I drive a hunk of junk.
The check engine light constantly comes on and goes off randomly. It's covered in hail damage. The door handle on the passenger side is broken off. It runs out of oil after about 1 month of filling it (but I've never seen a leak 🤔). And if you close the hatch on the back (without knowing the “trick”) an entire piece (including a light) falls right off onto the ground (which exposes the dried up crusty glue I tried to use (unsuccessfully) to fix the problem).
Anyone who see my car would probably think it's time for me to upgrade.
If you were a car salesman, you could list 20 things wrong with my car in order to try and convince me it's time to buy a new one. For most people, any number of those things would be a deal-breaker — but with me, you're barking up the wrong tree.
This is why cold-calling (or cold-emailing, or cold-whatever) is so difficult.
You might look at someone's website and be able to point out 100 ways it could be improved. You might see all kinds of opportunities for tweaks that could improve sales, boost conversion rates, or just make it more user friendly.
You may very well be right about all of them!
But unless the site owner is experiencing a problem, none of those things are going to convince them to spend money with you.
It's easy to assume a business with a crappy website could benefit from a redesign to improve sales. It probably would.
But if the owner isn't looking for more customers, it's going to be like trying to sell me a new car.
Just because you think I need an upgrade, doesn't make that true.
I already know my car sucks, but I have zero desire (or need!) for
anything better. It gets me from point a to point b and it's paid for, baby!
If you want to improve your chances at outbound sales, its worth the extra time trying to find out what their challenges are by starting conversations, asking questions, or doing a little research before you try to make a “pitch”.
Some people simply don't need your help — no matter how much you think they do — and that's okay!
Kyle Van Deusen
Born in California and raised in Texas, Kyle is a husband and proud father of three. After spending 15 years as a graphic designer and earning a business degree, he launched OGAL Web Design in 2017, The Admin Bar community with Matt Sebert in 2018, and Docket WP with Andre Gagnon in 2020.
