Quick one before tomorrow. A few weeks ago I posted on LinkedIn about insurance leads who say “let me think about it” and never hear back. The head of bancassurance at a bank in South America read it and reached out. Tomorrow we’re on a call. No demo. No polished website. Just a post and a conversation. Sell then build, right? What I found researching them: - The bank’s group owns its own insurance company, but that company has no sales team. All the selling goes through the bank. - Every quote request goes to a WhatsApp number answered by a person, office hours only. - She’s exploring new channels: telecom and retail. My plan: listen more than I talk, find the real problem, and propose a small 30-day pilot on one product and one channel. Two questions for anyone who has sold to banks: 1. How do you get through procurement and IT security without the deal dying in committee? 2. Would you price a pilot differently for a bank than for a 40-person brokerage? I’ll share how it goes.

I’ve coached thousands of students at this point. And the ONE belief that kills more momentum than anything else? “I’ll start booking coffee dates once everything is ready.” Ready means the demo is built. The tools are set up. The systems are in place. The niche is locked in. The website looks right. And it FEELS like progress… which is exactly why it’s so dangerous. Because you can spend weeks in that mode and never talk to a single business owner… which means no feedback and no money coming in. Just… dabbling. And eventually a lot of students in dabbling mode quit… not because they failed… but because they never actually STARTED. I get why it happens. Reaching out before you feel ready is uncomfortable. Your brain wants everything polished before you put yourself out there. But our ethos has ALWAYS been “sell THEN build”. This is how all my best students who hit 10k months, 20k months even 50k+ months FASTER than anyone else did it You don’t need a finished system to have a conversation. Just start pitching! Then worry about building a demo when you’ve got a yes The key to learning is this: Get stuck in and make mistakes fast. Nothing else matters until you’ve got money coming in. ESPECIALLY if time matters to you ESPECIALLY if you’re juggling a job and kids too …and you can’t afford to burn weeks tweaking things nobody’s asked for yet. So… a bit of homework for ya this Sunday? Grab a pen right now and write down every single thing you’ve been “getting ready” before you start reaching out. Every tool, every system, every little thing you told yourself needed to be done first. Look at that list. How many of them are coffee date-generating tasks?

Maybe you can relate to this? One of my students has been using LinkedIn Outreach to book coffee dates with potential AI partners. It's working too. He's booking calls with "good fit" businesses. So far he's spoken with... A company in the Dominican Republic with 10 sales reps and 5,000 leads sitting in their database. A business in Peru that looks juicy. And a sales manager in Mexico managing 125 reps. These are legit opportunities. We're not talking about tire kickers or mom-and-pop shops with 200 names on a dusty spreadsheet. Which tells me his "outreach engine" isn't the problem. The problem is that, as of yet, he's 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥. So, he did what any smart person would do, and reached out for some help. My student’s take was: "I don't think I'm transmitting enough value or authority on the calls." I told him he was half right. It IS 𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞. But authority isn't the missing ingredient here. Adding more “value” won’t help either. Not in the way most people approach it, anyway. The way I see it, his positioning problem comes down to two things… 1. The ORDER in which he’s doing things 2. An absence of CURIOSITY Lemme explain. Most people hop on a coffee date and lead with the solution. They're so excited to show off the AI bot, to walk through the demo, to prove that the tech works …that they skip the most important part. Finding out what part of their biz has them 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐞𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐭 𝟑𝐚𝐦 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐙𝐳𝐳𝐬. I get it. You’ve heard me say to “SHOW, not TELL” and how a good demo means we don’t need to pitch - the biz owner sells themselves. BUT… A potential partner being impressed and being SOLD are two very different things. 𝐂𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲. Before I demo anything with a client, I pull up a blank notepad on screen, and I start asking questions. How many leads do you generate per month? What's the close rate? How big is your database of unconverted leads? What's a sale worth? How big is your sales team?

Anyone here old enough to remember the "Betamax (Sony) v VHS (JVC)" commercial battle in the late 1970s, early 1980's? Sheesh I am feeling old as I write this!! While I was busy catching yabbies in a creek with a bit of string and some raw meat... ... these two giants were going at it!! But it wasn't a fair fight. VHS ate Betamax's breakfast, lunch AND Dinner. Crushed 'em. Cost Sony about $2b in today's money. But how did VHS (JVC) do it? The had something VERY special. This exact dynamic is playing out right now in the AI Automation space. If you don’t understand what I talk about in last night's webby with @Jack Goddard and @Jamie Woods, you’ll spend the next few years stuck in the all too familiar “feast or famine” cycle… The entire webby lasted almost 2.5 hours which is why I chunked it down to the first 20 mins below. PUL-EEZE take the time to watch this! If you registered and you understand how important this is... Comment "VHS" below and I will DM you with the full replay, fa free. Here for ya. -D

anyone have any tips for linked-in outreach? going to start it tomorrow after not having much luck with FB and email outreach any tips or help would be greatly greatly appreciated, cheers.