How do you approach an influencer, a “guru” or a podcaster / blogger in your niche offering a commission without being too direct?

Parker Woodward, Referral Marketing Automation for B2B Sales answered:

Do the opposite.

Think about it from their point of view. They get requests like these all the time and most of the time the request comes from random people they don’t know. That would be kind of annoying right? You get an email from someone you don’t know but they want you to do something for them? You’d delete that email too.

Best way to get their attention… get a referral from someone they know and trust. Get someone else they know and trust to introduce you (this is the whole reason I built my business www.referralriver.com). Referrals work the best.

Second best way…develop a relationship with them before asking for anything. Don’t email and ask for something right away. You wouldn’t ask someone to marry you on a first date would you?

Develop the relationship slowly. Give them value before ever asking for anything in return. Over just a few short weeks you could easily establish a relationship to the point where you could actually mention an “ask” which should be very open-ended and create absolutely zero work/friction for the person you are asking.

One of my favorite techniques to warm-up a relationship…just email and tell them you appreciated (insert an article they wrote or service they provide, whatever, just stroke their ego). Tell them you’re a fan and often point people their way. Then go way above and beyond and find their physical mailing address (it’s not that hard to do) and send them a small gift or hand-written postcard in the mail just to say thanks. Then email them once you know they got it and just say thanks again. Then start emailing them various articles or things they might think are valuable, I’d say no more than once every 4 days. Connect on Linked-In and message them funny pictures or GIF’s. Show them you’re human. Make them laugh and smile and just say “Hey I appreciate all you’ve done so just wanted to return the favor and make you smile (insert funny GIF here)”.

Then, once they know who you are, don’t ask them directly to partner…ask them if they know anyone who would be interested in partnering.

Below is a template I’ve used with great success…and the beauty is that they will often ask for more info and get interested themselves, but usually only if you have offered them some sort of value to stand out amongst the crowd.

—
Hey (prospect first name),

Hope you laughed at the last GIF I sent.

I was just wondering if you knew anyone that would be interested in a partnership/affiliate opportunity…

Real quick summary…

I’m building a SaaS that automates the process of asking for referrals…it uses artificial intelligence to find potential leads in your existing customers network and makes it super simple for your customers to make the referral (one click of a button).

If you know anyone that has an audience of people that would benefit from something like this I’d be grateful for an intro.

I won’t let you down I promise if you can make an intro. I’ll draft up all the marketing material and do all of the work, so all they would have to do is say “ok”, hit copy, paste, and send and I’d be happy to pay them 25% commission for life (or if there is another payment structure in mind I’m happy to talk about it)

So what do you think? Can you help me out?

Thanks,

Parker