Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Today, I want to talk about cold outreach and some good facts and some not so-easy to hear.
Cold outreach is a pretty simple process; however, it’s not easy, and getting your mind around it is hard for some people.
I remember back in the day; I cut my teeth on cold outreach because, in the pharmaceutical industry, we used to go and knock on doors.
That could be a doctor’s surgery or a door on a hospital corridor. We used to sit and attempt to see consultants and people like that so we physically could turn up, so they couldn’t just put the phone down on us!
I often share my story of going to a particular doctor’s surgery in Ancoats in Manchester. It’s very trendy now, Ancoats. I assure you, when I went, it wasn’t 😉
I asked the receptionist if I could see the Dr, and she led me down a corridor.
She pointed to the door I went through to find myself in the carpark with the door locked behind me, but there you go, which is what occasionally happens with cold calling.
I’m sure we all have our thoughts and stories we can tell, and I think cold calling is much maligned, and I don’t think people appreciate that.
If you want to scale and grow at some point, you can’t keep fishing in the same pond. You have to do different elements of cold outreach to build your database of people you can start to have a conversation with, and then you can find them a role or help develop their team.
Different Cold Outreach Strategies
There are multiple ways to do this, but I wanted to give you some ideas and prepare you for the road ahead, as occasionally, parts can be rocky.
One of the things about cold outreach is people give up too soon, and because of that, they don’t get the wins they could if they just persisted with the process.
Now, cold outreach will support your scaling goal, and as I’ve said, it is pretty simple; however, it’s not always easy.
Our minds go crazy when we get rejected, or a call doesn’t go to plan, we don’t get the same response and reaction, we were hoping for, and consequently, people give up.
The Truth About Cold
Let me talk about a few things you need to remember about cold outreach, some of which you need to have in place and be aware of.
The first thing is there are multiple ways to do cold outreach. It’s not just picking up the phone these days. You can connect with people in numerous ways, and we encourage people to do several things.
The first is to get people on your database by offering them something of value.
Now, that could be a report, an invitation to a webinar, or an event, because what happens when you do that is you are highlighting and connecting with those who have an interest in what you do.
Many of you listening to this podcast will probably be on our database. You’ll have downloaded a couple of reports, you might have been to several webinars, and probably you’re even a client listening to this.
Here it works; “I want to get that person on my database. I need to use reciprocity. I’m going to give them something of value.
Here you are. Here’s a great report. Here’s something else.
Come onto my database, and then I can show you how to help.
Because what’s happening then is that person is going from stone cold to lukewarm because they’re becoming more aware of you. That is one thing you must have in place as part of your process, which forms part of your cold outreach strategy.
How can you do that in multiple ways?
Cold Platforms
You can post on social media and send cold emails to clients.
Cold emailing works, and you can do it because when it comes to GDPR when someone has a work email address, it’s a legitimate interest; you are using this as a marketing practice.
All you need to do is ensure you have an unsubscribed button, and there are many different ways to do cold emailing. Go and have a look at the Superfast website on the blog. I have talked about cold emailing several times before.
I’ve also shared the story that when it comes to cold emailing, that’s how we started our business. I remember I still have it imprinted in my mind, 23 email addresses.
We went out and looked for these particular email addresses of people that would be right for us. Until a couple of years ago, we were still working with one of these individuals, who ironically has just retired.
There are many different platforms that you can use that can do cold outreach. Of course, another way to reach out to people who are cold to you, and, of course, these are people that you want to put into your actual funnel, your sales funnel, is you can use paid advertising.
Now, there’s Google; there is Facebook and Insta; now called  Meta, and, of course, you also have LinkedIn advertising; You can use any of those.
Don’t dismiss using advertising like that to build awareness of your brand to get people to engage. You can do it cost-effectively, particularly when using different advertising techniques.
No matter what, when you do reach out to people, I know many of you will have done a lot of cold calling over the years; you do know that a certain percentage of people will be interested. It’s usually around 3% to 7%; usually, we find you get up to 10% of people interested and willing to have a conversation with you, but you can build, and you can scale from this.
You look at any organization that’s done well, any smaller micro to SME organization, they will always have a cold outreach strategy as part of their process.
However, there are some things to make you aware of because it’s not all sunshine, lollipop, and roses.
You will come up against things when you’re doing cold calling and outreach because, unfortunately, our brains get in the way, and when we get a series of nos, we can very easily want to give up.
Please remember this, the only way you will scale and grow is you have to go to newer audiences, and at some point in the process, creating demand with these newer audiences is going to be some level of cold outreach.
When you do that, remember that it’s not somebody being referred to you, it’s not a candidate that’s come to you, and it’s not a referral from one of your favourite clients to one of their friends who’s also in business.
That referral process is great, and conversion is so much easier there. You’re going out to people who don’t know you; your conversion rate will drop much more than you anticipate.
Remember, that won’t be forever. Your conversion rate will be lower, but you are going out to new people, building that opportunity. Remember that cold outreach is a longer-term strategy.
It’s for the long term, and it will build your business.
You need to do cold outreach for at least six months before building momentum. Now, I know that everyone wants quick wins all the time.
I shall get off my soapbox now, talking about cold outreach; it’s something you need to factor into your business if you want to grow, even if you want to maintain where you are because there gets a point where that database you have is going to start running dry.
As many people have experienced over the last few months, we’ve had many tech people laying people off, freezing recruitment.
This is when you probably wish, “I wish we’d done more outreach.” The thing about it is all is not lost; Start now and start to build the process.
How We Can Help?
In our Superfast Circle membership, we support you in building your marketing through multiple strategies, including cold outreach, and we have systems for you to use.
We’ve also got email and messenger campaigns that you can use too.
If you want to know more about that, drop us an email or book into our diary here.
See you next week,
Denise
