How to Connect With an Industry Guru

The other day the heavens opened up, God looked at me and smiled.

What happened?

You see I have been following a certain internet marketing guru for a while. In my humble opinion he is a rising star in the industry.

I had this question that I really needed an expert to answer it and I knew that he would be the perfect candidate to answer my question. I knew that he could direct me to the right resources of information and websites that I was looking for.

But how in the world can I possibly connect with this ‘guru’, when he doesn’t even know me? Why in the world would he even bother to answer my question?

Here is what I did [and you should try this to!]:

1] I started to follow his postings on the web – when ever he posted an article I was making an effort to be the first one to comment with something like: “Great post! This article shares valuable information.... Since I saw that comments had to go through moderation I knew that he would see my comment.

2] I Stumbled [social bookmarked] his articles on the web and his website.

3] I wrote an article about him on the web and then I sent him the article.

After about a week I felt it was time to ask him my question. I emailed him the question and waited for his answer. It took about two weeks till he got back to me, but in his answer he started off by thanking me for my nice comments, stumbling his website and for my article about him! His answer was great.

The lessoned that I learned from this guru:

In life, people like recognition. This is very important. Even leading industry gurus like recognition. As the old Dale Carnegie rule says - if you make someone feel important – they will respond to you and they will give you attention.. even the most important person.

There is also a valuable lesson here in customer service. By his response to me he has turned me into a loyal follower of him. He was wise enough to understand that when you have people who are showing interest in your information, business or service – the first thing you want to do is – to 'protect' them. To protect them means that you should be doing things that will keep them your loyal followers.