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A cold outreach strategy that works

patrickrivera.co

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Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#21

Post by peterwoerner »

C4stor wrote: post #6

I wonder how significant it is in the US, but in France, securing an internship is hardly difficult. Interns tend to barely get paid (when they do) and a lot of companies have no problem letting them rot for half of the internship duration. You could probably get an internship almost anywhere if you're willing to do the most annoying crap half of the day, and nothing the rest of the time. So, I don't know how signifi…

At my company , our goal is to hire 50% of our interns to full time work, that is, it is one of the main methods for recruiting entry level employees.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#22

Post by notahacker »

BlackCherry wrote: post #17

This blog post over complicates and mythologizes an extremely simple process. That is to not be embarrassed or ashamed to ask people you want something from what you can do to get it. Additionally, this is survivorship bias. His emails sounded very professionally immature and while this companies leadership may have found it endearing, I could easily see other groups of people finding it off putting. What this guys e…

I think it also depends what you're looking for. If you're applying for one of multiple already-existent temporary positions for inexperienced people enthusiastic about learning on the job, appearing to be desperately keen on working for that company specifically probably gives you the edge over many other candidates that might have slightly more impressive universities on their CV. Some fields like marketing might appreciate creative approaches to hacking their recruitment process too, though they'll be more interested in whether your powerpoints are actually good.

If you're a mid-level software engineer trying to get a well-paid job at a company working on completely different technical problems to your skillset and not actively hiring, it's probably wasted effort.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#23

Post by dannyw »

BlackCherry wrote: post #17

This blog post over complicates and mythologizes an extremely simple process. That is to not be embarrassed or ashamed to ask people you want something from what you can do to get it. Additionally, this is survivorship bias. His emails sounded very professionally immature and while this companies leadership may have found it endearing, I could easily see other groups of people finding it off putting. What this guys e…

I didn't find his email professionally immature. I think it's an overstatement to somehow infer that these emails signal a lackey.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#24

Post by dannyw »

mrfusion wrote: post #8

I’d like more help with step one. Just finding the contact information. I’ve tried connecting over linked in and never gotten a response.

LinkedIn is too easy. It is not the place for cold outreaches, unless it is one small part of a recruiter's outreach strategy.

With enough dedication you should be able to find some contact details.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#25

Post by jonfw »

mrfusion wrote: post #8

I’d like more help with step one. Just finding the contact information. I’ve tried connecting over linked in and never gotten a response.

firstname.lastname@company.com has worked for me in the past. When I was in college I met a CTO at a campus event and emailed him this way, ended up being offered a job.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#26

Post by goatherders »

_jal wrote: post #14
scottfr wrote: post #3

This is a great point and also very applicable to sales generally. There's definitely a continuum between "hyper target / completely customized" and "spray and pray" and each person/company needs to find the right point on that continuum for themselves. My company actually just put out a blog post last week on this showing how to quickly create customized emails while still leveraging templates [0]. [0] https://blaze…

Spam like this earns an immediate "remove all email addresses from your lists @ourdomain.com and let me know that you are suppressing them from your future mailings", ccing your mail provider's abuse address. The second mail gets your domain blocked and I tell your provider they're on notice. Some of us still take spam seriously.

I recognize we start from different places on this, but unrequested email does not necessarily equal SPAM. We had a guy a few months ago who threatened all kinds of litigation and reporting etc. when we reached out cold. At the same time, one of his colleagues responded with interest and just before Christmas their company signed a 5-figure annual deal with our client to provide an endpoint security solution they needed for their managed services practice.

Put another way, if I honest to God had a gold bar with your name on it and contacted you by email to say "when can we meet up so I can give you this gold bar" and you replied and we met up and I gave you your gold bar, you wouldn't view my message as SPAM at all because now you have a gold bar that is worth a bunch of money. Hey, free gold bar!@ But when it comes to cold outreach many people defer to "I didn't ask for this email....SPAM SPAM SPAM!" Sometimes what's being offered isn't a good fit, doesn't provide ROI, etc. But sometimes it turns out to be a gold bar.

I don't think that a business reaching out and saying "You guys provide X, we have a solution that does Y and has helped other companies that provide X in a meaningful way" is remotely the same as a Nigerian Prince selling Viagra.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#27

Post by minkzilla »

goatherders wrote: post #16
mrfusion wrote: post #8

I’d like more help with step one. Just finding the contact information. I’ve tried connecting over linked in and never gotten a response.

There are hundreds of tools available for finding everything from email addresses to phone numbers to physical addresses for work. Apollo.io, Hunter.io, LeadIQ just to get you started. Most have some tier of "free" if you only need a handful of contacts per month.

Who does one contact at random medium size or big sized company?

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#28

Post by ghaff »

goatherders wrote: post #16
mrfusion wrote: post #8

I’d like more help with step one. Just finding the contact information. I’ve tried connecting over linked in and never gotten a response.

There are hundreds of tools available for finding everything from email addresses to phone numbers to physical addresses for work. Apollo.io, Hunter.io, LeadIQ just to get you started. Most have some tier of "free" if you only need a handful of contacts per month.

Please do not phone. Maybe that's not universal, but I basically don't pick up the phone if I don't recognize the caller--or at least think because of area code it may be someone I should answer. With my work number and never check messages case, I don't even have a physical phone attached to my line.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#29

Post by hirako2000 »

It's a non scalable outreach tactic. It's not a strategy.

Yes it has a good chance to work, if you are willing to spend hours researching your target, hours producing free content for that target, and insisting until the target gives up and give you what you want.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#30

Post by BlackCherry »

dannyw wrote: post #23
BlackCherry wrote: post #17

This blog post over complicates and mythologizes an extremely simple process. That is to not be embarrassed or ashamed to ask people you want something from what you can do to get it. Additionally, this is survivorship bias. His emails sounded very professionally immature and while this companies leadership may have found it endearing, I could easily see other groups of people finding it off putting. What this guys e…

I didn't find his email professionally immature. I think it's an overstatement to somehow infer that these emails signal a lackey.

That's my point, some may find his email to suggest he's an eager go-getter, and to others it may come across as over eager and annoying, so I don't think there's general principles to be deigned from that exchange and I think this post is attempting to provide general advice, at least it's worded as such.

I used the word lackey, to strongly infer that he is undervaluing his worth, by his eagerness and his willingness to do whatever it takes. This ethos is couched in a "Devil Wears Prada" mentality. I'm not saying it doesn't work. I am suggesting that if that doesn't resonate with you "the random HN reader", that this isn't good general advice, but rather advice for a particular kind of person.

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