Cold Calling Alternatives: Email prospecting with Ed Gandia

If you're convinced you'd rather spend a lifetime eating broken glass than pick up the phone and cold call a prospect, you're probably in good company. So can you survive as a freelancer?

Of course. As with anything there's more than one way to skin a cat. Which is why although this blog focuses on cold calling, we'll occasionally offer viable alternatives.

Here's a link to what's shaping up to be an excellent (FREE!) series of videos on "warm e-mail prospecting" by Ed Gandia of International Freelancers Academy. Even if you're a hard core cold caller, Ed's video series will give you lots of good marketing pearls you can integrate into your approach.

One large caveat: Ed's first episode on the horrors of cold calling is so far from my experience, I don't know where to start. I was even more surprised to see all the anti-cold calling comments below.

In 460 calls and counting, I've never been hung up on, rarely been made to feel like I'm wasting prospects' time, and have had WAY better than a 1 percent response rate.

I suspect the difference is one of approach -- in the examples Ed describes, the salesperson is trying to snare a meeting or even a sale on the spot.

For the purposes of this blog, we're calling to gauge receptiveness and see if the client wants more info. If we secure a meeting, it usually comes after the client spends some time with our portfolio, not right there during the initial call. This approach doesn't seem to annoy people -- in fact they're often grateful the writer reached out.

Hate Cold Calling? Do This Instead | International Freelancers Academy