Sara Mccord says, “Please tell me you’ve read Adrian J. Hopkins’ recent Daily Muse article, “How to Handle Requests for Favors or Your Time.” If not, make sure you check it out (and bookmark it).

Hopkins examines what connecting with someone really entails and walks through the steps of assessing whether you have the time and energy to help a new contact. His article got me thinking: If there are best practices to decide whether or not to assist a new connection, surely there have to be hacks for the other side of the equation (i.e., things you can do to make people more likely to want to meet with you).

Here are three shifts that can make all in the difference in how your request is received.

1. Be literal about time

Let’s start with the two words (or one compound word) you should never use: “some time.” If you ask someone if she has “some time” to talk or if you could meet up with him “sometime,” you’re setting yourself up to fail”.

3 changes to get more ‘yes’ answers to your networking requests

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