all
cold pitches.
I and I I even tell people says, "Oh,
cold DMs, cold emails are are true, you
know, marketing system." And I said,
"Okay, but you're going to It's okay and
maybe using AI is a little better these
days cuz AI can do all the cold outreach
for you." Um cuz I before AI, I would
say that, "No, do you really want it
that many rejections?" Or you have to
hire a an agency to do that for you and
it's expensive.
It's it's possible, but I also don't
want my my accounts to be associated
with spam. Of course, agencies sacrifice
their own accounts to do all this. But I
myself never I've never bought anything
from a cold outreach before. 17 years.
Not not a single thing.
Because I I suspect all of them. I'm
like, "I Why would you reach out to me
cold? Why wouldn't you reach out to me?
Why why why aren't you recommended by a
colleague?" So as a busy person, as a
business leader,
that's my I don't buy anything
unless it has come recommended
by somebody I trust.
Nothing. No service, no product,
nothing. Cuz I'm like, "Why am I vetting
a per person or a product?
Why am I doing that work when other
people have vetted them by trying their
service out and saying this is a
person's really great." And ideally,
I've heard from this about this person
or this service from multiple people
that I trust. Then it's like, "Well, I
have to use it because
both so-and-so and so-and-so said, 'No,
they're legit. They do really great
work. So, therefore,
this is the reality of things.
You have to
get into the good graces of
these levels of people or people who
serve them. Okay, so so it's a little
harder to get into the good graces of a
business leader
because you essentially have to do a lot
of free work for them. Or at least
enough free work that's interesting
enough where they're like,
"You're amazing." Well, and how do you
even do the free work for them? You have
to do free work who's going to refer you
to them.
Okay? So, that's this is real.
So, if you don't want to do free work,
then you have to get into the good
graces of one of their service provider
one of their vendors.
So, that's that's the thing. So, I would
I would look at I I probably wouldn't
try to
get into becoming friends with these top
leaders because sure, okay, I'll I'll
say it another way, but but before I say
that,
if you become friends with the vendors
of these top leaders,
that's an easier way there. And how do
you become friends? Well, that's that's
something you can brainstorm with AI
about depending on what what you can
offer, obviously, right? Um
but another way of getting getting
becoming friends with top leaders is to
comment thoughtfully on their posts
where they don't get comments. And I
promise you,
lots of seven-figure, eight-figure
leaders post things on places like
x.com,
LinkedIn, um sub Substack, right? They
post on I'm calling out particular these
three places where people don't get very
many comments.
Instagram
gets lots of comments. Facebook
maybe also could be added as a fourth.
TikTok gets lots of comments. If you
comment where they're already getting
lots of comments, it's it's no use
because you're just one of many people
who are commenting.
But if you if you're the first
Twitter comment
on a post and it's not AI comment, it's
like they can tell it's a real person
who wrote who wrote this or or better
yet, you know, you you record a video
to say, "Hey, I really want to
appreciate so-and-so said this."
And, you know, you you repost their
tweet.
You reshare their Substack, you know,
public Substack newsletter or or note.
You you reshare their LinkedIn post with
a video
short because they're not they're not
going to watch a 3-minute video. They'll
they'll watch a 60-second video,
30-second video. Great.
But if you are the one who is supporting
their case
for whatever they they they're trying to
educate people about, um they're going
to pay attention to you.
Now, obviously one one reshare, one
comment, now they're not friends with
you, but at least you're familiar with
them now. And if you do that a few
times,
then if you message them or especially
they reply and say, "Hey, that's great.
I'm really glad that, you know, I'm not
the only one who experienced this." or
whatever,
then essentially you're acquaintances
now.
And then it takes your social skills to
take it to the next level, you know,
like
talk about that some other point, but I
hope this is helpful just as some ideas
and uh looking forward to your comments
below. One more thing that I'm surprised
a lot of people don't do
is to do um
an interview uh to do a research project
that is useful to either the leader or
the vendors again.
Everything I'm saying can apply to
either the top leaders you're trying to
reach or the vendors that serve the top
leaders because they're if if they are a
vendor of a top leader, they're also
busy people, right?
So,
I can't believe people don't do this
very much. Do a research project. So,
for example, a top leader,
you brainstorm what problems that
they're probably facing.
That can't be easily found by just using
ChatGPT or whatever. So, step one, find
a problem that the top leaders you want
to reach are facing that's not easily
findable. That takes some research.
Okay, step one. Step two
is
you reach out to them telling them that
you're doing this research project.
You'd love to get their feedback about
it um if they're willing to add to it,
but even if they're not, to let you know
if they if if they would like the
results after you do the research.
Does that make sense? Like, "Hey, I'm
doing this project. You want to be Do
you want to be part of this by by
contributing your idea, um and I can I
can, you know, I I'm going to be
publishing something publicly and I can
include your name and company in the in
the public um,
you know, white paper if you if you
wish, or I can keep you anonymous. Or if
you don't want to contribute, just let
me know if you want to get the private
results that's more comprehensive than
I'm giving to the to the participants."
So, would you like that? Cuz I'm going
to do something publicly anyway, but I'm
going to have a more comprehensive
private report. Um
again, this is a problem they care
about, so they're probably going to say
yes, right?
Do that with a bunch of people
who have that problem.
And then now you are a person of value
because you you went and did the
research or did the yeah, did the deep
deep research. Hopefully, it's not just
something they can do ChatGPT deep
research for, but it's something that's
more thoughtful, more takes a human
orchestration to do. Okay, so that's one
idea. The second idea is very common,
which is everybody does this, but well,
people don't realize they're doing this.
Start a podcast
and interview top leaders. Or start a
podcast, maybe start another podcast and
and focus on interviewing the vendors of
the top leaders.
That's that might be easier, right? Cuz
the vendors are are not as busy, not as,
you know, high profile or whatever.
And here's the key.
Why would they say yes to your cuz
usually the podcast pitches we get are,
"Hey, can I be on your podcast?" Right?
That's usually the pitch we get. We
don't get as many,
"Hey, do you want to be on my podcast?"
Now, if you're high-profile top leader,
obviously they get a lot of those
pitches.
But the difference is
the busier they are, the the more
they'll only say yes if you have had
other top leaders on there that that
they've heard of, right? Obviously.
So, how do you get top leaders they've
heard of? You have to somehow get
somebody in the chain.
You see what I mean? If you you you are
trying to get to person G, okay?
They would only trust you if they if
you've had person F on the podcast.
Person F would only trust you if you
have person A B C D E E on the podcast,
who would only trust you if you have
person D. So, then you have to first get
to person A.
Person A is easier to get. They're only
a mid-level leader. They're not as
high-profile. They still have a lot of
posts that nobody responds to, but
they're pretty successful, and you found
that out by doing some private
networking. You find out this person's
actually kind of kind of successful.
They just aren't high-profile yet. You
get person A, but this person A probably
knows
person D and C, right? As friends. And
so, you get person A,
and then then then person A is able to
introduce you, or at least you can reach
out to person B from their LinkedIn
second degree, you know, first first
degree, their first degree, your second
degree network. And then then you go
from there, right? You kind of cascade
from there all the way to person G after
a while. Now, why would even person A
say yes to being on your podcast?
Because you promised them it's going to
be the best interview they've had in a
long time.
Cuz your podcast has zero subscribers
right now, right?
>> [laughter]
>> Now, hopefully you can do a little bit
of marketing so that you you interview
your own friends first, interesting
people. You you become a really good
interviewer.
And not only that, you become really
good at producing assets after the
interview. I will tell you, I've been on
so many podcast interviews, podcast
interview, and so many of them are
throwaway. I don't even remember who
they are anymore. You know why it
happened?
They had me on for a Zoom call like
this.
They talked to me for an hour.
And then a couple weeks later say, "All
right, George. Here's the YouTube link.
Please please share this far and wide."
And then I never hear from them again.
And then what I do I have? I have a
YouTube link
of a hour-long interview that's not I
mean, it's interesting cuz I'm
interesting, right? But everybody thinks
they're interesting, right? It's not
edited. It's not there's no caption
There's nothing interesting about that
video other than we had a 1-hour-long
conversation.
No, you have to make it I remember the
people who like went out of the way and
like created short clips, right, from
the interview. They created a blog post.
They created, you know, Instagram
carousels all from that interview. And
I'm like, "Nobody else does this except
you. I'm going to share every one of
those. I'm going to share some of them,
the ones that look good." A quote card,
all kinds of assets came and now, of
course, AI can make that possible, easy
to do. So, if you put in high effort,
right, using AI tools to make make you
allowed to do even more,
then you're going to stand out and
you're going to say, "Wow, I want to be
on your interview because you were able
to get person A. I'm person B. You got
person A? Yes, I'll I'll say yes to
you." And then person C will say yes to
you as well. So,
I hope that helps.