Cold outreach isn't dead...yet 💀

Cold outreach isn't dead, but it's not the future. Here's why 👇

People care about fulfillment and job satisfaction more than ever before.

I can say from personal experience, listening to phones ring isn't an enjoyable task. Doing this kind of work has long been the norm for entry level sales jobs, but when everyone entering the workforce has zero interest in cold calling, employers will be forced to change expectations for these sales roles.

Pure cold outreach isn't very valuable anymore. AI will outperform 80% of emails created by reps (caveat: the best writers will win the email game against AI - invest here as a skill)• Phone screening: this first happened to me almost four years ago. Google phone assistant answered one of my cold calls - asked me who I was and why I was calling - I answered honestly and the assistant hung up five seconds later.People are already sick of robocalls.

Add in salespeople calling their cell and phone screening tech becomes the norm sooner rather than later.

Email screening: open rates don't mean what they used to. Tons of companies use tech to screen emails for spam and sales. AI tools will get really good at this, really fast. It won't be long before a strong open rate doesn't carry weight.

Email diversion & fatigue: internal comms don't happen over email anymore. Maybe company announcements, large initiative updates, etc. As far as daily work and attention, people are spending a lot less time in email. And when we do, it's full of terrible sales emails - reminding us why we avoid our inbox.

Two things you can do to hedge against these shifts ⬇

For yourself - build your personal brand. Create content based on what you want to be known for and where you have functional expertise.

Audience = Opportunity

For your employer - build a community. Your prospects are currently and will always have conversations amongst themselves. Your goal is to build a digital playground where your prospects have those conversations.

A couple of key tenants for building a community:

1. Never sell

2. Forget about your company

3. Let the members drive conversation. Don't try to force engagement.

I made 50+ cold calls a day for 3+ years, I'll always have a soft spot for the grind.

But the game has changed. It's time to grind a different way.