January 29, 2018

Too good to be true?

Sent by Jonathan Stark on January 29th, 2018

You’re probably not going to believe this but the thoroughbred horse leads are still rolling in.

I got another dozen or so today, including one person who’s family “boards thoroughbred horses for people up and down the east coast.”

So, in roughly 48 hours y’all sent in what amounts to probably more than fifty direct or “friend of a friend” connections to horse people.

If I was looking to research this market or had a product or service for them, I’d be buried in introductions.

My next step would be to set up as many phone calls as I could handle. Assuming I’m not a complete buffoon, these would likely be productive conversations.

And if my offerings represent a good value for this audience, I could be selling stuff as quickly as a few days after my first email.

If this seems to good to be true, remember that there was a non-trivial precondition:

I was hyper specific about who I was looking to connect with.

Here’s my original ask again:

“Are you connected to someone who owns thoroughbred horses?”

What do you think would have happened if instead I had asked something like:

“Do you know any small to medium sized businesses looking to leverage custom software?”

Nothing, that’s what.

People will fall all over themselves to help you, but you have to give them the tools to do so. Being crystal clear about what you’re looking for helps.

Yours,

—J