Nicolas Cole shows why cold outreach fails: you're treating strangers like sales targets instead of friends. Reference their recent work, ask what they're focused on now, offer help first. Skip the pitch. The skill is asking questions and listening.
It's so funny because on this topic, I think that people have more unlearning to do than learning to do. Okay. What I mean by that is all, all of this is you're overcomplicating what, what is actually happening. Okay. I want you to pretend, I want you to pretend that 6 months ago you were at a coffee shop and you're sitting there and there's a person working on their laptop. Next to you and you talked to them 6 months ago and you asked what they did and they asked what you do and you shared a little bit about here's how I work with businesses and they're like, cool, I have a small business. Maybe I'm not really ready for this right now, but like maybe at some point in the future and you hit it off and then you spent the rest of the morning, you were just talking about random shit. You were talking about coffee, you were talking about sports, you were talking about whatever, right? Okay, take that person 6 months goes by. How would you reach out to that person again?
Hey, I was just looking at your website. This thing's broken. Yeah, I guess I'm just overcomplicating things, right?
It's a friend. You go, hey, hey, haven't chatted in a while. Hope you're doing great. Saw you just posted this thing on LinkedIn. Cool. Love seeing that your business is going well. What's, what's been new? What are you focusing on? Every single person, like for everyone here, I know this is such an unbelievably hard thing to wrap your head around. Every person you talk to on the internet, you're already friends. You have decided you are already friends. So if you were already friends, you wouldn't go to them and be like, "For today only, I'm willing to help you solve the largest problem in your business by analyzing your website's performance on—" You don't talk like that to friends. Okay, so if it's helpful, and I mean this literally, open your phone and open a text to an actual friend, like someone in your life, a family member, a friend, and write what you would say to them, and then take that and send it to the person on the internet. That so much of cold outreach is unlearning this, this very strange faulty belief thinking that you need to talk to people differently because they are this person you're reaching out to. No, no, no, no, no. All roads lead back to— everyone should go read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. People want to do business with friends. You are already friends. You've decided. They don't have a say in the matter. You've decided you're friends. So how would you talk to a friend? That's why so many of these questions I see a couple follow-ups in the chat too, where it's like, okay, but if the client says this, like, then what do I say in the message? What would you say to a friend? You're trying to do two things. We are friends. I can help you. That is it. You aren't trying to sell. You aren't trying to get them to understand every nuance of the solution. You— all you're trying to do, we are friends, I can help you. Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, it does, man. Brings a lot of peace as well because it's making the task easier rather than have to overthink about a million things. Yeah, this is like—
it's so— whenever I go to— this is also true for conferences. Whenever I go to conferences with people, I see this Plain as day. You want to know how you don't land business in conferences? You walk around and you pass out your business card. That's like a surefire way of landing no clients. You want to know how you land clients at a conference? You make friends with the person you're sitting next to. How do you become their friend? You decide. You're like, hey, Why are you here? They're like, ah, I came here because, you know, I come here every year. You're like, really? Yeah. Interesting city, huh? Yeah, it's my first time here. You know any good restaurants? Yeah, I've been to this one down the street. Oh, that's pretty cool. What kind of food? We're friends. And then at some point in the conversation, they're going to be like, so what do you do? I'm like, oh, I ghostwrite for business owners. Oh cool, what's ghostwriting? What is that? I just, I handle their emails. Like for example, in your business, like you probably have like a newsletter or something, right? They're like, oh, actually I've been thinking about starting a newsletter. Oh yeah. So like for example, like I'll just, I'll tell you what I do with our clients. Like, you know, if you were gonna start a newsletter, this is what I would do. I am talking to the person like a friend. I am not, no part of me is sitting there being like, I got to get this person as a client. I go, we are friends, I can help you. Here's a bunch of free information. That is the whole game. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I see, man. It makes perfect sense, dude. It does make perfect sense. Yeah, no thanks. I think I don't have any more follow-up questions, dude. That pretty sums it up and I know exactly what I have to do for outreach now.
Awesome. All right. Well, thanks for asking it, Hugo.
Appreciate it. No problem, man. No problem. Thank you.
And I, I saw this follow-up, I just want to acknowledge. So Sadia, how do you do this as an introvert? So first of all, it might not look like it. I, I am an introvert to a T, okay? My wife has a joke that if I am out with her and her friends for longer than 4 hours, like, you will see me shut down, okay? I want to emphasize for everyone, I understand if some of these things that we talk about, you're like, Wow, that seems outside my comfort zone. That's because it is. No part of me, no part of me wanted to learn how to do this stuff. The only part of me that was motivated to learn was the part of me that made no money. So if you want to make more money, you have to build new skills. And so all of these, like the nuance that gets missed is what I'm describing, you are not really talking about yourself. All you're doing is asking questions. That's the whole game. You're just asking questions. And then at some point in the conversation, you might talk for 5% of the time. But most people want to talk about themselves. So all you have to do is ask questions. Hey, by the way, if you're brand new to the world of ghostwriting, maybe you've heard the term but aren't really sure what it is or how it's different from copywriting or content writing. Check out premiumghostwritingblueprint.com. It's in the description below. Okay, this is a free masterclass that I've put together for writers who want to monetize their skills and love for writing with ghostwriting. This is what I did, and ghostwriting completely changed my life. It's how I quit my job. It's how I quadrupled the amount of money I was making. It's how I've gotten to work with so many smart, amazing people, but also have time for my own writing, like writing this book, The Art and Business of Ghostwriting. Anyways, check it out. If you're at all interested in making money from your writing, I would really encourage you to get into ghostwriting. And this free Premium Ghostwriting Blueprint in the description below is the best place to start.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
