Nicolas Cole explains why cold DMs fail and shares a five-step method to land clients instead: network, help people first, send personalized Loom videos, offer free consulting calls, and do free work to build credibility and get referrals.
Let me guess. Some marketing influencer told you cold DMs are the secret to making money online. Yeah, that guy is broke. That's a rented G wagon. There's a reason no one is responding to your DMs. It's not because you don't have a million followers or you don't have the right DM script. I know you want to make money online. You see everybody doing it. And I know you want to get there as fast as possible. As Warren Buffett says, nobody wants to get rich slowly. We. You ever heard of Warren Buffet? Let me tell you a story about Warren Buffett. In this video, I'm going to walk you through the five steps to land dream clients. People you actually want to work with and who are happy to pay you a premium. This strategy is how I've sold $5 million worth of ghostwriting services, and I'm going to show you how we teach writers in our premium ghostwriting academy how to do this step by step to land $5,000 clients. Here's how to land any client, even if you've never talked to them before and have credibility. Step one. Your niche is your network. Okay, forget cold DMS for a second. Right now, there are at least 10 people in your life you could help. That uncle who always complains at Thanksgiving about how his website doesn't convert, or that roommate of yours from college who you just saw got promoted on LinkedIn. All of these people in your life would love for someone to show up one day and offer to solve one of their problems. And because they already know you, they. They would at least be willing to hear you out. So step one. Start with the people in your life. Make a list of everyone you know who you could help next. Step two. How can you help them? The cold DM strategy is so popular because it doesn't require you to think, oh, if I just copy paste this message to a thousand people, money will start raining from the sky. The truth is, when it comes to outreach, less is actually more. It doesn't matter if you're talking to someone in your network or pitching someone completely cold, each person is going to need help in slightly different ways. So check out their LinkedIn, poke around on their website. Try to find if they have a newsletter. Do your homework. For example, in pga, what we do is we give ghostwriters a laundry list of problems they should look for in other people's businesses so they know exactly what would be most valuable to point out to their dream client. Problems like person doesn't have an opt in. They have an opt in but no welcome sequence. They have a website, but no newsletter. They have a social audience and a newsletter but no nurture sequence. And so on and so on. Once you're clear on how you can help them specifically, it's time for step three, Free consulting via loom. Repeat after me, you aren't selling, you're educating. I get pitched via cold DM probably a hundred times a day, and contrary to popular belief, I read almost every single one. But the reason I don't respond isn't because I don't know the person. I don't respond because the message sucked. The way you land dream clients isn't by pitching them. It's by educating them on something they're doing wrong and don't know it. Which is why. Why? Going back to step two, it's worth taking some time to do your homework. Go through their funnel, see if they even have a funnel and figure out where the problem is. Then record a loom of yourself educating them on that problem. Hey Matt, I was just on your website trying to find your newsletter and when I finally found it, I typed it in my email and I noticed a problem. Because the client can't care about the solution you're offering until they first become aware of the problem at the end of the loom. Then push for a call. Step four, Free consulting Call. So if you tap your network and if you do your homework and if you've properly educated the client on a problem you found in their business, guess what? You won't have to pitch them. They will actually be excited to get on a call with you. Okay. Why? Because you're going to do 30 minutes of free consulting with them. Yes, 30 minutes for free. Whenever I write about the ROI of free work, I always get a ton of comments from people saying no way I deserve to be paid for my time. I. I should be paid a fair wage for my work. And all I'm going to say is free work is how I got to start ghostwriting for CEOs in my mid-20s. Got to sit in rooms I never would have been invited into. Landed over 300 industry leaders, CEOs, New York Times bestselling authors, even Grammy winning musicians and Olympic athletes as clients. And how I've gotten equity in $100 million startups. I promise, the more you give away for free, the more the other person is going to want to work with you. Whereas the less you tell them, the less you educate them, the less they're going to want to work with you. Not because you aren't credible, but because they literally don't understand what problem you're going to help them solve. So take the call. Think of the 30 minutes you spend with them like a marketing cost, and at the end, drop your offer stack. I can help you solve this problem. And here's everything I'll be taking off your plate. Step five Last step. Do some free work. If you've already been working for yourself as a freelancer, then by all means charge for it. But if you're at total beginner and you've never worked with someone on your own before, then I highly, highly recommend doing the first project for free. Why? Because in the beginning, there are things much more valuable to you than being paid in cash. Doing a project for free can pay you in three other really valuable ways. First one is confidence. You'll get a rep under your belt. You'll feel more competent at what you're offering. Second one is credibility. You can say I'll do this project for you for free in exchange for a testimonial. And third, referrals. You can say I'll do this project for free if you introduce me to three other potential clients. Everyone thinks free work is the longer road, but really it's the shortcut in disguise. For example, the first cohort of ship 30 for 30 was free. Why? Because we wanted to get paid in confidence and credibility. And when I started my ghostwriting agency way back in 2016, I did tons of free work for early clients in exchange for testimonials and referrals. Because every time I did a little bit of free work led to a lot of paying clients. So let's recap the strategy. Step one. Your niche is your network. Start with people you know. Then when you've exhausted that list, pitch people you don't know yet. Step two. How can you help them do your homework? Step three, Tell the client how you can help them by educating them on the problem via a short loom video. Step four, get them on the phone. Spend 30 minutes with them telling them how to solve the problem that they have. By the end, I promise they'll be dying to work with you. And Step five, either charge for the work or offer to do it for free in exchange for something else like a testimonial or a couple referrals in pga. Not only do we hold your hand through this entire five step outreach process with both a success coach and a sales coach, but we also give you loom scripts, phone scripts, problem lists, literally everything you need to sell high ticket ghostwriting services out of the box and we have a ton of of success stories from happy ghostwriters to prove that it works. So if you're ready to stop spamming cold DMs and start presenting yourself like a trusted advisor, let me know in the comments. I'll see you in the next video.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
