Give before you ask

Give, give, give: why giving beats asking

A cold prospect owes you nothing. Every message that asks for something, a call, a demo, their time, spends trust you haven't earned yet. A message that gives them something useful earns it.

So give as much as you can for free, and ask for little. Trust and a real will to help go a lot further than a clever ask, every time. The deal comes after they've seen you help.

The ask, ask, ask habit in cold outreach

The most common way outreach fails is a sequence where every message asks:

1. "Can we book 15 minutes?"
2. "Just checking if you saw my note about a call?"
3. "Do you have time this week?"

Each one asks the prospect to do work for you, and nothing in it is for them. By the third ask, they've learned that every message from you is a request.

Turn each ask into a give. Instead of "Can we book a call?", offer the thing the call would have given them.

What to give in cold outreach

Good gives are useful on their own, quick to receive and specific to the prospect:

• An intro: to a partner, a customer, a host, a hire or a peer they'd want to know. "Mind if I make a quick intro?"
• A resource: a short checklist, a template, a teardown or a one-page guide that solves a piece of their problem.
• A free sample: a small piece of the work you sell, such as a few leads, one rewritten page or one design.
• A short audit: a few specific observations about their site, listing, funnel or outreach, with one thing to fix.
• A useful idea: one concrete thing that's working for companies like theirs, in two or three lines.

Only offer what you can actually deliver. If you offer an intro or a sample, have it ready, and add any link you'd share to the Appointment Setter's Assets so it can share it when it's relevant. See Appointment Setter knowledge and assets.

Give in short messages, not newsletters

A give is not permission to send long content. Don't sign someone up for a newsletter they didn't opt in for, and don't paste an article into a cold email.

• Offer the give in a line or two and let them say yes: "Want me to send it over?"
• If you share something in the message itself, keep it to a few lines.
• Never add prospects to a mailing list from a cold sequence.

A long message nobody asked for reads as marketing, and it's easy to ignore, delete or mark as spam.

From give to deal

Giving first doesn't mean never selling. The order is: give, follow up, then work the deal.

1. Give: the first touch offers something useful with a small yes.
2. Follow up: after they've received it, ask how it went or offer the next piece.
3. Work the deal: once they've seen the value, talk about doing more of it, in whatever way fits your business.

When a prospect replies, the Appointment Setter takes over the conversation and can move it toward a meeting. See After a positive reply.

If you'd rather have our team run outbound for you, including building something custom for each interested prospect, see our managed program.