Here's a great article by Robert Graham, where he explains how he developed a cold-calling approach to generate early leads and enable himself to figure out what his intended customers wanted.
Robert takes us through the evolution of his cold call pitch, culminating with a win-win approach that worked out for him:
Sure enough, each and every prospect, skeptical or not, I used this pitch on agreed to have me out. I booked a week of appointments in a handful of calls. I was so successful, I was forced to start telling people I would contact them the following month to set a date. I had too many appointments and too many blog posts to write. Making the pitch a true win for both of us was the magic that generated the 100% conversion to the next step, but each small piece of experience and learning contributed to that success. I learned a lot about my business from each visit. I didn't close 100% to sales, but those relationships have yielded a lot more than a simple close. Many people have contacted me weeks or months after our first conversation and ask if I'm still solving the problems we talked about.
It's worth noting that this specific approach won't necessarily work for all industries. For example, it would be disingenuous for GrantTree to start posting reviews of tech companies and use that as a bait to get companies talking to us. That being said, looking for a genuine win-win is a great idea.
Read the whole article here.
If you read this far, you should follow me on twitter here.
