Since launching The Growth Show podcast in February 2015, we’ve been fortunate to land interviews with some really busy people, including executives of billion-dollar businesses and founders on the cusp of building the next big thing.

For some of them, we had an “in.” Somebody knew somebody else and happily made the introduction.

But we weren’t so lucky with some of the other guests. We wanted to get in touch, but didn’t have mutual connections. So I’d send them an email — targeted, relevant to their interests, and completely custom, but still the first email I had ever sent them. In most situations, this is called a cold email. And somehow, among all of the other pitches they get for podcast interviews, speaking engagements, and business consulting, these guests noticed my emails in their inbox and actually responded.