2 builders who never spoke to each other

Ask a connected stranger for a name, not their time

Writing cold to the most connected writer you can name works when the ask is an introduction rather than a meeting, and when the message states the numbers a busy person needs to judge you in one read. A brief slot at an event they are already attending is accepted far more often than a call in an ordinary week.

The method

1. 01

   Cold emailing the best-connected writer in your field to ask for help does work as a way to get introductions.

2. 02

   When cold emailing a well-known blogger for marketing help, state the product, its organic growth, its churn, its price and the size of the market, then ask for a referral to a partner rather than for their own time.

3. 03

   Spend the hours before an event emailing attendees to request a short meeting there, because people who ignore calendar requests will accept a brief slot at a conference.

4. 04

   Borrow credibility in the pitch by referencing a well-known person in the field who will vouch for you.

What it returned

• $9

  The author's email described a dull but solid e-commerce app at $9 a month with very low churn and hundreds of thousands of prospects, and asked for tips on finding an equity or performance-paid marketing partner; the reply arrived with two introductions copied in

• The author cold emailed the most connected marketing and SEO blogger he could think of and received several introductions in reply

• The author found hard-to-reach people ten times more likely to agree to fifteen minutes on the side of a conference than to a half-hour phone call in the normal course of business

Sources

• Episode 88: How Delia Monk earned $100,000 in *Her First Year Freelancing* (!!) From Cold Agency Outreach - Double Your FreelancingDelia Monk · doubleyourfreelancing.com · AI-Generated Summary: · 2023-10-23
• Chapter 6: Thriving in the Long, Slow, SaaS Grind - Tyler TringasTyler Tringas · tylertringas.com · 3. Don’t spend a dime on marketing · 2017-03-14
• Storemapper: Bootstrapped to $50,000/year in 2 years (with live metrics) - Tyler TringasTyler Tringas · tylertringas.com · Hiring a growth-hacker hit man (badly mis-managed expectations) · 2014-08-23
• The Best Networking is Not Networking - Tyler TringasTyler Tringas · tylertringas.com · 2015-04-24