There will be a number of these. This is the first, and it comes from one of the amazing people I am blessed with interacting with in my life. His name is Jeremy Steffler, and he patiently sat with me and walked me through the process. Jeremy and I talk a lot, you’ll be hearing more about our conversations.

The dilemma: You. You are a young excitable thing. You want to take over the world, and you’re well aware of the fact that you won’t be able to do so without some strategic alliances, i.e. networking. (You can’t command an army without a few advisor-generals you know.) So you put yourself out there and after a bit of socialising, you meet someone in your industry and/or community who knows the people, who know the people who can help you get to where you want to be. They could mentor you!

So, do you ask them to mentor you, since their current path so closely follows your own?

The solution: Not necessarily. If what you need from them is just a key pieces of knowledge, what you may need to pursue is an information session as opposed to a formal mentor relationship.

What’s an information session?

It’s an hour or half hour or 15 minute block of time in which you ask the person you respect key questions related to a set number of topics. The goal is twofold:

1) You want to find out the answers to your questions that they are able to answer.

2) You want to keep your foot in the door for future communication.

This second goal is the most important one. When you tell them you want an hour of their time, show the respect they need to see from you in order for them to want to be around you more in the future. How? Well the best way is by sticking to that hour.

Before the meeting, be very clear with what it is you want from them. Email them a set of questions if they ask for one. Otherwise, just let them know what it is you want to talk about. Use spellcheck in your emails. If it’s a verbal request, keep “like,” “um,” and vapid expressions to a minimum until you’re in the clear. You know you’re in the clear if at some point during the conversation, they express a genuine interest about you as a person. Listen for something along the lines of “You remind me of me” or “You seem like a highly capable young person”. Then you know you’re in their good graces.

Once you’re at the meeting, if you asked for one hour of their time, make sure you keep it at one hour. At 10 minutes to 5 o’clock, make sure you say “Oh, I see we only have 10 minutes left, so we should start wrapping this conversation up because I understand that you need to get back to your work…” and then leave it open to them to wrap it up. If they have the time and you really wow them, it leaves the door open for “Oh I don’t mind, I can probably stay until 5:30 so we can talk some more about how you’re going to ursurp Oprah and what I can do to help.” Then, you’re golden.

What happens after that? Well the next time you need 15 minutes of their time, they’ll remember you as the respectful and eager person who will only need exactly 15 minutes, and who doesn’t have 15 minutes to share their wisdom to Future Oprah types? And you’ll have developed a reputation as honest, reliable and capable in the eyes of one person, and let me tell you, people talk. Soon, more than one person will know you to be the kind of person they should talk to. Pat yourself on the back, you’ve got your foot on the first rung of success. Awesome sauce.

My $0.02: I feel as though this particular networking tactic would work best with older baby boomers. They’re going through the “legacy” phases of their lives. Basically, for those of you who don’t read studies on development psychology for fun (what?), it means that they’re at the point in their lives now where they’re looking to reach out to scrappy young things (like you!) and begin grooming their proteges and/or imparting their vast stores of wisdom. They’re doing a lot of self reflection, and their eyes are open for those who can continue their work after they retire. They’re beginning to cultivate their legacy. They’re the ones I think would be most willing to sit down with someone who genuinely shows an interest in their work.

Get yourself on the same clubs and committees your key community players are on, regardless of their age. But be genuine about it. If you’re just there to hobnob and not actually provide value, people will sniff it out, you’ll be ostracized from those communities and that’ll be the end of your climb. No fun. Go into the community you seek to influence, identify where areas of need intersect with your skills and make yourself useful.

See also, this: