Cold calling 2.0 and the referral email to a manager

Reach the right buyer by asking a senior contact who handles the problem.

Impact
Low
Effort
Medium
Updated

Cold Calling 2.0 is an outbound method for reaching a decision-maker without phoning them. Instead of emailing the person you want to sell to, you email someone a level or two above them and ask only for a referral to the right person. It was developed by Aaron Ross at Salesforce and is covered in his book *Predictable Revenue*. It works when you do not know who owns the problem inside a company, and it fails if the email reads like a pitch.

How to do it

  1. Pick the role you want to reach. Say it is the Marketing Director. Find the person one or two levels above, such as the Managing Director or COO.
  2. Find a working email address for the senior person through your usual research tools, and check it before sending.
  3. Write a short plain-text email. Ross's description is "short and sweet", in plain text with no HTML, "simply asking for a referral to the right person at the company". Say who you are in one line and name the area you want to talk about (for example, "who handles paid acquisition?").
  4. Make the question easy to answer: a name, or a forward. Do not attach a deck or ask for a meeting.
  5. When someone replies with a name, email that person and mention who referred you in the first sentence. Reply to the person who helped, with thanks.
  6. Track two numbers: how many senior emails got a name or a forward, and how many of those referrals turned into a conversation. Compare against emailing the target role directly.

For wording that gets answered, see cold email copywriting and how long a cold email should be.

Examples

  • Aaron Ross at Salesforce. Ross developed the method while at Salesforce. In a May 2017 write-up of his advice, he gives a daily target for a rep: send 50 to 100 targeted emails with a goal of 5 to 10 responses a day. That is the target he recommends, not a measured result for any one company.

When it backfires

  • It is still marketing email. In the US, CAN-SPAM requires true header information, no deceptive subject lines, a valid postal address and a working opt-out, and each violating email can cost up to $53,088. A short referral ask is not exempt just because it is polite.
  • The UK and EU have different rules. The UK ICO says PECR's email marketing rule does not apply to corporate subscribers, but sole traders and some partnerships count as individuals with greater protection, and UK GDPR still applies to the personal data of the people you email.
  • Executives may not forward. A senior person may ignore it or reply with a flat no. Do not write the subject line as if a colleague already asked for the introduction.
  • The referral can be weak. The person named may be the wrong one, or may not use your name. Treat a forward as a start, not a warm lead.
  • Do not fake context. Using the senior person's name in the subject line to look internal, or claiming they asked you to get in touch, is a deceptive subject line under CAN-SPAM.

Questions people ask

What is cold calling 2.0? A prospecting technique that gets new accounts without phoning them. You email a senior person near the target and ask for a referral to the right contact.

Is it the same as account-based selling? No. It can sit inside an account-based motion, see account-based sales development, but it is just one way to find the owner of a problem.

Sources

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