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A cold outreach strategy that works

patrickrivera.co

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Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#101

Post by perl4ever »

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…

"if you're willing to do the most annoying crap half of the day, and nothing the rest of the time"

If you're willing to do that, you don't need an internship.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#102

Post by perl4ever »

plastodon1 wrote: post #84
IMTDb wrote: post #82

> In dating, "no" always means "no". But in sales and recruiting, “no” doesn’t always mean “no”. What does say "no" in sales and recruiting ?

> The price of the car is $2000, are you interested? > No > The price of the car is $500, are you interested now? > Yes

I looked at a used car at a new car dealer a year or two ago, and when I didn't follow up, they didn't just call me back, but they started calling two, three times a day, practically every day. They literally wouldn't give up until I answered the phone, even though I didn't want to talk to them because I was freaked out at how much they were calling. They didn't however, offer to sell it for $500. And I'm never, ever, buying a car from that dealer. In 50 years I will remember that, even if there was one bad apple salesman or one stupid boss who forced him to do it.

So I think it's too glib to say dating and sales are different. Ghosting and people who won't take no for an answer are upsetting things that happen in both settings. People do both because they perceive it's in their interests.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#103

Post by dvasdekis »

deepspace wrote: post #90

FTA: " Following up is so crucial that enterprise sales teams have software to automate follow ups." As someone on the receiving end of sales solicitations, a lack of follow-up is the most frustrating thing imaginable, and I don't believe that it is a solved problem right now. I suspect that some widely used enterprise sales software (maybe Salesforce?) recently developed a bug that messes badly with the follow up pr…

A friend works at BeeCastle (https://beecastle.com/) which aims to address this exact niche. Systemic but carefully curated sales approaches.

Free trial available.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#104

Post by stared »

> But in sales and recruiting, “no” doesn’t always mean “no”.

Where I should start?

I dived too deep into dating - partly because I was in the process of writing "Dating for Nerds", and partly because my ex-girlfriend was a sexologist/sociologist (who at that time was writing her master's thesis "Market Metaphors in Dating").

There are many sales metaphors for dating, especially in PUA lingo (including all about the target, pitch, funnel, and close). What I've found even more interesting is that there are many parallels between the ethics of both. While for doing things against someone's will it is obviously wrong (and a crime), there is a dark-gray zone of things that are not a crime, but still - are rarely done in good faith, and can hurt the other person. If something is a gray zone in one, very often the other tells if it is OK-ish to a--holish.

And 'no' in business is the same. Yes, people can change mind. Yes, 'no' sometimes means "maybe... but if I said that, you would have assumed 'yes' and put me in a really uncomfortable situation". There are pushy salespeople that after "no" they act as if they heard yes. This strategy may work, especially on people who are less assertive, less confident, etc. But it is a dick move, so don't. A lot of classic PAU is based on these pushy tactics. They even call when the next day a girl regrets they have had sex "buyer's remorse".

Yes, some people would react differently if they've heard more, or maybe need time to consider things, or would benefit from some encouragement. I am so grateful to all salespeople, and recruiters, who after hearing "no" respected that work. And treated me like a person, not a ripe bag of gold.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#105

Post by ghaff »

georgespencer wrote: post #88
hash872 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do they generate business then, if not cold outreach? I don't mean it as a gotcha, I'm genuinely curious. I suppose you could say inbound leads, but I don't really believe that's a significant % of revenue, and anyways HN seems to hate marketing. The gun analogy doesn't really work man, having salespeople isn't really predicated on what other companies are doing or not doing

Didn't see it as a gotcha! Love the curiosity :) I can only speak for the businesses I have been involved in (software, product marketing for software, marcomms, real estate), but cold outreach -- if done at all -- would be the longest of long tails: low conversion, increasingly high maintenance (esp. because folks like me send petulant ICO/GDPR subject access requests to clog up organisations sending unsolicited ema…

>then you're giving us implicit permission to talk to you

Certainly. Although I'm guessing that at least some of the people on this thread most objecting to cold outreach would still classify something like an email after getting a badge scan at a trade show as spam. You're right that lead acquisition happens in a lot of ways other than the spam I get in my inbox offering to sell me address lists. However, a lot of people still get mad at emails that are the result of casual interactions. Honestly, it's the way the business world works but people are still going to object to it.

>The gun analogy illustrates: if you removed all sales people from all organisations, then nobody would need any salespeople: companies would still have needs for e.g. software and would still find companies through marketing. It wouldn't result in companies losing revenue. OP (not sure if it was you or not) was conflating marketing and sales.

And then some company would figure out that, at least for certain types of products, having someone who directly cultivates a relationship with buyers is a really effective way to increase revenues relative to the competition.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#106

Post by wpietri »

goatherders wrote: post #92
wpietri wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not the same, but if they're sent in bulk, they are both spam. The essence of spam is using automation to use the same amount of your time to waste more of other people's time. Door-to-door sales is awful, but at the very least the waste of time is symmetrical. Computers, though, let spammers waste ever more of their targets' time on their quest to get rich. Having talked to many spammers on the phone back i…

I would never ever in a million years trust that people with a need would seek me out. Most people are lazy and they don't pay my bills. Not sure I agree/understand the idea that cold outreach is manipulation.

Sure. I believe you don't understand. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." If it made sense to you, you'd be doing something else.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#107

Post by travisjungroth »

petercooper wrote: post #43

I'm the person who gets these sorts of emails at my company, and just a few words in one of his emails really caught my attention! "Would love to work on this mission with you and the team" .. yeah, yeah, generic blah, everyone says that. "and I won't take it for granted." Ok, wow, I rarely have people make promises like that. It sounds genuine and even if it's not, it's a point I can pull someone up on later on if t…

> if someone acts a little more personably and shows they have some sort of emotional skin in the game, I'm all ears.

Which why generic corporate speech is just an arms race of faking that you have emotional skin in the game. Saying you'd "love to work on this mission with you and the team" was once enough. Now, you also have to say that you "won't take it for granted" to catch your attention. I wonder what the next step will be.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#108

Post by chrismarlow9 »

travisjungroth wrote: post #107
petercooper wrote: post #43

I'm the person who gets these sorts of emails at my company, and just a few words in one of his emails really caught my attention! "Would love to work on this mission with you and the team" .. yeah, yeah, generic blah, everyone says that. "and I won't take it for granted." Ok, wow, I rarely have people make promises like that. It sounds genuine and even if it's not, it's a point I can pull someone up on later on if t…

> if someone acts a little more personably and shows they have some sort of emotional skin in the game, I'm all ears. Which why generic corporate speech is just an arms race of faking that you have emotional skin in the game. Saying you'd "love to work on this mission with you and the team" was once enough. Now, you also have to say that you "won't take it for granted" to catch your attention. I wonder what the next…

> I wonder what the next step will be.

https://youtu.be/JWdZEumNRmI ?

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#109

Post by joyj2nd »

"For example, with MissionU, I used the research phase to understand what the CEO needed and then created a 13-page PowerPoint deck with data analysis and recommendations on what they should do."

Well, sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. I would not do this. In fact, if I were asked to do this, I would agree an ask 20k Okay for it?

When I was a fresh PhD, some companies managed to extract an insane amount of free work from me.

Re: A cold outreach strategy that works

#110

Post by anticsapp »

stared wrote: post #104

> But in sales and recruiting, “no” doesn’t always mean “no”. Where I should start? I dived too deep into dating - partly because I was in the process of writing "Dating for Nerds", and partly because my ex-girlfriend was a sexologist/sociologist (who at that time was writing her master's thesis "Market Metaphors in Dating"). There are many sales metaphors for dating, especially in PUA lingo (including all about the…

Pre-dotcom bust there was this lady from The Daily Deal. She harassed the shit out of us with her perkiness. No way we would spend IBM's money on a new website. But she was a no means yes woman. I asked her for $50,000 of free inventory to test if it was as good as she said it was. Free is always best and it kicked ass. Then she gave birth to twins and named them Joe, my boss, and my name. That was a bridge too far. Daily Deal became a favorite of IBM's and they ended up investing millions in it for B2B marketing. Sometimes stalking works. But I don't recommend it.
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