What You Must Do the Next Time You Meet a Guy you'd like to Go Out with...
by Robin Forbes
If you want to increase the amount of guys you go out with this year, there's something that you should be doing - It's what every good salesman does - It's what Robert Downey Jr. did in that movie called, "The Pick-Up Artist", (yeah the one where he got "played" by Molly Ringwald at his own game)...
You need to be collecting leads and following up on them.
From now on, you need to ask and get from every potential guy you meet, 3 things:
1. Get their Name,
2. Get their E-mail address, and
3. Get their Phone Number.
By the way, I use this strategy for online personals too.
Often your first contact with a guy at an online personals site will be through the sites' email system, (which keeps your personal email address private) and quite often you'll only have a nickname or screen name to go by.
So the thing you need to be doing at those sites, is to sort through the flakes and the lookey-loos and get them to give you a name and e-mail address first, and as soon as possible get a phone number from them too. More on this in an article later on...
I'm going to break things down into a bunch of little tips or notes in point form that you can use when you meet a guy that you want to set up a date with. This is of course, for scenarios where you've just met the guy and don't have any contact info on him.
For the purposes of this scenario, by "meeting a guy", I'm talking about, guys that you meet everyday and strike a conversation. Perhaps you bump into some guy at a store, or coffee shop, on the way to work, at the gym, at a bar, etc...
Wherever, it doesn't matter - here's the deal, you see someone you want to get better acquainted with; you go up and introduce yourself. Spot a guy reading a book; ask him where you can pick up a copy or if he's read any others by the same author, catch a guy eyeing you while you're picking out some new underwear, ask him what color he thinks would be more flattering on you...
Pick-up Tips:
• Whenever you meet a guy, get his name as soon as possible; as early in the conversation or introduction that you can manage. If you're at a party, dinner, or some other get together it's pretty easy to get the name in the first few seconds of introduction.
• There's often two opportune times to ask a guy his name; just as you introduce yourself and just as you're about to make your exit. Here's an exit example: "It was great talking to you but I gotta run now - Oh I forgot to introduce myself, my name is ____, what's yours?" Etc...
• And then you hit him up for his email address.
• E.g.: "Hey, I'd like to continue this conversation some other time with you, maybe over coffee...say, why don't you give me your email address and I'll let you know when I'm free..." or something like this. Come up with something that works for you for the situation at hand.
• Don't hesitate. While you ask the guy for his e-mail address, pull out a card, piece of paper or small notebook as well as a pen and offer the pen to him. This helps create a reflex where the guy has to take the pen from your proffered hand.
• Yes, the guy may hesitate to take the pen… Disarm him with your best charming grin, or maybe a sly grin, or how about a cocky grin - make a little joke, perhaps something along the lines of promising to send every cutesy joke you can find on the web…Don't actually go ahead and send him all those jokes by the way.
• Just before the guy finishes writing down his e-mail address, casually say, "Oh, write down your phone number too while you're at it..."
• He's already in writing mode, and as he's already giving you his e-mail address, he'll probably just go with the flow and jot down his phone number too.
• E-mail the guy the next day or the day after, at the latest. Do not wait a whole week.
• Keep you're email light, and short, don't write a novel. Remind him who you are and where you met. Tell him that you enjoyed your conversation with him the other day --Perhaps you could bring up something that you had already talked about when you met him. Tell him that you'll give him a call later on in the week.
• Why am I suggesting using e-mail first instead of calling up on the phone? Because it can be less threatening; by that I mean that you don't have to worry about awkward pauses and silences. It also allows you to keep things brief in the first contact after you've met and it offers you a chance to take the next step and call the guy for a date, when you're good and ready.
• And then the next step is to call him up on the phone. Keep the call super brief, tell him you've got some time for that coffee and conversation that you mentioned the other day.
• Whatever you do, do not set up a major date at this point and do not set up a date for the bars or clubs. In fact, don't even call it a date. You're going out for coffee with an interesting guy that you just met. After this initial low-key get-together, if you haven't been scared off, then go for it and set up a date in a week or two.
• Now get out there and start taking names and numbers.
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