💪 How to Outbound Like a Boss...

4 Rules for Successful Cold Outbound Outreach
‍by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter

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Talking to strangers… It’s one thing when it's at a bar or a startup event where people likely want to talk to you. A whole nother thing when contacting people out of the blue, trying to convince them to buy your product.

But if you are serious about business growth, cold outbound is likely unavoidable.

Whilst the pain (or discomfort) of doing this won’t go away, there are some things you can do to at the very least increase your chance of success.

4 Rules for Outbound Success

1. Work on your personal brand

The first thing most people will do when getting an outbound message that interests them is Google that person. And what they find will likely spark their interest or have them close that tab and move on.

So a good place to start is your LinkedIn Profile.

Now, some things you can’t change – like work experience, qualifications etc. But there’s quite a bit that’s totally in your control:

• A high-quality profile picture.
• A profile page that’s set up (with a banner, some links and all the relevant information).
• You actively engage on the platform and connect with people you meet.
• You share posts and updates about what you’re up to, building or learning.

2. Personalise your message

The more personal the better.

Yes, it doesn’t scale, but in a world where everyone is using AI to generate their outbound messages, writing up something personal stands out from the crowd.

The channel you pick also results in a higher degree of personalisation, in order of preference it should be:

• In-person: Either at a place they hang out (but don’t be creepy, tho) or at an event.
• On a call: Yes we all hate telemarketers, but it's because they don’t care about you, they care about a sales target. Don’t be a telemarketer; phone, connect and engage.
• LinkedIn connection request + message: This one is great. They can see your face (and your nicely set up LinkedIn profile) and people have the incentive to accept – their network/follower count grows. So connect and add a note. Once they accept, it automatically becomes a message to them – the first touch point to form a connection. But don’t pitch in this note, or they might ignore your connection request. Try to use this to get a reply of some sort.
• Email: A well-crafted email will still have a chance to get a reply. But just remember, people’s email behaviour differs. Some people inbox zero and are likely to reply. Others might think “I’ll get back to this later,” (and then promptly forget) so be sure to follow up politely until you get a “yes” or “no thank you”.

3. Increase your reading

The more you read, the higher your chances of being able to add value to a conversation and your prospect. This includes books, newsletters and social media.

Everything you take in becomes ammunition you can use to keep conversations going by adding value.

Add value long enough and, should an opportunity arise to sell, you’ll be perfectly positioned.

4. Get organised

If you’re going to engage multiple people at once, know that personal relationships have an asynchronous and dynamic nature, so it will become really hard to keep track of what’s happening where.

Getting the right tools to help you stay on top of things is crucial.

When you’re small-scale, you can start with something simple like a Google Sheets or a Notion table. As you level up and do more outbound, consider Attio or even HubSpot.

Bonus Tip – It’s very similar to dating

While it has happened and worked before, the chances of someone accepting a wedding proposal on a first date aren’t great.

In fact, do that often enough (propose to random people you just met) and you might even get into trouble.

If you want to build long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships, though, take the time to get to know the person, engage and add value to their life

Once the processional song starts playing, you’ll know the wait was all worth it…

Got a startup hack or insights to share? Hit reply and we might feature you here, too.

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