If you're looking for some more "wisdom" about Cold Outreach, in Joel's post you'll definitely find it :) Here's how it looks one of them: "I've mocked cold outreach in the past.
"Look at this terrible message!"
"Wow, what a pile of hot garbage."
"Brutal opener."
Snarky replies. Straight up deletions. Reporting as spam for the particularly awful ones. I have not always been kind to those who've knocked on my door.
So you can imagine how nervous I am to be venturing into cold outreach myself in an effort (and experiment!) to continue to grow Case Study Buddy.
To date, we've grown mostly through referrals; that continues to be a great channel for us. But as we go upmarket, we need to go beyond referrals and the other avenues we invest in and try something new to see how it works.
Which is... frightening.
In coming at cold outreach, a few things were really, really important to me:
1. To try and be genuinely useful first.
We put together resources we could share that we hope will be genuinely interesting, informative, and helpful to our audience.
Rather than just hard pitch, I've tried to demonstrate we know the space, the challenge, and how to solve it by offering up something of value.
2. To keep the list as tight as possible.
I don't want to knock on doors that are never going to open. It's inevitable that some of your outreach is going to fall flat or hit someone totally uninterested, but I've tried my best to make sure that I'm not bothering anyone who is in a completely unrelated field or position.
3. Asking for help.
I know a lot of things, but cold is new for me. Bringing in an experienced (and vetted) partner to help was important; I wanted to find someone who shared my mentality that cold outreach doesn't have to be horrible.
Anyway, it's all a grand experiment and I know rejection, some mild annoyance, and complete silence are to be expected.
I just hope I've come at things a little better than some of what I've criticized in the past. I can admit it: this stuff is scary and hard when it's you.
If nothing else, it's made me a little softer whenever a cold pitch winds up in my inbox -- a quick 'no thanks' has replaced the snark for me."
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