How to get Tom Hanks on your podcast

Step 1 - Research

First up, we need an angle. How can we connect with Tom Hanks and not just be another person asking him to do something:

Typewriters! Tom Hanks loves typewriters.

Step 2 - Idea

We’ve got an angle. Now we need an idea.

What about if we send him a vintage typewriter? Or, even better, what if we type out our podcast invitation on a vintage typewriter and leave it in the carriage:

Step 3 - Execution

Now, all we need is Tom Hank's address.

FanMail.Biz and Contact Any Celebrity show the same place. Reddit confirms it. Let’s post this thing:

Results

Four days later Tom Hanks sends back a brilliant reply:

* * *

This is the formula Chris Hardwick used to get Tom Hanks to come on his podcast back in 2012.

It works for the same reason you open a FedEx envelope before a regular envelope. We can’t help but assume the importance of a message is proportional to the cost of delivering it.

Whose fan mail shall I reply to first? Probably the people who sent me a vintage 1934 Smith Corona.

For more articles on this topic I'd recommend, “Costly Signalling Theory”