As with most of you, I get hit with cold outreach all the time. Cold emails, phone calls, LinkedIn connections, people at our door, etc. While they may occasionally have decent offers, my rule on cold outreach has become very simple — no.
Last week I had someone stop by our house to sell us a new roof. It was admittedly bad timing (I was on a call, and our dog was going nuts), but it helped me come up with a nice phrase to quickly get him to go away: “We don’t purchase from companies that do business this way.“
If you need to interrupt my day to insert your sales pitch, there is a 0% chance I’ll purchase from you. It’s kind of nice to have that set rule, as it saves me a bit of time because I don’t need to evaluate the offer at all. It’s just “no”.
Ads
Proper advertising is a bit different, as it’s part of the deal. If I’m watching live TV, I know there will be commercials and I have no problem with it. I know which podcasts insert ads, and I’m ok with the decision to continue to listen to them. If I perform a search on Google, I know that there will be (ever more…) ads on the top. I’ve accepted that deal and companies that play into those ecosystems are fine by me.
The random interruptions are the deal-breaker and most everyone hates them. The problem is, they can work, and they don’t have to work very often to make it worth their time. If a guy can knock on 200 doors and sell one new roof, it was worth his time (and wasting the time of 199 others is of no concern to them).
If you purchase anything that came via cold outreach, you’re condoning that behavior and telling them it’s ok to annoy as many people as they want as long as it leads to a sale eventually. Just say no.
