Let me share it with you…
I met someone today and we got chatting as you do. I asked what he did as you do and he told me, after being made redundant, for 3 years he had been a self-employed teacher sharing his knowledge on a specialist subject . He suggested he was doing pretty well. When I asked him how he got started he told me he wrote to the relevant heads of departments at the schools telling them what he did and hey presto business started to come in and now he gets lots of referrals.
What did I learn? I have never been an advocate of the cold-direct approach; they don’t know , like you or trust you.
But here was someone who had never been in business and never had to do any marketing selling or promotion yet he realised he had to immediately become proactive from a standing start.
So whilst I wouldn’t do it his way today maybe if I was setting up now I think I would try it as I too have a specialist offering. After all every business relationship has to start somewhere and his first email to the relevant prospect proved the ‘cold’ approach can work.
Blog by Will…