Don't Fear the Cold Call

Raising capital for a living is a tough gig. Your success depends on getting people to stroke checks yet the more you talk about stroking said check with a prospect the less likely they'll stroke it.

We are currently in the midst of executing a new capital raising campaign which requires our protagonist, whom we will refer to as CR from here on out in this blog, to call the suspect's personal cell phone cold. No referral. No warm introduction. They have no idea who CR is other than the fact that he's the guy that's sent them one package each week for the past weeks that contain personalized Cutco cutlery.

In a vacuum, this doesn't sound too cold at all. We've given CR a great reason to reach out to the suspect. We've done all the math on the campaign. We only need to raise $1M from 42 suspects to break even on the campaign.

As I often say, we're emotional beings. It doesn't matter how much sense something makes. What really matters is how we feel. In this example, CR feels odd about being the guy that sent some extremely wealthy individual that doesn't know him personalized cutlery because it makes him feel like he's begging them for their money and CR is no beggar.

In order to overcome adversity we must re-frame our situations and predicaments. In this case, CR will have to convince himself that he isn't begging. He's being clever. He understands and appreciates that the suspect is so important and that their time is so valuable that it requires a novel tactic in order to get their attention.

Ultimately he has to convince himself that the real estate investment opportunities that he can provide to the suspect are so valuable and important that it's worth doing whatever is necessary to gain audience with them.

As most things in life, easier said than done!