Why people ignore your coffee chat requests and how you can get to yes.

Hey, I get it. As an intern, I was encouraged to ask for coffee chats with co-workers. When I was at business school, recruiters posted coffee chat time slots and encouraged us to fill them. So I know there is a place and time for coffee chats.

Coffee chats worked in those environments because each side was vested to the other. It works when you’re an intern because other employees are recruiting and vetting you. It works when you’re a student speaking with recruiters because the recruiter can use it as a platform to evaluate your candidacy. It doesn’t work however to ask a busy professional for their time when you don’t even know them.

Coffee chats have a time and a place — but you need to understand when and where

Ryan Holiday articulated this challenge well on his post To Everyone Who Asks For ‘Just A Little’ Of Your Time: Here’s What It Costs To Say Yes.

You can only hand so many hours of your day over to other people before there is none left. Even if there are some left, you may have lost the clarity, the energy and the capacity to do anything with them.

The following request is short, professional, and courteous but my answer will always be no. So let me explain why and teach you how to get better results.

A cold email I received. Are you offering help with artificial intelligence? Are you looking for my general thoughts on how AI will change the future? What exactly is the goal here and does it make sense for both sides?

What’s the big deal about just 15 minutes?

I get that the offer to treat me to a cup of coffee may be just a figure of speech, but let’s assume you meant it… because words have meaning. So let’s walk through what this would be like.

For you to treat me to coffee I would have to go somewhere to physically meet you for said coffee, which is at least 15 minutes away from where I work. I would then be confronted with a typical line snaking out the door:

Cafe Borrone (Menlo Park, CA)

After waiting 10 minutes trying to keep up with slack messages or having an awkward side conversation with you about the weather and where you parked, I would then get stuck behind the next person in line:

Some very nice and extremely pleasant people are working through the menus deciding what they would like to order. It’s a weekday afternoon and they’re not in a rush, nor should they be.

By now I am already regretting my decision to say yes to this meeting and we haven’t even started.

We then order our drinks and 5 minutes later they are ready. I’ve spent 15 minutes traveling to the cafe, 15 minutes waiting to get a drink that I don’t even want, and we are yet to begin.

I check my watch as we jump into our 15 minute session, and assuming I have the discipline of cutting us off precisely after 15 minutes, I step out and begin the 15 minute trip back to the office. Total time: 1 hour.

Ratio of productive time to total time: 25%. Even if this was the most important meeting of my entire day, a 25% efficiency ratio would be awful, and this is far from the most important thing I do all day.

If I spend an hour with you, that’s two one-on-ones I could have used to invest in my employees. That’s a gym workout I could have had. That’s an hour that I could have spent with my family.

Ok, what if we really made it just 15 minutes?

Even if it was “only” 15 minutes where you show up at my office and we dive right into it, it’s not a true 15 minutes. Now I have to schedule other things around our meeting. I have to wrap up what I’m doing and time box my previous work. It’s an interruption to my workflow.

If my job was as an investor meeting people then perhaps this makes sense. But that’s not my job.

I stay as late as it takes to get my work done, so any time not performing my primary duty will end up as time away from my family or getting less sleep.

When asking an entrepreneur for 15 minutes of their time, treat it with the same weight as asking them to sleep 15 less minutes that night.

It really needs to be worth it. This is not a complaint, because I choose my lifestyle. It is however an important perspective to understand.

You likely also understand that you’re not the only one asking for somebody else’s time. If I said yes to every 15 minute request, how much of my day would be left? And how much of my cognitive load do I want to spend choosing which arbitrary request to say yes or no to?

Ok, I get you’re busy but why are you being such a jerk about it?

The jerk is not the person who tells you that you have green stuff stuck between your teeth, the jerk is the guy who doesn’t.

The jerk thing to do would be to just ignore your email, which I’m guessing 90% of people do. The neutral thing to do is to write you back and say “Sorry, I’m just swamped this month. Heads down, you know? Good luck.” But that wouldn’t be the full truth either. I don’t lie to people, even white lies. That goes against my principles, and it also does you a disservice because you remain oblivious.

The hardest thing to do, but what is ultimately best for you, is to help you understand why your pitch is not compelling so you can learn and improve. That is why I’m writing this — for your benefit — not mine.

So if not coffee, what should I have asked you instead?

There are two issues you need to consider to make your request compelling:

• The what: Is asking for a “coffee chat” the best medium?
• The why: Are you offering a compelling explanation?

Let’s tackle the what first.

First, drop the whole coffee thing. I don’t even drink coffee, so it’s an immediate turn off. For those who drink coffee, they may only drink it in the morning, may not have an option close to work, or don’t want to deal with the hassle. Consider asking for a 10 minute phone call or meeting at their office. That would cut down needless overhead time and create less of an excuse to say no.

Consider also that sometimes a simple email could be the better format. If you just have a few questions, it would be a lot easier for me to asynchronously answer them in my gap time rather than block off time on my calendar. Make sure to keep your questions short and to the point.

Finally, keep in mind that sometimes a coffee chat may be the best option if you know that the person enjoys coffee and regularly hangs out in cafes. This is likely if they don’t have a permanent office or if they are traveling. Find out ahead of time what cafes they like, or what kind of coffee they like to drink and mention that in your pitch. How will you find that out? You’ll need to put in some time and be creative.

You’re already asking for somebody else’s time, it’s only fair you invest some of your own time to show you are making the effort.

More important is the why?

Coffee chats work fine when you’re an intern or meeting with your career counselor who is paid to meet with you, but your pitch needs to be far more compelling if reaching out to somebody without a vested interest. Treating me for a cup of coffee in exchange for my time implies you value my time the same as a $5 cup of coffee. Is that the message you want to send?

I spent the first 10 years of my career in service to our country and have helped hundreds of people with career advice. Anybody who knows me knows that I am generous with my time and that I love helping people, but I am also disciplined.

To ask anyone for their time is a big ask regardless of who they are. You can earn more money in life but you can never get your time back. Asking for somebody’s time is asking for the most precious thing they have to give.

So here are 5 tips that could make your ask more compelling

1. Get an intro through a mutual contact. Use a double opt-in intro.
2. Point to a specific area of experience that makes them particularly qualified to help. Unfortunately I can’t individually help every person just because they want to go to Berkeley, Harvard, or Y Combinator. But if they want to know what it was like to go from being a Bioengineering major to the Marine Corps, then I start to see how my background is relevant. Be specific.
3. Present a very specific ask for what you need. If you’re just asking for general business advice, there are millions of other people who can help you better than I can.
4. If there is value you can reciprocate to the other person, let them know. For many people the knowledge that they are creating a positive impact is enough, but if there is something more, make it known. Even if it’s just a promise to pay the favor forward to others in the future.
5. Keep your email request short. It should fit on one iPhone screen.

Bonus: Do your research on how the other person likes to meet. Maybe it’s in the evenings, maybe it’s on weekends. Maybe it’s doing a call while they’re driving in to work. For me, it’s going on walking meetings. Do your homework.

Doing the leg work on the above will require you to invest some of your own personal time. You have to do the grunt work. Most people won’t do it, which is why people like me are more likely to say yes to those who do. It’s a signal you really value the exchange.

Keep in mind that these tips will help your chances of getting someone’s time but they are far from a guarantee.

The ability to focus on what is most important and to say no is a valuable skill. It is something to admire. Be respectful of other people’s time and they will be respectful of yours.

Good luck… and I hope this post will help unlock some great opportunities.