What 30-year BD Vets Could Learn From a College Student

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Hi, I'm Mo. I'm doing something a little bit different this week. I am filming this from my computer in our offices in Midtown, Atlanta, because something just happened. I am really fired up about it, and I want to share it with you.

In our training classes for GrowBIG or in the book, "The Snowball System," we cover lots of different ways of generating leads. How do you get in the front door the first time, using value in a way that the recipient is excited to meet with you after they get your outreach?

The item we get the most pushback on is called cold marketing. It is the method of last resort. Of course, it is better to get an introduction to someone that you'd like to meet from someone that knows them, that can sing your praises, or to meet somebody at a conference when you've delivered tons of value. They come up to you afterwards. They say, "I loved what you talked about. I hope we can talk more." Those kind of ways that are very warm are the best.

But there are times when you do not have that. There are times when there's somebody you want to meet. You know for sure you want to meet them. You want to start interacting, and you don't have a warm way in. What do you do? Cold marketing comes into play here.

First, here is what not to do with cold marketing. What you do not want to do is fire off an email that has no personalization and just blathers on about getting 15 minutes of your time. These are the worst. I bet I get 15 of these a day. "Mo, it looks like your business is going great." By the way, there is no mention of them even knowing what my business is, so it is completely copied and pasted to everybody else. "Mo, looks like your business is doing great. Can you spare 15 minutes about moving your business to the Cloud?" Or "Do you need HR services?" Or "Maybe you need accounting services?" Or whatever. And I get so many of these. There is no personalization. I can skim it and in two seconds realize what it is. Delete.

Here is the way you should do it. A few weeks ago, I got a chance to be an Executive In Residence at Ball State University, where I went to school. I got a minor in business, a major in actuarial science. Loved my time at Ball State, and I went back to the Miller College of Business as an Executive In Residence. I gave dozens of talks that day; I met hundreds of people and I really enjoyed it. And I was blown away, in general, by the students.

Well, today, I get to my desk and I have a letter. It is hand-written. It is from a guy named Andrew. It is funny. He starts with humor. What he wrote made me laugh out loud. He clearly thought about it. He ties back to something he learned from a session that he attended that I had spoke at. There were 100 people there. And then he makes a specific request for a call for 30 minutes, about some follow-up questions he had, and he would love some career advice.

In a normal cold marketing effort, if we were truly offering assistance that was paid, we would probably want to offer a give-to-get here. Andrew does not have to do that, because he is a student, but the give-to-get, in a way, is that I am gonna get the feeling of helping someone. So things are really busy right now. It is crazy with our book launch and all the other things going on at BIG. We are growing like crazy. But you can darn well be sure that I would love to talk with Andrew, after he put this much work into this note. It is clearly well thought out and I want to help him. I cannot wait to spend 30 minutes with him on the phone, see what his questions are, and see if there is any way I can help him.

This is how you do cold marketing well. Personalization. Tie back to what links you do have together. Put a lot of thought. Make every word work. And end with a specific ask for what you would like to do. Andrew, I'd love to meet with you, and I am gonna reach out to you right now and set it up.

As with all our videos, we hope this one helps you help your clients succeed.