Reader Q&A: Cold pitching & finding clients
Plus, a November business recap.
Happy Friday, friends!
Today, I’m tacking a couple of reader questions and sharing a recap of what November looked like in my business. It’s a longer one, but I’m feeling extra-inspired after taking last week off! Let’s dive in…
🤔 What’s the best way to cold pitch prospective clients?
Ah, the pitch slap. We’ve all been on the receiving end of these, right? You accept a connection request and boom, the person is in your DMs telling you how great they are and asking to hop on a call. Ugh, right?
Guys, I used to be one of these people. Back in 2019, I was all in on cold outreach. I signed up for Sales Navigator and hired someone to build lists, send connection requests (100 per week!) and follow up when people accepted. It was all scripted (the only personalization was the name), felt totally gross, and it worked.
Well, kind of.
I signed new clients, but they weren’t exactly ideal. They tended to be a bit chaotic, weren’t operating strategically, and didn’t respect my boundaries (or in some cases, my invoice due dates 🤬).
Five years later, LinkedIn is so much noisier and there’s so much truly awful cold outreach happening. So while I still do cold outreach, I take a much more targeted and tailored approach (on a smaller scale). And rather than focusing on selling, I focus on building relationships.
In fact, I don’t pitch or “sell” at all these days. By focusing on relationships, leads already know and trust me by the time we get to a “sales” call - so it becomes more of a conversation about the logistics of working together rather than a pitch. And that approach has been a game-changer in my business.
All that said - if you’re going to cold pitch, know that it will be a volume game, because not everyone is in market for your services right now. A thoughtful approach, with messages that show you’ve researched the recipient and understand their pain points will help you stand out from the pack - check out Jen's newsletter for some really great examples.
🤔 How can I find clients?
Variations on how to find clients or build a pipeline were the number one question submitted for my live Q&A session last week. And yet I haven’t dedicated a newsletter to this topic - here’s why:
There’s not a one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to building your pipeline. Everyone has different strengths. Everyone’s clients have different needs. And that means that sustainable business development efforts (the kind you can do consistently over time) will look different for each of us.
Believe me - I spent so much time and energy trying to find a magic solution in the early years of building my business. I’ve also spent $15k over the past three years learning all about building my pipeline - some of it worthwhile, and some of it very much not 💸.
And although I broke down exactly where I found my clients for my first six years in business here, this only shows pieces of the puzzle. There are two things that have really helped keep my pipeline consistently full over the last couple of years:
Focusing on building relationships
Thinking of sales as a customer journey rather than expecting it to be direct response
And again, how you build your customer journey and how you build and nurture relationships will be unique to your business. That’s why I created my Build Your Pipeline Workshop, distilling everything I’ve learned over the last seven years into a framework and showing you how to apply it to your business - at a fraction of what I spent (in blood, sweat, tears, and dollars) figuring it all out. You can find it here, or book a 1:1 audit and planning session here.
📅 November Recap
I always love getting a peek into other people’s businesses, so I thought I’d try sharing one in the form of a November recap. Let me know if this is interesting or helpful - I may make it a monthly feature!