Everyone on LinkedIn will tell you cold outreach is dead. – They’re wrong.
This morning I called a cold lead at large multi national. No intro, no warm connection. Just picked up the phone.
Here’s what happened: Instead of launching into my pitch, I asked about her world. How she thinks about packaging. What keeps her up at night. What her team actually needs. 15 minutes later, I had three names and a direct path to the people who can actually make decisions.
The difference: Most people cold call to talk about themselves. I called to listen.
Most people follow up with a generic template. I’ll follow up with something specific to what she told me.
Most people expect rejection. I expected a conversation. Your industry doesn’t matter. Your product doesn’t matter.
What matters is whether you actually give a damn about solving someone’s problem, not just making a sale. Cold calling isn’t dead. Bad salesmanship is just finally getting called out.
