How to Use Cold Outreach to Create Hot Opportunities -

Cold outreach feels really uncomfortable because we don’t want to seem spammy or we’ve tried and failed at it in the past.

No one likes being pitched to which is why you avoid cold outreach. Right? But you can do it successfully without being icky or sounding too salesy.

But with the right strategies you can develop an effective sales strategy that helps you turn cold leads into hot opportunities. During my chat with Elena Ciccotelli, host of The Side Gig Central Podcast, she shares some game changing tips that are going to change your outlook when it comes to cold outreach.

Shannon Baker

Well, hello, everyone! And thank you for joining us today! So I’m excited because I am going to be talking to one of my podcast and side gig besties that I met on Instagram. I love her approach and her mentality because she’s also a big believer in bootstrapping your business and working smarter. So let me tell you who I’m talking about, it is Elena CIccotelli and she’s a sales coach who helps service based entrepreneurs sign new clients by leveraging sales systems. So of course, we’re going to be talking about an aspect of sales that everyone needs to know about, and that is cold outreach. But before we dive into that, with more details, Elena, just tell us a little bit about yourself and your business and your podcasts.

Elena Ciccotelli

Yes, thank you, Shannon! Thank you so much for allowing me to be on your show. Huge fan of your show! But yeah, as you said, I’m a sales coach. I love helping service based businesses not only get more out of their sales strategy, but do it in a way that feels good for them; in a way that’s going to help them grow their business. And as you mentioned, I’m a huge fan of bootstrapping! So I also am a huge believer in being able to grow your network in this really weird time that we’re in right now. Everything is virtual, everything is online, but doing it in a way that’s not going to feel quote – unquote salesy. So I have a podcast, as you mentioned; it’s called The Side Gig Central Podcast. Shannon was a guest on the show! So very, very easy to implement tips that you can use for your online business.

Shannon Baker

And thank you for joining us today! So I’m excited because I am going to be talking to one of my podcast and side gig besties that I met on Instagram. I love her approach and her mentality because she’s also a big believer in bootstrapping your business and working smarter. So let me tell you who I’m talking about, it is Elena CIccotelli and she’s a sales coach who helps service based entrepreneurs sign new clients by leveraging sales systems. So of course, we’re going to be talking about an aspect of sales that everyone needs to know about, and that is cold outreach. But before we dive into that, with more details, Elena, just tell us a little bit about yourself and your business and your podcasts.

Shannon Baker

Awesome! So definitely make sure that you subscribe to Elena’s podcast because she has some amazing guests on there! And she shares some valuable tips that you need to know. So let’s just dive right into this topic because one, all of us are not sales people. So this probably is a weak point for I would say probably a good 90% of us, because we know we’ve all got the the salesy, or the sleazy sales message, or one that just really kind of turned us off because we didn’t know the person. So being that that’s the case, tell us what exactly is cold outreach for those that don’t know?

Elena Ciccotelli

So cold outreach is reaching out to a prospect that you have qualified ahead of time that could potentially be a great customer for you. Who you would be able to solve their problem but you have no prior relationship with them, you are reaching out cold, right?! So normally, when I speak with my clients, they’ll say, oh, all my leads are coming from referrals. Right? So that’s kind of like a warm introduction, you’re able to, you know, take some of the points that you may have had a reference point with one of your past clients, and then they give you a nice warm introduction. This is not that, right!

So cold outreach is a little bit more complex because you are reaching out to somebody that you don’t know and at the end of the day trying to win their business. But before you even get to the win your business part, you have to establish a relationship. A lot of people find this to be kind of just weird and just have a ton of salesy vibes around it. But it really doesn’t have to be that way! And the the other the other point I wanted to mention too here is there’s a lot of chatter and a lot of talk about how just cold outreach is very old fashioned. It doesn’t work and you shouldn’t waste your time doing it.

Elena Ciccotelli

But I actually have a different approach to that because my philosophy is more like, you know, are all of the clients that are ever going to work with you in the entire lifespan of your business, are they already on your email list? Are they already following you on social? Are they already watching your stories go into your Clubhouse rooms? Probably not right? You probably are missing a huge piece of your sales strategy by staying close into the well I’m just going to service the referrals and the inbound leads that just come to me and that are attracted to me because that’s that’s something that I feel a little bit more in control with. And I think the bigger issue is people just just feel I don’t know, I don’t know how to approach this this cold strategy. So that’s kind of the background around why I’m so passionate about teaching people how to use cold outreach in a way that feels good for them.

Shannon Baker

No, and I love that because people really don’t know where to start this process, or they think they know where to start. And their approach is just totally incorrect. So what tips can you give us to start making these connections or, you know, do the cold outreach, but in a way that’s not salesy, and that everyone can be comfortable with?

Elena Ciccotelli

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the biggest thing here to remember is that good cold outreach is thoughtful, it’s well researched, and it’s personalized, okay? If you could take those three things, and create something that does not at all, you know, interfere with any of those pillars, then you are good. You have just created a really good cold outreach campaign! So just to give you an example, email is just an just an easy example of what I’m talking about here. So if you are in the b2c business, right, and you may have an email address of someone that could potentially be a good fit for you. Now, of course, adhering to all the can spam rules and emailing that of that nature, but it’s like, Okay, what do I write? I have a blank slate.

“Good cold outreach is thoughtful, it’s well researched, and it’s personalized” ~ Elena Ciccotelli

Elena Ciccotelli

So here’s a couple tips that are going to help you. The first is you make sure that your subject line is short, and that it’s personalized. I do this a lot working with companies b2b. And the more that you personalize a subject line, the more you’re going to get a an open rate! And you’re also going to have a better response rate as well. Keep it short, guys! Like don’t don’t write a huge long story. They’re going to see this wall of text and then they’re just going to bail. Or don’t add attachments to your email, nobody’s going to read your attachments. They don’t know you! You are trying to just establish rapport, you’re trying to establish a relationship. So just keep it short. Keep it very, very concise, and have at least just one, one call to action at the end. Don’t litter it up with a whole bunch of different links and different actions that you want them to take. Just keep it very clean, very simple.

Elena Ciccotelli

One lot, you know, respond back with the word Yes. Or, you know, another one too, or one really popular one is Click here to book time on my calendar, something of that nature, one clear CTA so that you’re able to cut through a lot of the fluff. And then one little secret weapon that I do have and that is the the congratulatory cold email. And I love the congratulatory cold email because it shows that you are in the know, that you’ve researched a little bit about this person and you are taking an interest in getting to know them.

Elena Ciccotelli

So for example, if they recently have won an award, they were published somewhere they were on a podcast episode, they, you know, there’s a whole range of things that you can take as an example, and cite that in your email and say, “Hey, Shannon, I heard you were on this podcast… I love your message…” And make it very, very personalized. You can also start to name drop two, if you know it’s like maybe a connection of a connection, add that in as well because that adds in another layer of credibility. But what I love about that email is that if you entered it correctly, with a question, inviting a conversation instead of a, Hey, I need you to do this for me right now thing, it’s like, Who are you? I don’t even know you. Like, let’s invite a conversation into it first. And maybe it’s a question about, Hey, I know you are really big into productivity tips for mompreneurs. I’ve been asking a lot of people in this industry, this particular question, fill in the blank. And then that way, you’re inviting a conversation and it’s not just, hey, I need something from you.

Shannon Baker

Yes. Now, I love those tips because one word came to my mind as you were sharing them strategy. Well two words, strategy and purpose. Like, what is the purpose of you reaching out to the person because sales may not always necessarily mean that you directly want that person to buy from you. But you may just be trying to tap into their network and make some new connections. But you’ve got to know that ahead of time before you start your outreach. And I really love your point about personalization and research. I have gotten messages from people pitching for me to help me put systems in place. Like really? Did you read anything?

Elena Ciccotelli

They’re probably not! I mean, it says it clearly in your bio, what you do. And that’s the other thing, too. I think the biggest part of cold outreach that scares people is because they’ve been on the other side of it. They’ve gotten those cold DMs, those cold emails, and they know how it made them feel as being on the receiving end of it. So they’re like, Oh, well, I don’t want to come off in that weird way. Right? So okay, yeah, then don’t do that. Right, there’s another approach that you can take, there’s another way that you can go about it. And I can’t even tell you the amount of just open space that this brings to your business. Because, again, like, I love the idea of attraction, marketing, I love the idea of putting out content that’s helping your ideal customer, please continue to do that. This is not a replacement for those things that you may already be doing in your business. But instead, it’s something to round out your your strategy that might have some like mindset, fears wrapped around it.

Shannon Baker

Awesome! So now someone may be thinking, Oh, this sounds really good. But I’m afraid that this is going to take up time that I don’t have. So what part of this outreach process can be automated to save time?

Elena Ciccotelli

Yes, I love that you bring this up! So one of my favorite tips for this is if you are a Gmail user, there is a tool called Gmass. And it is an email merge tool that you can put into your your Gmail inbox. And what happens is that it works like a drip campaign. And it you can for all intensive purposes, put, you know, up to I think for the free account, you get up to 25 email addresses to put into a drip campaign at one time. But from there, you use Google Sheets, you can drop all those email addresses into Google Sheets, it’ll transfer it over to their Google magic that they do. You can personalize the fields, the first name, maybe it’s your personalizing the purpose of the email, whatever that may be, those personalizations those fields are going to be in Google Sheets. That’s going to pull from Google Sheets here to put that in there. And then you can set your account, you know, for every couple of days, the next email is going to trigger. The next email is going to trigger if they in fact do not answer the email.

Shannon Baker

Oh, man, you know, I’m about to go do some research on this, because this is one Gmail tool that I didn’t know about!

Elena Ciccotelli

Yes, it’s, yeah, it’s Gmass! And I use it religiously. And it has just, it has absolutely turned my business around! Like it’s so funny that not a lot of people know about this, because it is a free tool! There is a way that you can make it paid but if you’re uncomfortable, or if you don’t use Gmail and you have maybe your own email domain or some other email domain, I do encourage you to use your email service provider. And if you can segment your audience, and then from that segmentation that you have, you can start adding in emails in a drip campaign. And they can be in those follow up emails, by the way, they need to be short, they need to be to the point, I only like to use one sentence. You know, one of my famous lines that I like to use is bumping my email to the top of your inbox to talk about x bow ball as well. My name, right, it’s really, really that simple. But to your point, you know, it does get cumbersome if it’s not automated if it’s not in a system. So there’s a bunch of different ways that you can go about setting it up.

Shannon Baker

Yeah, and this is actually good, especially something I can use and get my clients to use and teach them how to use it because the majority of them may have like an email marketing platform they use whether it’s Mailerlite, or MailChimp or ConvertKit or whatever. But the majority of them I also have them start working through a Google Workspace. So this will be like the perfect tool for them and especially for following up with even people that you may come in contact with or want to connect with through networking events. Like this is awesome!

Elena Ciccotelli

Yeah, yeah, absolutely! And like I said, you know, there’s just lots of different places we are online. Right? So we’re on Instagram, we’re on LinkedIn, Facebook Clubhouse… it’s like how do we bring all of those connections that you have into one spot that you owned, by the way? I know we’re always talking about like, ownership of that data. So if you can, and again, yes, it is a lot of work on the front side, but go ahead and hire Shannon to help you do this. But it does take a lot of like, you know, work in the beginning, but it’s so worth it to smooth it out so that you’re able to just run with this. So if you say you have a new campaign that you want to you have something that you want to start promoting beginning of Q2, you have your system set up already. You just have to come up with the content for you to just get this thing going on autopilot!

Shannon Baker

This is great and these have been some great tips in just a short amount of time, which is no surpris! I knew it was going to be because you’re full of sales tips with yourself.

Elena Ciccotelli

So thank you Shannon!

Elena Ciccotelli

Now I have a bonus question. Now this is a little bit more personal. I want to know one routine or system in your life or in your business that you cannot live without.

Elena Ciccotelli

A system that I cannot live without, oh, I’m such a big Trello girl, I really am.!I know that you’re also a fan of Trello as well. But yeah, I just I have a lot of random thoughts for content, a lot of random ideas for my clients that I just think of on the fly. And I love the fact that I can just pull out the app, start a new card, and like I have all these different columns for, you know, content for clients for workflow. And I could just go in there put in whatever I’m thinking on the fly, and it’s magically going to be on my desktop and ready and waiting for me to do something with it. And actually, like, formulate into a full idea.

Elena Ciccotelli

Because I think, you know, especially as online business owners, we’re automatically we have to be content creators too. Unless you have your businesses like fully capitalized and you have a ton of money to like do a lot of outsourcing, at least in the beginning part, you are the content creator. So you’re gonna have these ideas at random times. As you know, living your life and not in front of the computer. They’re gonna hit you at random times. So I love Trello for that helps me stay organized! And it’s once I cannot live without Trello I love it so much!

Shannon Baker

Yeah, you are definitely my people. You know, I put everything in Trello!

Elena Ciccotelli

I know you even do meal planning on Trello, which I think is awesome!

Shannon Baker

Yes, I do! And it helps me save money, especially with grocery shopping. I keep food inventory. Like I can go on and on and on about Trello but anyway…

Elena Ciccotelli

Oh, yes.

Shannon Baker

So where can my audience find you online?

Elena Ciccotelli

Yeah, absolutely! Well, they can go and find me on Instagram. I’m there way too much! It’s @sidegig_central. Just starting to dip my toe in the water on Clubhouse you can find me there a @Elena.C. and of course sidegigcentral.com; you can go listen to the podcast. And that’s really everything as of this moment!

Shannon Baker

Okay, and I am going to put links to all those places in the show notes. So you all can listen to the podcast and connect with Elena online. We talk in DMs all the time. So thank you again for sharing these tips and joining us today for this conversation, Elena!

Elena Ciccotelli

Thank you, Shannon! Thank you so much for letting me be on your show! I love your show!

Shannon Baker

I love yours too! Okay, have a good one.

Elena Ciccotelli

You too!

To hear all of my chat with Natalie, listen to episode 69 of the podcast. Click below and tune in on your favorite platform.

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