If you buy a book about how to raise venture capital or angel investor money, the traditional advice is that you have to send in your business plan and hope it miraculously gets noticed in the slush pile, or have your banker, accountant and lawyer try to get your plan or idea in front of the right people. Current wisdom for angel money is to submit your plan into AngelSoft.

Afterall, VCs are hard to reach, right? They’re busy people, always on the go, always being hit up for money, and typically being pitched really really bad ideas.

So I was surprised to find out that David Aronoff at Flybridge Capital Partners holds open office hours. And he advertises them to the public on his blog!

Now of course you have to email David and if you sound stupid or if you’re a psycho he can refuse to meet (i.e., not disclose where he’ll be). But if you have any mojo whatsoever it sounds like you’d get a meeting. I emailed David to find out what he gets out of these meetings and he responded:

I have done office hours 4 times in the last year and found them to be very worthwhile. Though none have yet resulted in a new investment, I have meet some great people and continue to hold discussions with many.

I also know a CEO of mid-size company who still answers his own phone and routinely agrees to meet with sales people who track him down. I asked him why he spends his time this way. “You can’t imagine all the good ideas, new contacts, and competitive information I get just by saying ‘yes’ a lot.”

Are you open to taking meetings? How often do you say “yes”?

– Kevin

——–

Kevin Kruse is a NY Times bestselling author and keynote speaker. Get more success and tips from his newsletter at kevinkruse.com and check out keynote video clips. His new book, Employee Engagement 2.0, teaches managers how to turn apathetic groups into emotionally committed teams.