Nothing has ever come easy to me, and I’m grateful for it.
Whether that be taking the SATs multiple times to get into college…
Almost missing out on pharmacy school and business school because of low test scores…
Or cold emailing every single damn day until I got my first client in business.
Now the common theme here (outside of being a terrible test taker) is that I’ve trained my persistence muscle.
My pig-headed persistence is the reason I still get to play the game of business.
Most people go through their day hoping for a stroke of luck like a zombie fiending for brains.
I'm all about creating my own damn luck.
OK enough internal rambling from me, let’s get back to what I’ve accomplished this past week.
My go-to method for testing new projects will be through cold outreach. Specifically, cold email.
All my clients and business relationships have come through some form of cold outreach.
And no, it’s not fun to do. But I can’t deny the effectiveness.
Once you get past the fears of people rejecting you, telling you to f***k off, or threatening to report you to the FTC (I’ve gotten it all)…
Cold outreach is one of the most powerful tools you can sharpen and carry in your skillset box.
Think about it…
It gives you the ability to start a conversation with anyone you’d ever want to start a conversation with. You can use it for business or personal connection. (Hinge > Tinder)
In another newsletter I’ll dive a little deeper into cold outreach strategy, but let's talk updates.
28 emails sent.
1 positive reply.
0 meetings booked.
A lot of “gurus” out there like to count “responses” as a good metric for cold email, but to be honest…
It’s a BS metric.
Because marketers will be marketers. And they’ll count both negative and positive “responses” to inflate their stats and ego.
I’m only looking for meetings booked.
I’ll be counting positive replies too so you can see the conversion rate of replies to meetings. Because the reality is, not all positive replies turn to meetings.
And here’s one big takeaway from cold emailing…
STOP TRYING TO SELL YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE IN THE EMAIL.
Unless you got some secret ninja technique that I don’t know about... I've NEVER closed through cold email alone.
Instead, what you’re selling is the meeting. That’s the only sale you’re making in a cold message.
Now on the call, that’s when you get the opportunity to sell your product or service.
Instead, I like to use the power of curiosity around my offer to sell the call.
So here’s what I’m trying to prove with these cold emails.
Since P4P is a new project and a new niche for me, I’m using this opportunity to test my offer.
I don’t have enough data to make a conclusion yet. But I want to get a feel of the perception around my offer.
Perception not deliverables. Another concept I’ll dig into in another newsletter.
But before you even worry about your offer or any cold outreach strategy…
You need to understand your prospects.
Not just their age, their relationship status, gender, college educated or not.
You need to know how they’re feeling emotionally and all their aspirations.
You need to know what a typical day in the life of your prospect looks like.
You need to know what plan or solution they’re currently using to solve their problem.
You need to know what they like and dislike about that plan or solution.
There’s much more we can dig into, but just by figuring out those things… you’re already ahead.
I’ll go into the avatar research for P4P next week, so you’ll have some examples to model.
Anyways, I’m gonna end this week’s newsletter here.
It wasn’t an exciting week. But to reiterate the words of my dear mentor…
There’s no such thing as wasted work. Only work that works on you, or work that works for you.
Right now, this is work that’s working on me, until it works for me.
Trust the process, love the process.
Kevin