how to get an enthusiastic YES
Great things require people to accomplish. It's rare to achieve a significant milestone entirely by yourself - more often than not, others help you directly or indirectly.
Getting help requires them to first answer "Yes" to your request. Here are examples of things you might ask for:
- Warm intro: “I'd love to meet your friend from X company. Would you be open to making an intro?”
- Driving distribution: “Could you help engage with this tweet?”
- Getting that opening in a top company: “I’d be a great fit and here’s what I can do: X,Y,Z. ”
- Closing a sale: “It sounds like we agree. To move forward, can we ...”
As with all business advice, it tends to apply well in all facets of life. You should aim to get an enthusiastic yes in all interactions in your day-to-day:
- Closing a date
- Suggesting where to meet up with a friend
- Getting more than what you paid for
- Asking to extend a work deadline
- Changing a meeting time
- Advocating for more budget
Notice these are all examples where the other person COULD do what you asked… they could not do it, or worse, they could ghost you.
They have a wide range of justifiable responses and you can never force them to comply.
Why Do People Say No?
It's very obvious. When do You say no? When you can't be assed to do something.
When can't you be assed to do something? When you feel like it's a waste of time. When there isn't anything in it For You.
People, similarly, say no because they don’t think a situation is beneficial to them.
As the person writing the request, it is YOUR job to sell them on why it's beneficial for them.
The problem is that you're probably thinking about yourself.
When you're thinking of going on a date with that 8/10, you are likely thinking what you'd get out of it at the end of the night - not what she will find appealing.
Do the opposite. This is the most important time to position why an idea is good for the other person.
The truth is all of your requests are inherently selfish. Counteract this default "me"-centric view by actively practicing viewing things from the other person's POV.
A good heuristic to this is seeing how many times you use the word "I" versus "You" when requesting something.
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Try This
In this world of AI slop sales pitches, here's something that stands out: Once you’ve drafted your note, ask yourself:
1. What parts benefits the other person?
2. Why would they eagerly say yes to this?
Then, delete 95% of everything that's not helping 1) or 2).
Example
Imagine we got the following message:
Hi WSPArchive,
I’m [Your Name], host of [Podcast Name] (we talk finance, masculinity, and building a life that actually moves forward). {I ran across your work on X and it pulled me into the newsletter archive}. {The way you give niche, actionable advice that help men move forward} is rare—and it’s exactly what my audience is hungry for. {Especially this article - "A Definitive Guide to Doing The Opposite"}
{I’d love to feature you on the show} for a focused conversation on:
- finance that actually works (your teachings of systems, cashflow and avoiding dumb traps)
- masculinity and dating without performative bullshit
- getting ahead in life
{This is a new, fast-growing channel popular among young men}. The listeners are action-takers (they implement, share clips, and follow who they respect).
Here’s how we make it worth your time:
- {You’ll get a clean, edited episode + 6–10 short clips you can post from your profiles anywhere}
- {We’ll promote the episode across audio + YouTube + newsletter and point everyone back to your paid newsletter}
- {You’ll literally see how people apply your ideas} because we pull real audience questions + scenarios (so it becomes proof your framework works in the wild)
And I’ll keep it frictionless:
{Would you be open to hopping on?} We can do a 45-minute remote recording. {Either grab a slot here: [Scheduling Link] or just reply with 2–3 times that work and I’ll lock it in.}
If you want to stay ultra-low effort, {send me 5 bullets or links you want to cover and I’ll shape the run-of-show for you.}
Excited to promote your great work.
Best,
[Sales Pitch Author]
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Notice a few things about the message:
- the majority of the note is about their audience and how it can help us. There is little mention about what the podcast does.
- at the end, they recommend helping instead of having us to things - we can do the minimal effort of sending a few links and they'll create the notes; This takes a lot burden off and burns away the last centimeters of friction (super important)
- a lot of the message is, and can be boilerplate. But the beginning two paragraphs aren't - they must be authentic and personalized. The rest (the boilerplate) must again be laser-focused on the recipient's needs - they then won't notice it's boilerplate.
Here are a few callouts:
{I ran across your work on X and it pulled me into the newsletter archive}
{Especially this article - "A Definitive Guide to Doing The Opposite" }
Means they actually follow us. It means they spent some time reading the letter. Maybe subscribed, got the welcome email showing them the top articles and then actually reading some.
This is an incredibly important part of the e-mail. Get it wrong here and nobody will read the rest.
{The way you connect money habits to discipline and self-respect}
Praise. It's important to praise your recipient so you get their spirits up.
{I’d love to feature you on the show}
Notice the framing - "I WOULD LOVE TO feature YOU". It frames it as if they are the one doing the favor, and we are the one winning out of this.
{This is a new, fast-growing channel popular among young men.}
Makes it clear why it's a valuable resource. "New", "Fast-Growing", "Young Men demographic" (matches ours). This is way different than saying "It's a good quality channel where we talk about X,Y,Z"
{You’ll get a clean, edited episode + 6–10 short clips you can post from your profiles anywhere}
Tangible, clear deliverables. We get something concrete we can use.
{We’ll promote the episode across audio + YouTube + newsletter}
A promise of distribution. Proves they'll help promote us.
{Would you be open to hopping on?}
Low pressure CTA. No timeline, no "must". Are you "OPEN"? The answer is a very simple "yes/no". We don't need to think about adding a "but..." (e.g if a time was suggested and didn't match)
{Either grab a slot here: [Scheduling Link] or just reply with 2–3 times that work and I’ll lock it in.}
Immediate actionable follow up that removes all friction.
If you want to stay ultra-low effort, {send me 5 bullets or {{LINKS}} you want to cover and I’ll shape the run-of-show for you.}
World class. Not only would they create the out of a few dumb bullets from us -- but they also suggested we simply send a few links of our articles and they'd take it from there. It doesn't get easier than this.
As a final tip - Ctrl+F "you" in that letter to see how many times it's used. 😉