I’ve often make myself available to entrepreneurs. I tell them to reach out to me anytime they need help. When I first started offering my time like this, I was nervous because I thought I’d be bombarded with requests. Instead, most ask for nothing.
I know I can help them. I know they need feedback or at least an outside perspective on decisions. I’ve faced many of those decisions before in my own businesses.
Their lives would be better, success greater, and journey more enjoyable if they would just ask for help more.
How to Ask for Help
Reaching a successful person the first time is hard. They have too many people wanting too much from them. Long ago, they also realized an unfortunate fact: most of those who ask for help do nothing with the advice provided.
When we heavily promoted an online training program on building a consumer products business using Amazon, many friends and family members would ask me for advice. “Can you help me launch my Amazon business?” I’d give recommendations, including offering to review potential products to sell. I’d also give them free access to our online program which we sold for as much as $5,000.
I can’t recall a single person I ever gave the course to who actually launched a business with it. (They didn’t even try.)
That’s why it seems like some people don’t want to help you. They’ve been let down too many times.
Here’s how to ask for help and to get as much of it as you’d like:
1 – Learn as much as possible on your own first. Read, talk with your peers, take courses, go to events. Learn as much of the basics and foundational concepts before asking someone to spend their time on you.
2 – Find the few people you really want help from and reach out to them with thoughtful, personalized messages. Most won’t respond. That’s OK. Keep trying. You only need one to start.
3 – When a successful person gives you advice, use it. You’ll be tempted to question it or to only take bits and pieces of what they’ve advised, discarding the rest. Don’t. The advice they give you is distilled from decades learning and experimenting. Don’t waste an ounce of it.
4 – Report back. These people love seeing others benefiting from their ideas and experience. Tell them how applying their advice improved your life. This opens the door for you to receive more advice from them. Each time, repeat the steps above.
The 3 Mistakes of Asking for Help
Here’s what most people do when asking for help that causes them to never receive it in the first place or never to receive any subsequent help from those who take a chance on them:
- Ask for help without doing any work to research and learn upfront.
- Ask via long-winded, convoluted messages. (If a request is more than a few sentences, I won’t read it.)
- Do nothing with the advice received. (This includes making excuses as to why the advice couldn’t be implemented.)
One Ask Away
A greater life and higher success is one request away. Follow the four steps to receive help and avoid the three mistakes above. You’ll build a collection of people who want you to thrive and will go out of their way to help you do so.
Then, years from now, pass on your wisdom to others who are where you’re at today.
This post is part of a series inspired by Steven Pressfield’s calling question, “What would you do if you had three months left to live?” I’d share what I’ve learned with those I love and anyone who’d listen. Here are all Lessons.