Would you respond to your own outreach?

“If I could put 10 to 15 introductory calls with potential clients on your calendar every month, would you be interested?”

Your inbox is probably full of these, and I’m asked pretty regularly by clients and prospects whether they should try one of these services, or maybe stick with one they’ve already hired.

I get why the offer may be tempting.

You need to talk with more potential clients to meet your goals. You’re not a full-time salesperson. You don’t have hours a day to spend finding the right people and reaching out to them. And let’s face it, you don’t really want to do all that anyway.

An offer like this can sound like nirvana. But there’s another way to look at it that I think gets overlooked:

How does this type of outreach make potential clients feel about you?

Think about what happens when you look at one of these messages yourself.

You’re probably pretty good at detecting the BS in them. It may mention something “the writer” found on your LinkedIn profile or website, but you can usually tell when they don’t really know anything about you or have a particular reason to talk with you. You know instinctively you’re just one of many.

And outreach that’s designed to look like a personal message when it really isn’t is no way to start a trust-based consulting relationship.

There’s something else that can come across with that: my time is more important than yours.

“I didn’t spend the time to figure out whether there was a good reason for us to talk. I sent this to a bunch of people and left it to you to spend your time deciding whether it has any relevance.”

That’s not a great way to begin a relationship.

There’s nothing wrong with making outreach more efficient. The problem is when efficiency removes the very thing that can make it work: your judgment.

You can look at someone and see more than a title, industry and company size. Because you know your clients and the problems you solve, you may see something that tells you there’s actually a reason for the two of you to talk.

The way you get into a conversation matters as much as getting the conversation.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Susan’s telling me I have to spend all my time doing personalized outreach.” I’m not. You don’t.

High-volume outreach needs high volume because so few people respond. If you’re focused on the right people and have a good reason to talk with them, you don’t need hundreds or thousands of names. And other people can help with plenty of the work.

But your judgment about who is worth reaching out to, why there might be a reason to talk and how you want to approach them is harder to hand off.

Thoughtful one-to-one outreach is still, in my experience, one of the fastest ways to get into worthwhile conversations. It doesn’t have to be a pain in the butt. It does need to be human.

Don’t judge an easier way to get conversations only by how much time it saves or how many meetings it promises.

Put yourself on the receiving end too.

Would this approach make you want to have the conversation? And what would it make you think about the person who sent it?