As you know, every once in a while I’m good for a long rant about something business related. This solopreneur blog update won’t be a rant, although I’ll link you to one at the end.
This rant I’m alluding to is related to LinkedIn, because I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, especially related to cold outreach as a solopreneur.
Not sure about you, but I am consciously trying to grow on LinkedIn and I get no shortage of cold pitches.
And by cold pitches, I mean people trying to add me to blatantly try to sell me something.
And that’s okay, partly because it’s just the reality of how and why a lot of people use the platform, and because I may convert them into connections who actually enjoy my LinkedIn content.
But to be honest, I’m mostly just disappointed in so many of these cold pitches.
I guess some of them work, otherwise maybe they wouldn’t be using them, but on a daily basis I get these blatant, multi-paragraph, super crappy sales pitches.
They just suck.
I usually just ignore them, but part of me wants to respond and be like “bro, if you spent even 3 minutes improving this message, I bet you’d convert at a 50% higher rate”.
Okay maybe I’d leave out the “bro” part, especially if it’s a female.
Here’s what I would tell them:
- highlight the problem you solve, NOT the services you offer
- keep your message to 3 sentences, max
- get right to the point by using clear, concise language
Instead of paragraphs describing your 1-of-a-million offshore dev services company, just write something like:
“Hey Josh, wondering if your dev work is slow, or expensive, and you’re looking for an affordable and quick solution? Let me know if so, thanks!”
I may not need it (right now), but at least I can quickly understand what it is and give a quick response. The super long messages all get left on read.
For more of my thoughts on these boilerplate messages, check out a recent LinkedIn post of mine here.
I’m also excited because yesterday, Alex (our CTO at Visto) showed me a demo for our new immigration tech tool that we’re building at Visto.
And it’s really cool.
It’s exciting for 2 reasons:
First, because it looks really good. It’s one thing to think up a great idea, it’s another to actually plan it, design it and build it. It’s not rocket science, but it takes careful planning and a lot of developer effort.
I’m lucky because Alex and our other developer are awesome, so usually any immigration tech I dream up, they can build – pretty quickly, and really well.
Second, because it means now we can start demo’ing and testing it.
I’ve had tons of conversations with potential clients and partners over the last few months, but they usually end in “this sounds great, let me know when you have a demo”.
Well, now we have the demo!
That means as the marketing/sales guy on the team, the pressure switches back over to me to get this tech out there.
It’s actually an interesting dynamic for small tech companies: the balance in pressure between tech and sales/marketing.
Early on, the pressure tends to be more on the tech side – you’re starting to build a product, and it’s the developers that have to build it.
But once it’s ready, it switches over to the marketing and sales team, to actually get it out to the public (and earning some revenue).
Luckily for me, I’m really confident in this new immigration tool we’ve built (for international students), and while I want to remain realistic, I think I can move it quick.
And of course, I’ll keep you posted on how that goes, strategies I’m trying, and ups and downs along the way.
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