Founders struggling with pipeline often try to sell their product in cold outreach, which fails. The initial goal is not conversion, but learning. Instead, sell the conversation itself by positioning yourself as an interesting person to talk to. This dramatically increases meeting rates.
Related Insights
Effective outreach uses public data to create a unique, valuable insight for the prospect (e.g., "Your building portfolio will face X dollars in fines by 2030 based on this new law"). This earns you the right to a conversation, where the pitch can happen later, rather than being ignored upfront.
To get meetings with busy leaders before her product was ready, founder Janice Omadeke explicitly stated, "I am too early for you to purchase this." This non-threatening approach lowered their guard, reframing the conversation from a sales pitch to a collaborative session focused on learning their problems.
Focusing on content creation is a low-leverage trap of 'posting and praying.' The most direct and effective way to build a sales pipeline is by actively engaging in two-way conversations with prospects, which creates momentum that passive content cannot.
Sales skills like handling objections are useless if you can't get in front of prospects. The primary bottleneck is securing meetings, not closing them. Therefore, 80% of sales enablement efforts should target this top-of-funnel challenge.
A breakthrough for new salespeople is changing their mindset on initial calls. Instead of trying to immediately find a problem to sell against, focus on making a human connection and leading with genuine curiosity. This approach lowers pressure and fosters a more collaborative discovery process.
In initial meetings with enterprise prospects, Nexla's founder didn't pitch a solution. He focused entirely on validating the problem. By asking, "Do you see this problem as well?" he framed the conversation as a collaborative exploration, which disarmed prospects and led to more honest, insightful discussions.
Instead of trying to convince prospects of your product's value in an initial message, focus on being an interesting person they'd want to talk to. If your targeting is correct, a genuine conversation will naturally uncover their demand and lead to a sales call.
Early outreach often fails by pitching an unproven value proposition. Instead, founders should use "Founder Magic"—leveraging their unique background, story, or mission to make themselves so interesting that prospects agree to a meeting out of sheer curiosity. The outreach should be product-agnostic and focus on being compelling as a person.
Shift the first meeting's goal from gathering information ("discovery") to providing tangible value ("consultation"). Prospects agree to meetings when they expect to learn something useful for their role or company, just as patients expect insights from a doctor.
In the first minute of a cold call, resist the urge to pitch your product. Instead, lead with a 'reverse pitch' that focuses entirely on the prospect's potential problems. This approach is three times more effective than using solution-focused language, as it speaks to what the buyer actually cares about.
