I NEED Customers Now! (Preferably Yesterday)

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The second customer is the hardest to get. Let me explain.

The first customer will most likely be from your close network. If you’re B2C it will probably be a family member, friend, distant relative, or general acquaintance. For B2B, maybe it’s someone from your personal/professional network or social media connections.

These are warm leads, meaning they are more inclined to buy from you than a random stranger. If you’re a fan of Alex Hormozi, this is exactly what he suggests doing when first starting out – compiling a list of everyone you know and sending them your pitch.

But what happens when that list runs out? Let’s take a look at our options…

Exhaust Your Warm Resources (Lukewarm Leads)

So you went through your initial list of connections and hopefully got a few sales. But now the list is drying up. What do you do?

Well, you aren’t quite done with that list, those people still play an important role. It’s time to leverage their network to see if they know others who might be interested.

Regardless of whether they purchased from you or said no, it doesn’t hurt to ask them if they know of anyone who might be interested or get value from your offering.

If they purchased from you, say something like this:

“Hey, thank you so much for supporting me. What did you think? I’d love to get feedback so I can improve and continue to add value.”

If they respond positively, ask them if they know anyone else who might be interested. If not, hopefully, they give constructive feedback and you can iterate before reaching out again.

If they didn’t purchase anything, say something like this:

“Hey, not a problem. I understand that this isn’t for everyone. But would you happen to know anyone else who might be interested or find value in this?”

A lot of people will be happy to provide a few names and referrals, and this is where you can start building your lukewarm list.

Oftentimes, a lukewarm list can be even more effective than your initial list. This is for two primary reasons:

1. In a sense, these are referrals, so it’s as if someone is vouching for you when you reach out and say “Hey, <person> gave me your contact information and said you might be interested in my offering.”
2. This list will be more relevant since many of these people will give you names that might actually be interested in what you are offering.
3. (Bonus) This list can usually turn out to be bigger than the original one since these people might provide 2-3 leads each.
4. (Double bonus) Do the same process, ask this new list if they know of anyone who might be interested, and keep growing the list.

Side note: I know this can be intimidating for some people. Building a product and selling it to total strangers is one thing, but selling it to people you know is a whole different ordeal. But this is your best bet in the beginning.

Leverage the network you have before trying to build a new one. Not only will it be easier, but it will help provide a strong base that you can leverage later on. Think reviews, testimonials, valuable feedback, and more!

Getting Colder (Leads)

Alright, so now that you’ve exhausted your warm connections (or you’re avoiding reaching out to any personal connections), let’s get into generating and reaching out to cold leads.

Cold leads are people who have no prior connection to you. They don’t know you, and you’re the one reaching out and initiating contact. But you aren’t reaching out to be their friend, you’re trying to get them to do something.

To put this in perspective, imagine a total stranger came up to you and said:

“Hey, check this cool thing out, you should buy it from me. You can trust me!”

Would you buy it? Probably not. But that’s exactly what 99% of people are doing with their cold outreach campaign.

So how can you do things better?

Let’s start with who you are reaching out to first.

Building the List

When you first started building your product, you probably had some kind of problem or challenge you were trying to solve. Maybe it was a problem you constantly faced, or an issue that you saw others run into.

Either way, this gives you an idea of the kind of people who would benefit and get value from your product. Use this information as the initial filter when you begin creating your cold outreach list.

These people will be the most receptive to your product and should take the least amount of convincing when trying to get them to buy. Why? Because the value should be obvious. If this isn’t the case, you might not be conveying the right marketing message or highlighting the correct USPs (unique selling points).

So now that you know who should be interested in your product, where do you find them?

This will take a little research, but you will want to find out where they spend a lot of their time. Where do relevant communities exist? What is their favorite type of communication and networking? Where do they do most of their communication?

Here’s a very general, high-level overview:

• Facebook – General consumers, typically 30+ demographic.
• Instagram – General consumers, a younger demographic than Facebook.
• Twitter – Niche communities (Crypto, indie devs, etc).
• Reddit – Wide variety of large and small communities.
• ProductHunt – Indie devs, early adopters, tech-affluent users, etc

There are tons of other communities and websites out there, so try to think out of the box. Challenge yourself to come up with a few different options where your ideal audience could reside.

The second part of this is learning what kind of content they consume. This will partially depend on which platform you plan on utilizing, and the platform itself will usually give a good hint about what they like.

For example, Facebook is all about sharing content, writing posts, and sharing experiences and other content (blogs, articles, etc). However, Instagram is almost entirely visual-based, with audiences looking for engaging images and videos. So avoid posting a wall of text, even if it’s an image-based wall of text on Instagram.

Reddit is all about discussion and unique experiences, so people don’t want an essay or whitepaper. They want something personal and unique, talking about one’s own take on something and then sharing relevant resources.

Reaching Out to the List

Once you’ve got a list of potential leads, it’s time to start engaging them. There’s a variety of different ways to do this, but we’re focusing on how to get customers now.

The plain and simple is just to start sending messages to your list. If your list is big enough, you can probably brute force your way into getting a small conversion rate if your product showcases its use cases well.

But let’s combine brute force with a bit of thought. Remember, we are reaching out as complete strangers when engaging with our cold list. So the first thing we need to focus on is establishing trust.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when trying to build trust in as little time as possible:

• Review the profile you are messaging from. If you’re outreaching from your Twitter profile, make sure it’s put together well. Better yet, have content showcasing the time, work, and dedication you put into your platform. “Building in Public” is a great example of how well this can work. Sharing what you are working on, the problems you faced and how you overcame them, and other insights can immediately build trust because it allows someone to get to know you. It also builds social proof because you’re sharing your experience and others can engage with that as well.
• Showcase testimonials and reviews. One of the best ways to build initial trust is by proving that others have had the results and experience you are claiming to provide. In a time where reviews can often be faked or misleading, try to be as authentic as possible. Take screenshots of posts, messages, or any other types of feedback to showcase on your profile and/or website. Better yet, if the feedback was posted on the same platform, repost and share it on your own profile. That authenticity is digital gold.
• Start by offering something for free. Free trial, lead magnet, limited access. All of these are popular options to quickly build trust. Utilizing these types of things will help remove risk, thus lowering the hesitancy that some people may have. If you offer a free week of access, what does someone have to lose by signing up and trying your tool?

Lead magnets can also be a great option and typically consist of putting together something of value related to your offering. It serves a few primary uses:

• Showcases your expertise. If you put together something that showcases value relevant to your offering, people will see you as an authority in that area. e.g – A quickstart guide to social media marketing, if your offering is a social media management tool.
  
  Sidenote: Lead magnets are quite popular, but so many people fail at it. Don’t put together some cheap content that just acts as a sales pamphlet for your product. Try to build and share value with what you are offering. Cheap BS just makes you seem shady and doesn’t help your brand at all.
  
• Activates the rule of reciprocity. In human psychology, the rule of reciprocity is the idea that whenever someone does something for you, there is a natural inclination to return the favor.
  
  This has been credited as one of the key factors in the evolution of humans, as it allows us to perceive doing things for another person without an immediate reward.
  
  Compared to most animals that are out for themselves, we understand that there is value in doing something for someone because it may later be reciprocated.
  
• Helps to qualify potential leads. Lead magnets can help act as an attractor for potential users, but it also acts like a filter so you don’t waste your time on people who don’t care.
  
  If you aren’t interested in social media marketing, you aren’t going to engage with a ‘quickstart guide to social media marketing’. This helps cut down on leads that would otherwise be a waste of time, and allows you to focus on those that are actually looking for a solution.
  

In the beginning, cold outreach will most likely be the lowest converting marketing channel you have. But it’s one of the best ways to brute force your way into getting paying customers without a massive budget.

But remember, even when someone says ‘no’ you are gaining value. In fact, I’d argue that those that don’t buy can teach us more than those that do.

Why? Because they will tell you their hesitancies and objections to your offering. You can then take this information back and refine your pitch, add features to your platform, and ultimately build a more sound business.

So remember to take notes on why people are saying “no”, and trust me, they will say it a lot. Incorporate this feedback into your outreach and/or platform, and your next set of pitches will be that much better.

Other Stuff

Cold outbound is just one of the tools that can be used in your marketing arsenal, but it’s one of the fastest with a limited budget. Ideally, you can use cold outbound to jumpstart the business or at least market-test your offering before investing more money into other marketing avenues.

From there, I’d recommend building more automated channels such as social media, ads, SEO, and more. These tend to be easier to automate and allow you to build a sales funnel that’s not necessarily reliant on you sending hundreds of messages every day.