Hey, hope you’re doing well.

I’ve been grinding the past couple weeks on something I never thought I would do..

Sending Cold emails and DM’s to prospects.

I am calling it a grind because it goes against every bone in my body.

It makes me feel:

• Sleazy
• Annoying
• Awkward
• Needy
• Scared

Unless you’re a seasoned vet at this, I would imagine you feel the same way I do.

But, as hard as it is to work up the courage to do this, it works. Many companies use it to generate massive amounts of sales, and some use it just to build their network.

In my quest to learn about this topic, I found two examples that gave me some confidence.

Example#1: Tim Ferris

In Tim’s book “The 4-hour work week” he talks about being a guest lecturer at Stanford.

As an assignment, the students were asked to try and connect with extremely successful people and ask them an insightful question.

The results from this assignment were incredible. His students were able to get (former president) George Bush, The CEOs of Disney, Comcast, Google, and HP, plus many others to respond and converse with them.

My favourite quote from Tim on this:

"I believe that success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you're willing to have."

He also notes that people aren’t born with powerful networks (in most cases). They carefully build these networks by reaching out.

Since it is lonely at the top, the chances of getting a response are better than you might think. Most people don’t even try to reach out to someone like an ex-president which means less competition.

Tim got his first job out of college by emailing the CEO of a startup over and over until he got a position.

Example #2: Sam Parr - Founder of the Hustle

Sam Parr founded the Hustle before selling it to Hubspot. At the hustle, he would put together conferences for entrepreneurs.

He cold emailed successful business people to try and get them to come and speak at his conferences. He did this as a nobody without any connections at the time.

Not only did he use it to get guest speakers but Sam reaches out to anyone he wants to connect with..

He’s had conversations with Jeff Bezos, and Jack Dorsey just from cold email.

After reading about these two examples, I realized that my thoughts about it being scammy are based off of a few really bad emails that I’ve seen.

And I’d convinced myself to steer clear because of fear, but that mindset isn’t helpful.

A better way to think about this..

Being okay with rejection is a super power. And there is no better way to get a bunch of rejections under your belt FAST.

Eventually you will become desensitized.

The asymmetric risk reward is massive.

Best case: I get customers, meet cool people, and get wildly successful

Worst case: Someone asks me to stop emailing (in which case I will) or nobody answers.

The worst case is literally where I am right now so there is no downside and unlimited upside.

What better way to start building that network or selling your service than to start reaching out to anyone and everyone you want to connect with.

So..

Go send that DM or email, because you never know what will happen.

I will report back at a later date regarding any success I have with this for getting clients as well as examples of the emails I get responses from.

That’s all for this week.

Talk soon,

Stephen

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P.S. Shoot me a reply, would love to hear if you have any cold email stores.

Here is a couple links containing actual emails and templates that Tim and Sam used.

​How an 18-Year-Old Uncovered Tim Ferriss’s Secret Cold Email Template to Reach CEOs and VIPs​

​https://copywritingcourse.com/heres-how-to-cold-email-like-a-boss/​

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