How to do direct sales
Back in 2010 Jason Cohen sent 40 emails to Wordpress consultants (his target audience) trying to set up a sales call. Jason had one this one genius paragraph in his email which read:
Now, I know your time is valuable. I absolutely do not want you to feel like I’m trying to grab time from you. So I'm very happy to pay whatever you think is fair for an hour of your time... Even if it’s more than your normal rate as a consultant.
Every single one replied agreed to talk with him over the phone. And not one of them asked for any money.
Why does that paragraph work? Well it's disarming for one. It also signals that Jason isn't a huge time waster. And also that he is fair and respectful of people's time. If I had a $50 / mo SaaS product I would be sending identical emails today!
If you want some more detail I've wrote a longer article about this tactic here
This is awesome! Just found your site as well. It's really well done and definitely something I can use.
This particular example hits home because I'm at a point where I need to start reach out directly to people.
Cheers Ryan, means a lot.
Good luck. Honestly, I'd copy Jason's exact email word for word!
At Ministry of Testing we do something similar. We offer fees or cover costs for doing things with us (like writing an article or doing training), many people don't want the money so we give them the option to stick the equivalent into a scholarship pot which we then give out to people less able to pay for our training/events/membership.
Ahh that's cool. Thanks for sharing Rosie.
Btw Harry tried to add myself to you news letter but kept saying “not a valid enail” can you add bsmenan@gmail
of course! Pleasure to have you onboard. Just saw you opended the welcome email so looks like we're all good :) just sent out another one now
What would be something similar to offer but for customer interviews/problem validation calls/meetings? $25 gift cards per interview @ 20-25 interviews that I plan to do does get a bit pricey for the stage I'm at (Jason had a prior exit when he started WPEngine).
Any other ideas?
Well firstly, I'd try and offer money because the whole point of Jason's experiment was that majority won't actually ask for any.
But there are alternatives. You could just write a similar polite and respectful email but without the money line. And see how that goes. Good luck :)