You’ll never get over the fear and anxiety of a cold call. Just dive in! And have the mindset/attitude that you can get what you want from that call.
It is a challenge and an opportunity.
And make all your cold calls “warm”.
When someone you don’t know doesn’t respond, persist. And when you do finally meet, don’t complain or show annoyance! Nor apologize for your persistence.
When you do meet, be positive and to the point.
4 rules of warm calling:
- Mention a common person/institution (Google/LinkedIn can help)
- State your value proposition
- Find out his problems in advance and tie them to your value proposition.
- Show urgency and convenience (e.g. ask to identify bottlenecks you’ll take care of)
- Prepare a compromise that generates a definite followup.
Meet people using their preferred medium. If they prefer emails, use email.
If you do talk via email:
- Live and die by your subject line
- Be brief. Email should fit in a single screen.
- Make your request clear and specific (meet next week vs meet for half an hour on Tuesday)
- They should not guess what you want from them.
- Read it aloud.
- Spell check and grammar!