Grandma as a PR contact?

The grandmother of my best friend is one of the sweetest women I have met in this world. She and I have come to be very close, and I’m not positive but she may love me more than her grandson. She is very, very close family friends with the Holmgrens, as in Mike Holmgren — coach of the Seattle Seahawks. Since she is so well-connected with the organization, she seems like a perfect resource to get my foot in the door with the organization. My pickle is this: I am not sure how to approach her and ask to get in contact with the Seahawks PR department (this is the guy I’d want to speak to
http://www.seahawks.com/Team/Management.aspx?id=9992 ). It seems all it would take would be a phone call or a chat at church with Coach Holmgren, and I could get the reference and take it from there. Sports PR is my focus of choice because I have seen campaigns my whole life as an avid sports fan. I know that if I get into that field that my passion for sports mixed with my PR knowledge and skills, that I could blossom. Now here is where I am in a pickle. Obviously, she is a networking resource I have, yet I am unsure on how formal I need to be. Should I be very professional and address the inquiry with the same formal, professional characteristics normally necessary for this position? Or should I address it as she is familiar with me: goofy and a one-time young kid playing in her motor home? I am extremely confident that she will be able to get me connected as easy as pie, but she is so sweet that she may be uncomfortable in taking advantage (as she may regard it) of her good friends. How should I go about this? As of now, I am planning on initially keeping it loose and informal, as she knows me, and put on the game face as soon as I get to the next phase. Good plan? Bad plan? Let me know!

~ by patrickfoulon on April 22, 2008.