October 4, 2017
Week 4 of daily outreach
For the past couple months, you’ve been hearing about my experiences running an outreach campaign to credit unions for my mobile consulting business.
After a fairly short initial period of planning and research, I committed to connecting with one new person in my target market every business day.
This might sound like a lot of work but it really just takes a few minutes per day.
I’m in my fourth week of this and I haven’t missed a day yet. I know this because I’m using an iOS app called Productive to remind me and track my progress.
The results have been remarkable.
The kindness of strangers
This morning I had a call with a complete stranger who was president of a credit union for 10 years, head of a state credit union league for 20 years, a member of the state house of representatives for 12 years, and a state banking commissioner for 2 years.
Needless to say, this person has a lot of insight into my target market.
My specific intent for the call was to better understand my buyers (i.e., credit union execs).
I asked things like:
- What are the biggest challenges CU execs are facing?
- Where do CU execs go to keep up with changes in their industry?
- How might I persuade CU execs to accept the inevitable risk that comes with change?
Mission accomplished!
We had a super interesting conversation and I learned the answers to all these questions and more.
At the end of the call, I thanked him and he said, “My pleasure! Please feel free to reach out anytime.”
Let me reiterate:
This was a complete and total stranger!
He didn’t know me from a hole in the wall. I connected with him on LinkedIn last week and sent him a DM politely asking for a call. He said yes and we set it up.
But wait... there’s more!
Also today... I sent out not one but two proposals. Both to billion dollar organizations. Both with five-figure prices for high-value, low-labor engagements.
In the same day.
I don’t think I’ve sent out two proposals in the same day in my entire career.
Outreach works when you do it right.
Takeaway
There are a million little tactical decisions to make with an outreach campaign like this, but if I had to boil down what I’m doing to it’s basic essence, it’d be:
- Articulate your value proposition clearly and consistently across all of your marketing materials.
- Extend generously to strangers in your target market on a daily basis.
That’s really all there is to what I’m doing.
Yours,
—J