“If you send $4 million by 11 o’clock in the morning, I’ll insure it,” Buffett reportedly told Rangers owner Tom Hicks at the time. Hicks sent him cash the next day, and Buffett insured Rodriguez’s 10-year contract.
Years later, when Rodriguez learned what had transpired, he used the connection to book a meeting with Buffett.
“I cold-called his office… I said, ‘Hey, I’m in business with Warren Buffett, do mind if I have a call with him or something?'” Rodriguez remembers.
Buffett agreed and soon became one of A-Rod’s top mentors in finance and business.
“[They said], ‘Why doesn’t he come up and spend the day with [Buffett] in Omaha?'” Rodriguez says. “And I ended up doing that like five or six years in a row and had some great times with him.”
This strategy also worked for Birchbox CEO Katia Beauchamp.
When Beauchamp co-founded Birchbox, she had no experience in technology or beauty, so she began reaching out to anyone who could possibly lend her advice.
“I cold-emailed every CEO of the beauty industry you can imagine,” Beauchamp said at a CornellTech@Bloomberg event. “And it worked.”
The business landed key partnerships early on with big beauty brands like Kiehl’s and Benefit, something Beauchamp says was crucial to landing investors as well as customers.
Intimidating as it might seem to reach out to a dream mentor, it never hurts to take a chance on a connection and ask. Need some help? You can follow Beauchamp’s recipe for the perfect cold-email here.
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