During a coaching session I was asked how to properly ask someone for a phone conversation.

The context of this question was that this person wanted to reach out to specific people in larger organizations in order to simply have a phone conversation with them, not necessarily to sell to them, but for research.

This is cold outreach and lets be honest with ourselves here and just call it like it is, it’s spam. It’s unsolicited communication, even if it can add value to the recipient by making it you focused.

In the post-GDPR and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation era, we live in us, as businesses we have to adjust and be respectful of a recipient’s privacy that a lot of businesses hadn’t in the past.

With that in mind, nothing really has changed other than shortcuts that businesses used to essentially carpet bomb an email list with a broadcast is now closed off.

By now, you’ve heard that when performing outreach of any kind, you should be doing it in a way that makes the recipient feel like it is a direct email to them specifically, even if it’s not.

Avichal Garg, the Managing Partner at Electrical Capital and an Expert at Y Combinator, posted a thread on Twitter on this very topic.

As someone who essentially gets asked many many many times a day for things, it’s refreshing to see his input on how to do it.

I wanted to share a couple of points from his 10 that I find interesting.

Offering Context

Letting the recipient know who you are and if there are any contacts you share in common. If you met somewhere, jog that person’s memory. Doing this quickly before anything works best. If they recognize the connection, they’ll more likely continue reading.

Be Precise

Get to the point quickly, but be as specific about what you are asking for. Don’t make it vague. In Avichal’s tweet, he gives a perfect example, one that I know you can relate to. “Can we get on a call?” is bad. No one will want to jump on a call with someone who they’ve never heard from before.

But “I am performing research in your industry. Here are 2 questions about your website and how it helps your business.” is good. Avichal offers up these 2 examples as “great.” “Do you know person X and could you forward the following blurb to them?” and “I am applying to YC. Does our application make it clear what we build?”

Be Gracious

Remember that whole respectful thing I mentioned early, well be gracious too. If they don’t respond, don’t bombard them every day for a week. That’s only going to make them annoyed and ignore you more, maybe block you or report you as spam.

Follow up a week later, then maybe a month after that. If you haven’t heard anything, stop emailing.

Chances are good that if they can help and/or have the time to help, they will immediately upon reading the email.

One final thought

“If you talk, or you do something, you have to have something to bring.” is something that Gary Vaynerchuk said in a recent video of his.

Say what you will about Gary, this statement aligns directly with asking for any sort of help or sale.

We know Gary is a talker and he loves nothing more than to hear himself talk. He said this specific quote when sharing a story about a meeting he had at Google with the president of Cuba and Twitter and other major players in the tech space.

He had it in his mind to share a story going into the meeting but then thought better of it in the context of the meeting because it didn’t add anything to the meeting. He walked away from that meeting without ever saying a word.

Asking someone for something, who you don’t know and they have no clue you even exist is a fine art. There’s no one formula that works. The only thing that I can say is to think about you as the recipient and how you would feel about getting your outreach.

[optin-monster-shortcode id="bzuygihht1q3oswohwvi"]

Marketing for Freelancers

You always have to be marketing, especially when you are working on a client project. Here is where you’ll find the proven strategies and tips to marketing your freelance business in today’s market.
See all topics

More episodes in this topic:

10

Social Media Marketing, is it worth it to do?

11

What social media platforms to spend time on?

14

How to get clients when I have no portfolio?

35

How to get the messaging right to attract customers?

39

Have advice for soliciting podcasters to be a guest?

49

Should I focus on SEO or Paid Ads to gain new clients?

56

Do you get any leads from your content? And what traffic acquisition methods have worked best?

72

When creating a new freelance service what’s the best way to send cold emails?

75

What is my second most successful lead generation tactic?

76

Why is an email list important for a freelancer?

79

What is the best way to attract larger clients?

82

How do you market your business to local clients other than attending networking meetings?

89

How do I pitch some big companies in my niche?

90

Imagine I was going to bring you $100k in revenue

93

How does a freelance web designer build a client profile when preparing their marketing plans?

103

How do you price your services on your site?

110

How important is branding?

114

What are some useful tools that you use?

121

What makes a great case study?

122

How do you turn the things I do into benefits?

124

How do you decide what to start blogging with if you’ve never blogged before?

125

How often should I write a blog post?

131

Should I put pricing on my website?

138

How to overcome objections people have about you?

150

What is the best lead generation strategy?

151

What is your cold outreach strategy?

153

How would you get into the corporate business as an independent professional?

160

What is the difference between warm and cold outreach?

161

How to answer objections and get clients to say “yes”?

166

How to grow with word-of-mouth marketing?

175

How to ask?

203

All my work has been word of mouth, how do I find work on my own?

211

How do you handle a good fit for you that doesn’t really fit for your marketing message?

213

What do you say when a lead comes to you from a bad experience with another freelancer?

214

What to say when a potential client says you are too expensive?

215

How do I find the time to create content for my business and what do I write about?

217

Is this going to get me clients fast?

224

What is the #1 business trend for 2019?

227

How to sell on Twitter?

231

How do you make it simple for a lead to sign?

239

Why did I move my business from Drip to ConvertKit

240

Why ConvertKit?

243

How do you sell strategy?

244

11 Lessons on How to Find Clients

245

Finding Clients Lesson #1: Targeted Referrals

246

Finding Clients Lesson #2: Zero Line Item

247

Finding Clients Lesson #3: The Client Sandwich

248

Finding Clients Lesson #4: The Sneak Peek

249

Finding Clients Lesson #5: Buy a cup of coffee

250

Finding Clients Lesson #6: Get Yourself On A Podcast

251

Finding Clients Lesson #7: Your Up Level Skills

252

Finding Clients Lesson #8: Brag about your clients

253

Finding Clients Lesson #9: Are you priced right?

254

Finding Clients Lesson #10: Who do you hang with?

255

Finding Clients Lesson #11: Group Coaching for Leads

258

Is Instagram a better vehicle for visibility? Sales?

Related episodes from

Live in the Feast Podcast

Get Every Resource and Content Upgrade

You've made it down here 👏. Put your name and email below and you will get access to all the free resources and content upgrades on the site.