0:01

Welcome to episode five, podcast

0:03

edition of $100 Million Leads. This is a one

0:06

single kahuna chapter cold

0:08

outreach. This is everything

0:10

that I learned step-by-step on how to create a cold outreach system

0:13

that ended up creating literally

0:15

tens of millions of dollars for me personally, because it is

0:17

what created or transformed

0:19

Gym Launch into a sellable asset. So we went from just

0:21

being able to run ads to having a cold outbound

0:23

team that generated over half of our sales, and we had to learn

0:25

it from absolute scratch. And so rather than you

0:28

learning from scratch, let me just give you all the

0:30

lessons so you can have a big head start. That's

0:32

what this chapter is about. I hope you enjoy. And

0:35

if you really love it, leave a review, it would

0:37

mean the world.

0:41

Cold Outreach. How to reach out to strangers

0:43

to get engaged leads. Quantity as a quality

0:46

all of its own. Napoleon Bonaparte.

0:49

July 2020. COVID-19 raged. In a

0:51

matter of months, 30% of

0:53

my customers went out of business.

0:55

Protesters filled every platform with hate and anger.

0:57

Small businesses suffered in silence. Unemployment

1:00

skyrocketed. The most tumultuous election

1:02

ever was upon us. And here we were trying

1:04

to generate leads to pay our bills. Employees everywhere

1:07

and their families depended on it. All

1:09

three of my companies at the time, Gym Launch, Prestige

1:11

Labs, and Atlan, relied on brick and mortar businesses

1:13

staying open,

1:14

and they were closed.

1:15

Brilliant strategy, Alex.

1:17

To make matters worse, Apple did a software update

1:19

that crippled our ads. The market was crap,

1:21

our paid ads were crap, and I carried the bucket.

1:24

I ran through worst case scenarios. How much cash

1:26

would it take to keep us afloat? How long do I keep

1:28

paying people when there's no end in sight? Should I dip into

1:30

my personal accounts? Give up a third of my life savings?

1:33

Half? All of it? What does that say about me? I

1:35

had no idea what to do. Early that

1:37

Saturday morning.

1:39

I tried to sleep long enough for my alarm to wake me, but

1:41

it was no use.

1:43

I went into my office and checked Instagram.

1:45

I had a new message waiting for me.

1:47

Hey Alex, Kale told me you guys don't need salesmen

1:49

anymore. So my offer got pulled.

1:51

I quit my job to accept it. Super honored you

1:53

considered me. I hope you consider me again the next time you have

1:55

openings.

1:56

Looking for context, I scrolled up. Reading

1:58

our earlier

1:59

with a pang of guilt.

2:01

I was the one who told him to apply. He

2:03

took the rejection while,

2:04

a sign of a good salesman. I felt obligated

2:07

to reply.

2:08

You on? I messaged. Yeah,

2:10

he replied. Got five? Yes.

2:14

We hopped on a call. He sounded a little

2:16

nervous,

2:17

but I could tell he knew his stuff.

2:19

It sucks we don't have enough leads for this guy. I've

2:22

wanted to work with you for a while now. I read your book

2:24

and used your scripts to become the top producer at my company,

2:26

he said. That's awesome. I'm so

2:28

glad to hear it. What kind of company? I asked. A

2:31

gym software company. I hadn't

2:33

heard of them before. Oh, interesting.

2:36

How'd you guys get your leads? We're 100% cold outreach.

2:39

So you cold call and cold email gyms

2:41

then sell them software? Yeah, pretty

2:43

much. How big is the team?

2:47

We've

2:47

got about 30 guys.

2:48

A team of 30? What's

2:50

your revenue if you dumb on my asking?

2:53

We're doing about 10 million a month right now.

2:55

Insane. Just from cold outreach?

2:58

Yeah, we run some ads, but we haven't really cracked that yet.

3:01

And you do this with a retention offer? You're

3:04

not even really making gyms more money?

3:06

Yeah, it's definitely not as easy to sell as the stuff you do for

3:08

gyms.

3:09

Do you think you use the same outreach system here?

3:12

I've never started a team, but I bet I could figure it out.

3:15

All right, what was the offer Kailh pulled? I

3:18

was going to be a closer, but he said you guys didn't need one

3:20

anymore.

3:21

I thought for a moment.

3:22

Well,

3:23

given our current lead volume, he's probably right. But

3:26

if you can get your own leads, I'll give

3:28

you the runway to get cold outreach going. What do you think?

3:31

It's

3:31

going to take a while to get going. I'll have to figure out the

3:33

scripts for your offer. Yeah, that makes sense. How

3:35

long you think?

3:37

I'm confident I could make it profitable in 12 weeks.

3:40

All right, deal. I'll let Kailh know the plan.

3:42

To be clear, you'll be expected to figure this all out. The

3:44

software, the list, everything.

3:46

I'll front you the time, but we can't support you much beyond

3:48

that.

3:49

Understood. Here's what happened

3:51

in the following months.

3:53

September, zero sales, Zippola,

3:55

nothing, zilch, nada. October,

3:58

two sales, 32.

3:59

$60,000 in revenue. Team asked me to pull the plug on the

4:02

cold outreach.

4:03

December, four sales, $64,000 in revenue. Team

4:06

asked me to pull the plug again. January,

4:08

six sales, $96,000 in revenue. February, 10

4:11

sales, $160,000 in revenue.

4:13

March, 14 sales, $224,000 in revenue. April, 20

4:16

sales, $320,000 in revenue. May, 30

4:18

sales, $480,000 in revenue. Today, cold

4:21

outreach generates millions per month for our businesses.

4:23

Making this work took every legal cold

4:26

outreach method we knew.

4:27

Cold calls, cold emails, cold drag messages,

4:30

voicemails, everything, but piece by piece, we built

4:32

a reliable customer getting system. I wanted

4:34

something that would endure,

4:36

and that's what I'm gonna show you how to build.

4:38

I learned five important lessons from this experience. One,

4:41

there was another company in my space making a lot more money

4:43

than mine. It broke my belief about how big the market

4:45

really was.

4:46

Two, it made all their money through private advertising.

4:49

I had no way of knowing they existed unless they contacted

4:51

me first, so they kinda operated in secret.

4:54

Three, they built a very profitable cold outreach

4:56

machine in my space. If they could do it, so

4:58

could I. Four,

5:00

it's good to have proper expectations. Cold

5:02

outreach veterans told me it would take a year to scale. I

5:04

figured we could do it in 12 weeks. I was wrong,

5:07

it took almost a year. Cold outreach takes a long

5:09

time. At least it did for me.

5:11

Five,

5:12

we tried cold outreach two times before and failed.

5:14

Working with a person that had done it all before was

5:16

immensely helpful in getting this going. I

5:18

hope to be that person for you now.

5:21

At some point, you'll want one of two things. Either

5:23

you'll wanna grow faster than you currently are, or you'll want

5:25

to increase the predictability of your lead flow.

5:27

Here's how we can do that.

5:29

We advertise to people who don't know us, cold audiences.

5:31

And like before, we can contact them privately or publicly.

5:34

In this chapter, we focus on private one-to-one communication

5:37

with cold outreach. For

5:39

added context, cold outreach sits atop the foundation

5:42

of warm outreach. So think of this as a more advanced

5:44

cousin of warm outreach, no longer limited by your

5:46

warm audience.

5:47

If you can figure out a way to contact somebody one-to-one,

5:49

you can use it for cold outreach. You can knock a hundred

5:52

doors, you can make a hundred phone calls, you can send a hundred direct

5:54

messages, you can send a hundred voicemails. These are all

5:56

examples of cold outreach that have made companies zillions.

5:59

It worked a hundred years.

5:59

years ago it works today and when platform stains

6:02

it'll work tomorrow. Cold outreach has one key

6:04

difference from warm outreach. Trust.

6:06

Strangers don't trust you

6:08

and compared to people who know us strangers present

6:10

three new problems.

6:11

First you don't have a way to contact them. Duh.

6:14

Second even if you can contact them they

6:16

ignore you.

6:17

Third even if they give you their attention they're

6:20

not interested.

6:21

Let me describe what these problems look like in the real world.

6:23

If you're knocking on doors you don't have the addresses.

6:26

Then even if you do they don't open the door when

6:28

you knock if they open they still tell

6:30

you to pound sand.

6:32

If you're making cold calls you don't have their phone numbers.

6:34

Even if you do they don't pick up. If he pick up

6:36

they still hang up on you.

6:37

If you're sending cold emails you don't have e-mail addresses.

6:40

Even if you do they don't open the e-mail even if they

6:42

do open it they still don't respond.

6:44

If you're sending direct messages you don't have a place to

6:46

send it even if you do they don't read it even if they read

6:48

it they don't reply.

6:49

If you're sending voiceman's or text messages you

6:52

don't have their numbers. Even if you do

6:54

they don't read or listen to it. Even if they read are listening

6:56

to it they still don't reply. Now that

6:58

we got out of the way the order we solve these

7:00

problems is this. One get a way to contact

7:03

them. Two figure out what to say. Three contact

7:05

them until they're ready and able to listen.

7:07

The result we find lots of ways to contact

7:09

the most qualified strangers.

7:11

We reach out to a lot of them in a lot of ways

7:13

a lot of times. Then we overwhelm

7:15

them with value upfront to get them to show enough interest

7:18

to move forward.

7:19

Author note

7:20

it will take a few more steps than normal.

7:22

As a personal rule of thumb I sell expensive

7:24

stuff. I sell expensive stuff better

7:27

when I do it in multiple steps rather than on the first

7:29

contact.

7:30

So my priority is to get the prospect to show interest

7:32

in the stuff I sell.

7:33

When they show interest I schedule a time to

7:35

sell them. If my league magnet requires a second

7:38

exchange to deliver it I do that then.

7:40

If my league magnet provides value on its own then

7:42

the next call is to talk about the value they received.

7:45

Either way works. Cold outreach is a

7:47

numbers game.

7:47

The more people reach out to you the more engaged leads you get.

7:50

Once we figure out how much outreach it takes to engage

7:52

a lead then we only have one thing to do.

7:55

More. Let's go hunting.

7:58

As there are three new problem strangers introduced.

7:59

I divided this chapter into three steps. One

8:02

step per problem.

8:03

First, we get a targeted list of leads.

8:05

Next, we need to know what to say to get them to reply. Third,

8:08

we make up for lower response rates by increasing

8:10

the volume and type of our reach out attempts. Problem

8:13

number one,

8:14

but how do I contact them? Build a list.

8:17

Up until this point, from warm reach outs and

8:19

posting free content, you've had to accept the leads that came

8:21

to you from your warm audience. No more.

8:24

With cold outreach, unlike any other way of advertising,

8:27

we get to be as specific as we want.

8:28

Only want to talk to hedge fund managers managing over

8:31

a billion dollars? Done. You can

8:33

do that.

8:33

Only want to speak to golf apparel retail owners

8:36

over three million in sales? Done. Only

8:38

want to talk to influencers who get over 50,000 unique

8:41

page views per month? Done. Now

8:43

we get to pick our targets rather than them picking

8:45

us. Now you probably don't have a way to

8:47

reach out to a thousand perfect fit strangers. And

8:50

if we're going to get them to buy from us, we've got to

8:52

first find a way to contact them. Duh. So

8:55

let's solve that problem first. There are

8:57

three different ways I get my targeted lead lists. First,

9:00

I use software to scrape a list of names. Second,

9:02

I pay brokers to assemble me a list of targeted leads.

9:05

And if neither of those work, I manually scrape a list

9:07

of names myself. Here's the process.

9:09

Step one, softwares.

9:11

I subscribe to as many softwares as I can that

9:14

scrape leads from different sources. I search

9:16

them all based on my criteria. The software

9:18

then spits out names, job titles, contact information,

9:20

et cetera. I try out a representative sample,

9:23

say a few hundred from each software I use. Then

9:25

if the contact information is up to date, the leads are responsive,

9:28

and they are the type of person the software claims them to be, bingo.

9:31

Then I get as many leads as the software will give me. But

9:34

if I can't seem to find the right audience, I move on to step

9:36

two.

9:37

Step two, brokers.

9:38

I go to multiple list brokers and ask them to make me

9:40

a list based on my audience criteria. They then

9:43

send me a sample. I test out sample lists from

9:45

each broker. If I get good results from one

9:47

or more brokers, I stick with their lists. And if they still

9:49

can't find who I'm looking for, I move on to step three.

9:52

Step three, elbow grease. I join

9:54

groups and communities that I think have my audience.

9:56

When I find people that meet my qualifications,

9:58

I check to see if they have ways to...

9:59

to contact them in the group's directory, like

10:02

links to their social media profiles, et cetera. If

10:04

they do, I add them to my list. If they don't,

10:06

I can reach out to them within the platform hosting the group.

10:09

I prefer to find contact information outside

10:11

the group so I don't come off as solely trying

10:13

to milk the group for business, but I will if I have

10:15

to. So, I work

10:17

my way up from the most accessible leads to the least accessible

10:20

leads. Here's the important point. If

10:22

you can search the database, so can everyone

10:24

else. But if you assemble a list of names yourself,

10:27

it's less likely that person has already received many

10:29

cold reach outs from other companies, so they're

10:31

the freshest. Downside, it takes

10:33

the most time. Of course, you can pay someone

10:35

else to do this for you once you figure it out yourself, but

10:37

we're only talking about getting started in this chapter. We'll

10:39

talk about scaling in section four. Action

10:42

step. Find your scraping tool by searching

10:44

Outbound Lead Scraping Tool or Database

10:47

Lead Scraping. Find brokers the same way.

10:49

With a few clicks, you'll find what you're looking for. Put

10:52

your first thousand names together. If you

10:54

have more time than money, you might wanna start at step three

10:56

since it only costs time. Pro tip. Interest

10:59

groups are the warmest cold audiences you can get.

11:02

Interest groups contain the highest quality

11:04

leads because they're concentrated pools of people

11:06

looking for a solution. Give them one. Nowadays,

11:09

there's software that can scrape information from

11:11

these groups. Use it. They're one of my favorite

11:13

places to fish. Problem number two.

11:16

I have my list, but what do I say to them? Personalize,

11:19

then give big, fast value. Now

11:21

that you have your list of leads, you gotta figure out what

11:24

to say. I went over a lot of scripting in the

11:26

warm reach out section. This section builds on

11:28

that one. At the end of this chapter, I also

11:30

include three scripts you can model for cold calls, cold emails,

11:32

and cold chat messaging. That being said,

11:34

there are two important factors I emphasize to get strangers

11:37

to engage. Personalization and big,

11:39

fast value. This is important because

11:41

they don't know us and they don't trust us. We gotta

11:43

overcome both issues in a matter of seconds. A,

11:46

they don't know us.

11:47

Personalize it.

11:49

Act like you know them. To

11:51

get more leads to engage, we want the message

11:53

to look like it's from someone they know. The

11:56

best way to do that is to actually know something

11:58

about the person you're contacting. In essence, we

12:00

want our cold reach out to look like a warm

12:02

reach out.

12:03

Imagine your phone rings from an unknown number in area

12:06

code.

12:06

Are you likely to pick it up? Probably not.

12:09

What about if the number is from your area code? A little more

12:11

likely. Why is that? Because it might be

12:13

someone you know. So to take this concept further,

12:16

imagine you pick up the phone. The person

12:18

says, your name, then pausing,

12:20

like a normal person. You'd say, yeah, who's

12:23

this? Now, if that person went

12:25

on and said,

12:26

it's Alex,

12:27

then pauses. I watched a few of your videos

12:30

and read that recent blog post you wrote on dog training. It

12:32

was killer. Really helped me out with my government. She's

12:34

a beast. That peanut butter trick really helped. Thanks

12:36

for that. You'd still be wondering what's going

12:39

on, but you know you wouldn't be doing? Hanging up.

12:42

Then you hear, oh yeah, sorry, I got ahead

12:44

of myself. I work for a company that helps dog trainers fill up their

12:46

books. We like to partner with the best in the

12:48

area. So I'm always on the lookout. We work with someone

12:50

about a half hour north of you. Johnny's

12:52

dog care, you heard of them? You'd respond yes

12:54

or no, doesn't really matter. And then they'd say, yeah,

12:57

we ended up getting 100 appointments in 30 days using

12:59

a combination of text and some ads. Do you offer similar

13:02

services to them? Which you'd probably say

13:04

yes. And then they'd say, oh, that's perfect.

13:06

Then we'd be able to use the same campaign in your market and

13:08

drive the leads over to you. If you got a boatload

13:10

of high paying new dog training customers, you wouldn't be upset with me,

13:12

would you? Ha ha ha.

13:14

You'd laugh lightly.

13:15

Okay, great. Well, tell you what, I can

13:17

walk you through the entire thing soup to nuts later today. Will

13:20

you be around for,

13:21

and you'd say sure

13:22

or whatever. The point is if

13:25

that person had started the call with, hey man, want

13:27

to buy some marketing services, you probably would

13:29

have hung up. Personalization

13:31

is what gets your foot in the door to get the sale. Basically,

13:34

one to three pieces of information we can find that

13:36

a friend might know about the prospect.

13:38

Then we want to compliment them on it. And

13:40

ideally, show them how it benefited us.

13:43

People like people who like them. Even

13:45

if someone doesn't know you, they'll give you more time

13:47

if you know something about them.

13:50

This comes in handy for personal subject lines on emails,

13:52

the first few messages in chat, or the first few sentences

13:55

someone hears. Even if someone doesn't know

13:57

you, they'll appreciate the time you took to research

13:59

them. before contacting them. This tiny effort

14:02

goes a long way. Action step,

14:04

do a little research on each lead before you send a

14:06

message. We can do this ourselves, pay

14:08

people to do it or use software, batch this

14:10

work. Then use your notes to figure

14:12

out the first thing you'll open with to feel more familiar.

14:15

Pro tip, 50% email

14:18

response bump. I took our cold

14:20

outreach template and rewrote it below a third grade

14:22

reading level. The results, 50% more

14:24

leads responded. I recommend running

14:27

all scripts and messages through a free reading level

14:29

app online. I won't recommend one because

14:31

they go out of business all the time, but I promise you can

14:33

find one. Make your messages easier to

14:35

understand and more people will respond.

14:38

B,

14:38

they don't trust us.

14:40

Big, fast value. The key

14:42

difference between people who know you and strangers is,

14:45

strangers give you far less time to prove your worth

14:47

and they need a lot more incentive to move towards you,

14:49

so make your life easier by giving away the farm.

14:52

We're not trying to tickle their interest, we're trying to blow

14:54

their minds in under 30 seconds. Like

14:56

warm reach outs, you can directly make your offer or

14:59

offer a lead magnet or both. It gives the

15:01

person a strong reason to respond. I

15:03

specifically call out big, fast value

15:05

rather than your lead magnet as a reminder

15:07

that it needs to be big, fast value.

15:10

If it's not or it's mediocre,

15:13

you'll blend in with the ocean of people trying to

15:15

get their attention and they'll treat you the same, they'll

15:17

ignore you. So here's how much it matters.

15:20

The first four months of our cold outreach felt like

15:22

torture.

15:23

We offered a game planning session as our lead magnet.

15:26

Some gyms took us up on it but most didn't.

15:28

We needed something better. I tested

15:30

many parts of our process but swapping the lead

15:32

magnet blew everything else out of the water.

15:34

We swapped from game planning, code for

15:36

sales call, to actually giving them as much

15:38

free service as we possibly could.

15:40

Our take rates 3x'd and

15:43

cold outreach became a monster channel for

15:45

us.

15:46

If your offer slash lead magnet isn't

15:48

working for you, up the ante, keep offering

15:50

more and more until you make it so good, they

15:52

feel stupid saying no.

15:54

They either buy from you or they have nice things

15:56

to say about you, win-win. If

15:58

you forget everything about this channel,

15:59

Remember one thing. The goal

16:02

is to demonstrate big value as

16:04

fast as possible.

16:05

Give yourself a downhill battle by giving away something

16:07

crazy. Give away something for free

16:09

people would normally pay for and they will want

16:12

it.

16:12

Note, I didn't say so good they should pay

16:14

for it. I said stuff they actually pay

16:16

for.

16:17

Big difference.

16:18

Take this to heart and your results will show it. Action

16:21

step. Provide the biggest fastest value

16:24

you can afford to with your lead magnet or offer. Then

16:26

write your scripts. And don't worry, I got your back

16:28

there. To give you a head start, I provide some

16:30

sample phone, email and direct message scripts at the end

16:32

of the chapter. Note, phone and chat

16:35

scripts are never more than a page or two and cold

16:37

emails are rarely more than half a page. So don't

16:39

overthink it. They are no rewards for

16:41

prettiest script.

16:42

Get your first 100 conversations or 10,000 emails out

16:45

of the way before tweaking it. Get testing. Then

16:47

tweak as you learn. Problem number three.

16:50

I'm not getting enough chances to tell people about my

16:52

amazing stuff. What do I do?

16:54

Volume.

16:56

Once we have our list of names, personal info and

16:58

our big sexy lead magnet, we need to get more strangers

17:00

to see it.

17:01

We do this in three ways. First,

17:03

we automate delivery to the greatest extent possible. Next,

17:06

we automate distribution to the greatest extent possible.

17:08

Finally, we follow up more times in more

17:10

ways.

17:12

A, automated delivery.

17:14

To the extent we can, automating delivery unlocks

17:16

huge scale as someone doesn't need to literally communicate

17:18

the message to the prospect. This means you get

17:20

more engaged leads per unit of time, even

17:23

if you are engaged by overall percentage.

17:25

Remember, you have far more people who don't know

17:27

you than people who do. So you don't have to worry as

17:29

much about burning through an audience.

17:31

Here's what the difference between manual and automated delivery

17:34

looks like. Manual examples.

17:36

A live person can say a script to someone over

17:38

the phone.

17:39

You can send a personal voice memo to each lead.

17:41

A person can write a handwritten letter to every person

17:43

on the list.

17:44

If it takes a person time to convey each message,

17:47

then it's manual.

17:51

Hey, I hope you're enjoying the book right now. If

17:53

you don't know this, the mission of acquisition.com is

17:55

to make real business education accessible to

17:58

everyone. And the only way we can reach everyone is if you. choose to

18:00

share this. And so if you've been enjoying this, you've been getting

18:02

value from this chapter and any of the rest of the podcast

18:04

episodes, if you could just take a second and

18:07

ship this to a friend, just click the one button

18:09

and send it to somebody or share it on your stories, it would

18:11

mean the world to me and it would ultimately send this message to more

18:14

people. So if you could do that now, it would mean a

18:16

lot. Automated

18:19

examples.

18:20

We can send a prerecorded voice memo to someone's

18:22

direct messages. We can send a prerecorded voicemail

18:25

to someone's voicemail box. We can send a templated

18:27

email to an inbox or templated text

18:29

to someone's phone. We can send a prerecorded

18:31

video, et cetera. You record your message

18:33

one time, then send the same messages to everyone.

18:36

Pro tip, use technology that gets you more engaged

18:39

leads for your time. Every day, artificial

18:41

intelligence, deep fakes, and other technology advance.

18:43

They become more indistinguishable from human

18:45

communication. This means we will be able to automate

18:48

elements of what we currently are forced to spend time on.

18:50

Embrace technology as it comes out to reap the

18:52

rewards. Ultimately, technology serves a single

18:55

purpose, to get us more output per unit of

18:57

time. Use it. Automate

18:59

distribution.

19:01

Once we have our messages prepared, we gotta

19:03

distribute them.

19:04

And there's no word for who works the hardest, only

19:06

for who gets the best results.

19:08

Although one leads to the other.

19:10

And as you build your skills, you will find ways

19:12

to automate portions of the work. I encourage

19:14

you to automate when ethical and available.

19:17

Manual examples.

19:18

Dial each phone number, click send on each email,

19:20

direct message, text, et cetera.

19:22

Automated examples.

19:24

Use a robot to dial multiple numbers at once.

19:26

Send a blast of a thousand emails, text, voicemails,

19:29

all at one time, et cetera. Generally

19:31

speaking, you sacrifice personalization

19:33

for scale. You get a higher response rate with

19:35

personalized message. The fewer leads you have,

19:38

the less automation you should consider using. For

19:40

example, if there are only a thousand

19:42

hedge fund managers who meet your criteria, you're

19:45

gonna wanna personalize every one of them.

19:47

On the other hand, if you're targeting women 25 to 45,

19:50

trying to lose weight, and there are tens of millions of

19:52

them, you can get away with less personalization.

19:54

But if you personalize, you'll get even more. Wink,

19:57

pro tip, personalization tech.

19:59

The...

19:59

Every combination for max leads is max

20:02

personalization with max volume. And

20:04

with tech, you don't always have to sacrifice

20:06

personalization for scale. Every

20:08

day, data becomes more accessible to find personal data.

20:11

If you can set up tech to accomplish both personalization

20:13

and volume, you create a deadly effective lead

20:15

getting combo.

20:17

Action step.

20:18

Embrace new technology. Allocate

20:21

10-20% of your effort towards brand new untested technology.

20:24

For example, if you make phone calls 5 days a week,

20:26

try out a new dollar or tech one

20:28

of the days and see how it does compared to your standard dialer.

20:31

See. Follow

20:32

up more times, more ways.

20:35

There are two more ways you can get more from your list of names.

20:39

First, you try to contact them more than

20:41

once. Shocker.

20:42

But want to know something crazy? Most people don't.

20:45

Here's

20:45

a different way to think about it.

20:46

Imagine you really needed to get a hold of your parents

20:48

because something important came up. What

20:51

would you do? You'd probably call them, text them, leave a voicemail,

20:53

etc. And if they still hadn't responded,

20:55

what would you then do? You'd call and text

20:57

them again. Maybe shortly thereafter. It's

21:00

the same way with prospects. They are

21:02

in danger of living life without your solution.

21:05

Be a hero. Save them.

21:07

The more ways you try to contact someone, the more

21:09

likely you are to contact them. People

21:11

respond to different methods. For example, I never

21:13

respond to phone calls, but I reply to direct

21:16

messages far more. Contacting

21:18

someone multiple times multiple ways shows them

21:20

you are serious. And doing so quickly

21:22

communicates you have something important to discuss. Curiosity

21:25

increases because they fear they're missing out. Personally,

21:28

I like to email first. You know why? Because

21:31

most people don't respond. If someone doesn't respond

21:33

to one of your outreach methods, use that as a

21:35

reason to follow up with another method. Hey,

21:37

I'm calling you to follow up about my email. We

21:40

either get a response or a real reason

21:42

to reach out again. Either way, we win.

21:44

And once you do get them booked for an appointment,

21:47

expect more than one conversation.

21:48

Remember, we're contacting complete

21:51

strangers. Outreach takes more touch points

21:53

with people who don't know you.

21:54

So expect two or three conversations before

21:56

a higher ticket sale. Shoot for less, but

21:59

expect more when you're starting.

21:59

out. Bottom

22:00

line,

22:01

act like you're actually trying to get a hold of these people

22:03

rather than going through the motions and you probably

22:05

will.

22:06

Action step, contact each lead

22:09

multiple times in multiple ways.

22:11

Pro tip, don't be an ink and poop. If

22:13

someone asks you not to contact them, don't

22:16

contact them again. Not because there isn't a chance

22:18

it could work, but because for the same effort, you

22:20

can reach out to someone who isn't already negatively inclined.

22:23

It's just more efficient to turn neutral to yes

22:25

than no to yes. On top of that, you

22:27

don't want a bad reputation. That kind of stuff follows you. Try

22:30

hard because you have a genuine desire to solve their problems,

22:32

but be respectful. Second, once

22:35

you finish contacting your list, start back

22:37

at the top again.

22:38

This actually works for three reasons.

22:40

One, because they simply may not have

22:42

seen your first series of messages. Only a fool would

22:44

think 100% of people see what you put out 100% of

22:47

the time. So we make up for that discrepancy

22:49

with follow up.

22:50

Two,

22:51

even if they do see it, it may not

22:53

have been a good moment to respond. People's

22:55

schedules change every day, and there are times

22:58

when people can't respond to you even

23:00

if they wanted to. So the more opportunities

23:02

you give them to respond, the greater the chance

23:04

they will. Three, their

23:06

circumstances may have changed. They may

23:09

not have needed you then, but need you desperately

23:11

now. Imagine a person you messaged about

23:13

losing weight before the holidays. At that time,

23:15

they fit into their skinny jeans, so they feel no pain.

23:18

They probably wouldn't respond. But after they gained 10

23:20

pounds over the holidays, they may all of a sudden be in desperate

23:23

need of what you offer. And now they respond

23:25

to your reach out attempt. The only thing that changed

23:27

was their circumstance. So try again

23:29

in three to six months and get an entirely new group

23:31

of engaged leads from the same list. Everything

23:35

may be right except the timing. So the

23:37

more times you contact them, the more likely

23:39

we will catch them at the time they're ready to engage.

23:41

Action step. After you've

23:43

attempted to contact them multiple times,

23:45

multiple ways, wait three to six months, then

23:47

do it again. Pro tip. If

23:49

you are new to an average team, shadow

23:51

the best guy on the team. Then

23:53

double their inputs. If they make 200 calls,

23:56

make 400. If that means you work more,

23:58

duh, you will suck. before you are good. You

24:01

can make up for your lack of skill with volume.

24:04

Volume negates luck. And when you do

24:06

twice as many, you'll get good in half the time.

24:08

Once you beat their numbers, then you can get cute

24:11

and try new things. Replicate before you iterate.

24:14

Three problems strangers create, solved.

24:17

I wrote the book in this order to build on itself.

24:20

Start with warm reach outs, get some reps, post

24:23

some content to grow your warm audience, get

24:25

even more reps, then you'll be ready for cold

24:27

reach outs.

24:28

And now, we solve the three core problems cold

24:30

audiences create. Finding the right list of people,

24:33

getting them to pay attention to you, and getting them to

24:35

engage. Victory.

24:37

Author note.

24:38

For people with low ticket products, I

24:41

had trouble making cold outreach profitable when selling

24:43

for my direct consumer business. Cold

24:45

outreach teams are expensive and my average ticket

24:47

wasn't high enough.

24:49

But I learned I could make a low ticket product,

24:51

a high ticket product, if I sold a lot of them

24:53

at once.

24:54

So I switched from using cold outreach to get customers

24:57

to using cold outreach to get affiliates who got customers

24:59

for me.

25:00

There were two ways that worked.

25:02

Either I'd sell the affiliates lots of products

25:04

and bulk up front, then they'd sell my products

25:06

to their customers, or I'd

25:09

use cold outreach to recruit them, then get

25:11

them to sell my products to their customers and receive

25:13

a commission after the sale.

25:15

One affiliate sale can be worth thousands of customers.

25:18

Both ways transform my quote low ticket

25:20

sale into a quote high ticket sale by

25:22

selling many at once.

25:23

So the numbers pencil out.

25:25

If you're having trouble using cold outreach for your direct

25:27

consumer business, consider going after affiliates

25:29

instead. More on this in the affiliates

25:31

chapter later.

25:33

Benchmarks, how well am I doing?

25:36

The two times I failed at cold outreach, I hired people

25:39

who'd never tracked metrics well.

25:40

The third person did.

25:42

And cold reach out succeeded.

25:44

The person who runs it, maybe you,

25:46

has to know the metrics of the sales process

25:48

like the back of their hand, every single

25:50

stat.

25:51

Let's break down the numbers with a couple of platform examples.

25:54

I cannot give an example for every platform

25:56

because it would take too long.

25:58

My hope is that you can generalize the concept.

25:59

whatever platform you use. Phone

26:03

example. Let's say I make 100 cold

26:05

calls per day.

26:06

And let's say I get a 20% pickup rate.

26:09

From there, I'm able to get 25% of people

26:11

to want to take my lead magnet.

26:14

That means I got four engaged leads. If

26:16

it took me four hours to make those calls, it

26:19

means I got one engaged lead per hour.

26:21

I can do this at first. Once the amount

26:23

of engaged leads that convert to customers makes me

26:25

more than it costs to pay a cold outreach rep,

26:28

I teach someone else to do it for me. More

26:30

on this in section four.

26:32

So you know you do well when you make at least three

26:34

times the lifetime profit of a customer compared

26:36

to what it costs you to get them.

26:38

Email example.

26:40

Let's say you send a hundred personalized emails

26:42

per day.

26:43

From there, 30% open our email. From

26:46

there, 10% reply showing interest.

26:48

That means we'd have three engaged leads,

26:51

which is 30% times 10% equals 3%. The

26:54

numbers will vary, but shoot for 3% of your list

26:56

turning into engaged leads. Here's a

26:58

sample from a new campaign for a very niche,

27:01

high ticket service business in our portfolio.

27:03

It shows a 4% lead to engagement rate.

27:06

And presumably a third of them

27:08

converted into sales.

27:10

That would net us one new customer per 100 reach

27:12

out attempts. Direct message example.

27:16

Let's say I make a personal video or record a personal

27:18

voice memo for 100 people. I

27:20

say their name and add one personal line before delivering

27:23

my standard message.

27:24

From there, 20% of people reply.

27:27

Now we have 20 engaged leads. From

27:29

there, we use the same ACA format

27:31

from the warm outreach section to qualify them

27:33

for a call and so forth. So like the phone

27:36

example, you know, you do well when the cost

27:38

of doing cold outreach is less than three times what

27:40

you make in profit from a customer. Note

27:43

you can do way better than three times. That's

27:45

the bare minimum. For context, the

27:47

portfolio company above gets over 30 to one returns

27:50

from its outreach efforts

27:52

costs.

27:53

This method is labor intensive. Nearly

27:55

all costs are in the form of labor.

27:57

In order to calculate our return on advertising, we

27:59

add.

27:59

up all labor and software costs associated with

28:02

steps 1 through 3

28:03

in the section before last.

28:05

Let's imagine we have a team doing cold calls. We

28:08

pay them $15 per hour and $50 per show

28:10

in appointment or shows.

28:12

We have $3,600 in profit per sale.

28:15

Lead costs us 10 cents. They

28:17

call 200 leads per day. We

28:19

would likely get about two shows per day from one rep.

28:22

If they worked eight hours per day,

28:24

we would pay $120 in labor and $100 in show commissions

28:27

per rep and $20 for the leads.

28:30

This means we would pay $240 for two shows or $120 per

28:34

show.

28:35

If we closed 33% of shows, our cost

28:37

to get a client excluding commissions would

28:39

be $360.

28:41

Since we get $3,600 in profit per

28:43

new client, we would make a 10 to 1 return.

28:46

That's how cold outreach works.

28:48

Then you just add bodies. It is boring

28:51

and tedious, but brutally effective.

28:53

Pro tip.

28:54

Give each rep an explicit number of leads to work

28:56

each week.

28:58

They should care for these leads like they are their children.

29:00

If you give a rep too many, they will waste them. If

29:03

someone can work 100 leads at full capacity, I'll

29:05

give them 70-ish. That way, they

29:07

have time and energy to squeeze everything they can

29:09

out of the leads they've got. And since all

29:11

reps get the same amount of leads every week, you

29:14

can give them absolute quotas for deals. Example,

29:17

I give you 70 leads. You give me back seven

29:19

appointments. I pay you. No leads left

29:21

behind.

29:23

This sounds hard. Why bother? Most

29:26

people dramatically underestimate the amount of volume it takes

29:28

to use cold outreach. They also underestimate how

29:30

long it takes. But there are seven enormous

29:32

benefits to using cold outreach.

29:34

Number one,

29:36

you don't need to create lots of content or ads.

29:38

You focus only on one perfectly crafted

29:40

message you convey to all your prospects. Your

29:43

only goal is to make that one message better every

29:45

day.

29:46

There is no quote ad fatigue or quote

29:48

banner blindness since your prospects have

29:50

never seen anything from you.

29:52

So you don't need to be a marketing genius

29:54

to make this work.

29:55

Two,

29:56

your competition won't know what you're doing.

29:58

Everything is private. Buy that for me.

29:59

In fact, alone, you can continue to operate in secrecy.

30:02

You're not educating your competitors about how you acquire

30:04

customers.

30:05

They don't know what you're doing, or even that you

30:07

exist.

30:09

Three, it's incredibly reliable.

30:11

All you have to do to get more is do more.

30:14

A certain amount of input creates a certain number of responses.

30:17

It becomes like clockwork, bringing a reliable

30:19

flow of new engaged leads into your world. You

30:21

can reverse engineer the amount of sales you wanna

30:23

make to the number of inputs at the top of your

30:25

lead pathway. Eventually, you'll have

30:27

an equation.

30:28

For every X people contacted, you get Y

30:30

customers. Then, you simply solve for

30:32

X. For example,

30:34

let's say for every 100 emails, I get one customer.

30:37

If I want 100 customers, I need to send 10,000 emails. That's 333

30:40

per day. One person

30:42

can send 111 emails per day. Therefore,

30:46

I need three people sending emails every day to get 100

30:48

customers per month.

30:51

Four,

30:52

fewer platform changes. Private

30:54

communication is rarely subject to platform changes, whereas

30:56

public platforms change rules and algorithms every day. You

30:59

gotta stay on top of rule changes to remain effective.

31:02

In contrast, rules for cold calling, door knocking,

31:04

and cold email have hardly changed in 30 years. Five,

31:08

compliance is less painful. Many platforms

31:11

have stringent rules around claims you can make about

31:13

the stuff you sell. Some also ban

31:15

certain industries altogether, tobacco,

31:17

firearms, cannabis, weight loss, et cetera. With

31:19

cold outreach, you don't need to deal with any of this. You

31:21

still need to be FTC compliant, but you

31:24

don't also need to worry about platform rules on top

31:26

of that.

31:26

This makes life easier.

31:28

If you have a phone, you can make money. If you

31:30

have an email account, you can get leads. This makes

31:32

you very hard to stop.

31:34

Six,

31:35

no spokesperson equals sellable business.

31:38

If an investor can buy it from you without worrying

31:40

your business will stop getting customers if you leave,

31:43

your business is far more valuable. Having

31:45

an established outreach team is how we were able

31:47

to sell gym launch. The business could grow without

31:50

me dancing in front of the camera or relying on me

31:52

being super ridiculously good looking. Ah,

31:55

I don't think they would have wanted to buy us without

31:57

it, or at least not for as much. 7. Hard

32:01

to copy Even if someone wants to

32:03

copy your entire code outreach system, they'll often

32:05

need to learn how to do each step and many

32:08

steps are invisible. They don't know how

32:10

you scrape your list. They don't know how you personalize

32:12

your messages. They don't know what software is used to distribute

32:14

the messages, etc. On top of that they

32:16

still need to learn how to hire, train, and operate

32:18

a team of people who can do each step.

32:20

Once you have a head start, it compounds with

32:22

time. It becomes very hard to catch you. Author

32:25

note,

32:26

belief breaking volume, scaling

32:29

to 60,000 emails per month. To break your beliefs

32:31

around what's possible, here's an example. To break

32:33

past a million dollars per month, we automated the entire

32:35

process of scraping, crafting, and sending emails for one

32:37

of our portfolio companies. One virtual assistant

32:40

sends 2,000 emails per day using multiple pieces

32:42

of software. This generates the business 40 engaged

32:44

leads per day. Note, the response

32:47

rate dropped because we took out so much personalization.

32:49

From there, they're building at 10% of engaged

32:52

leads sold, meaning

32:54

they get four new customers per day. This

32:56

got them past that hundred customers per month barrier.

32:58

Fun facts,

33:00

they started with us at 250,000 per month,

33:02

our minimum size requirement for investment at the time.

33:05

The business makes $20,000 per customer. With

33:07

four new customers per day, do the math at how

33:09

big they are now. Your turn. If

33:12

you recall our advertising checklist, this kicks off

33:14

your journey to get more engaged leads with cold outreach. You

33:16

start this as you run out of people to advertise to

33:18

or because you just want more. Here's a sample.

33:21

Cold reach outs daily checklist.

33:24

Who? Yourself? What?

33:26

Hook plus league magnet slash core offer.

33:29

Where? Any private communication platform.

33:32

To whom? A list scraped,

33:34

bought, or using software. When?

33:36

Every day, seven days a week.

33:38

Why? To get leads to engage to

33:40

sell stuff. How? Live

33:42

calls, voicemail drops, email blasts,

33:45

text blasts, direct message texts, video

33:47

messages, voice messages, direct

33:49

mail pieces, handwritten cards, etc. How

33:52

much? 100 per day. How many?

33:55

Day one? Twice. Day two?

33:57

Twice. Day seven? Once. How

34:00

long? As long as it takes.

34:02

Pro tip. Count in hundreds.

34:03

This is a volume game.

34:05

You will need to do

34:07

a lot of volume, efficiently, to get the results you want. Don't

34:10

set a daily goal below 100. And don't stop for 100 days minimum.

34:13

If you do 100 reachouts for 100

34:15

days straight, I promise you will start getting new engaged

34:17

leads. Next up. Now that you have

34:20

set your commitment for this cold outreach method, we move on to the last thing a single

34:22

person can do to advertise. Run paid ads.

34:25

Free

34:27

gift.

34:28

Cold outreach script samples. I

34:31

had to cut scripts to make this book a manageable length. If

34:33

you want to model your scripts off of them, go

34:36

to acquisition.com forward slash training

34:38

forward slash leads. And if you need another

34:40

reason besides it'll make you money, it won't

34:42

cost you any. It's free. Enjoy.

34:46

Hey,

34:46

if that's going to make you money, what you just heard, go

34:49

leave a review. That's

34:51

how more people find out about this stuff. Please

34:53

don't hoard this to yourself. There's

34:56

another entrepreneur who has a family and kids who

34:58

needed this stuff as much as I needed it during

35:01

the pandemic when I was trying to save my business. Please

35:03

share it. Thank you.

35:05

And yes, the next episode, run paid ads. You'll

35:07

enjoy it. I've run a lot of ads. We're pretty good

35:09

at it. And I'll share how I do it.

35:14

This has been 100 Million Dollar Leads written

35:16

by Alex Ramosi, read by Alex

35:18

Ramosi. Copyright 2023 Acquisition.com

35:22

Audio Production Copyright 2023 Acquisition.com Media