The Intro You Didn't Ask For
Don't ask for others to get the door for you. Be the reason they want open it.
Stop begging for “a quick intro.”
An often overlooked measure of success is the frequency of your unsolicited introductions. If your work is truly undeniable, people won’t just open the door, they’ll drag their best contacts through it without you asking. Excellence attracts advocates.
In 1947, Christian Dior didn’t have to lobby the fashion elite to notice his “New Look.” The designs were so disruptive that Harper’s Bazaar editor Carmel Snow famously grabbed him and declared his work a revolution. She didn’t wait for a pitch; she spent the next year introducing him to every power player in Paris because being the person who “found” Dior was the ultimate social currency.1
Reputation as Collateral: People only volunteer intros when your excellence makes them look like a genius for discovering you. When a buyer introduces a sales rep to a peer, they aren’t doing you a favor, they are taking a risk. Make it worth it.
Low-Friction Scaling: Volunteered intros bypass the “BS filter” and the gatekeepers that stop 90% of reps at the door.
The Magnetism of Merit: No investor wants to use their social currency on a brand that hasn’t found its “why.” When your traction is undeniable, the intro becomes an opportunity for them to look like a visionary.
She didn’t literally walk him hand-in-hand to every house, but she dedicated the editorial power of Harper’s Bazaar to him. She featured him in every major issue, introduced his work to the most powerful American buyers (like Neiman Marcus), and orchestrated his first trip to the USA. For more details, see Dior by Dior: The Autobiography of Christian Dior and A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Art, and Letters by Penelope Rowlands.