The Next Step When You Meet A Brand Manager
If you meet someone who works at a brand that you want to work with, what’s the next step?
Ask for their email? Send a cold pitch? Ask what their marketing goals are?
No.
The first step is to take that person out to lunch. In the old days of advertising, brand managers paid fancy agencies a lot of money for two reasons: so their bosses wouldn’t get mad, and so the agency they hired would take them out to fancy dinners.
Obviously, things have come a long way since the Ogilvy days, and that’s a good thing. But one thing remains the same: people who work at brands love free food.
If you can make a genuine connection with someone over a meal, they’ll start seeing you as a partner, instead of an opportunistic freelancer. When you ask them about what they’re working on, or what their goals are, they’ll tell you about everything going on in the company. When you send them a pitch, they’ll be motivated to push it through, instead of feeling annoyed.
And when you’re on set together, making creative decisions side by side, they’ll be glad they took you up on lunch.
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