In the digital age, we are told that Inbound Marketing is king. You write blog posts, you tweet, and customers come to you. This is a beautiful dream. The reality for a new startup is usually silence. No one knows you exist. To break this silence, you have to do the thing most people hate. You have to do Cold Outreach.
Cold Calling (or Emailing) is soliciting business from potential customers who have had no prior contact with the salesperson. It is an interruption. You are knocking on a stranger’s door and asking for their time.
For a founder, this is not just a sales tactic. It is a validation tool. If you cannot convince a stranger to talk to you about your problem space, you probably do not have a compelling enough problem to solve.
The Psychology of the Interruption
#Most cold outreach fails because it is selfish. “Hi, I’m Ben, look at my product.” This gets deleted immediately.
Successful cold outreach is empathetic. It focuses entirely on the recipient. “Hi [Name], I noticed you are hiring for [Role]. I imagine you are overwhelmed with [Specific Problem].”
You have about three seconds to earn the right to the next thirty seconds. You do this by proving you have done your homework. Personalization is not just using their first name. It is referencing a recent news article about them or a specific challenge their industry is facing. It proves you are a human, not a bot.
Email vs. Phone
#Which channel is better? It depends on your customer.
- Cold Emailing: This is scalable. You can send fifty emails a day. It is less intrusive. It works well for busy executives who live in their inbox.
- Cold Calling: This is high bandwidth. You get immediate feedback. You hear the tone of their voice. You can handle objections in real time. It is terrifying but effective.
Smart founders use a multi-channel approach. You send an email. If they don’t reply, you call. If they don’t answer, you send a LinkedIn message. You are trying to be ubiquitous without being annoying.
The Follow-Up Game
#The money is not in the first email. The money is in the follow-up.
Most salespeople quit after one attempt. Data shows that it often takes 5 to 8 touches to get a meeting.
Founders often feel like they are bothering people. Reframe this. If you truly believe your product can help them, you have a moral obligation to be persistent. You are not annoying them; you are trying to save them. Keep your follow-ups short and valuable. “Hey, thought you might like this article on [Topic].”
Founder-Led Sales
#In the early days, the founder must do the cold calling. You cannot outsource this to a junior SDR or an agency.
Why? because you need the rejection. When someone hangs up on you or tells you your pricing is crazy, that is pure market data. An agency will hide that data to keep their retainer. You need to feel the market push back so you can iterate on your pitch and your product. Cold calling is the fastest feedback loop in business.