👋 Introducing yourself with GIFs

Here’s an example of Will introducing himself to a prospect, Gosia, after they’ve connected on LinkedIn.

Gosia probably gets a bunch of people messaging her every day. But when she opens this message from Will, she’s immediately greeted by a friendly face and content written just for her.

A friendly and expressive pose works great for these GIFs

We’re not asking for Gosia’s time, positioning heavy questions for her to answer, forcing her to click links, we’re simply letting her know that we’re happy to be connected.

The GIF separates Will from the crowd. Gosia will be more familiar with Will in future, and he’s become less of a faceless nuisance and more of a real person.

Chances of having a productive conversation in the future have just gone way up

Here’s an example of Chris reaching out to Megan who’s in charge of the support team at an outdoor camping business.

He’s already had a chat with Sally, and she’s referred him on to Megan.

Here’s the thing - Chris contacted Sally; built great rapport, an understanding of her usecase, got a strong sense of how he could help; but was then delegated down to a leader within Sally’s team...

When this happens, it’s easy to lose momentum by sending a faceless email that Megan has reflexively learnt to ignore during her tenure as a support leader.

Instead of this, Megan opens the email and immediately sees Chris waving back at her with specific context on an intro from someone she reports to. The GIF provides context, but it also serves to humanize Chris and make him feel like less of a stranger.

This is one of the simplest ways to turn a good referral into a strong one by making yourself more personable and familiar.

Chris still needs to re-run the discovery with Megan, take it all from the top on that next call, but he’s made himself more approachable and increased the likelihood of having a productive conversation as a next step.