Appreciation post: that coffee chat that changed my whole lead gen approach

Last month I sat down with a guy at Radio Coffee who runs a local SaaS and he told me, "Stop pitching your product, just ask them who they lost a deal to last quarter." That one question has gotten me 14 real conversations in 3 weeks, way more than my old cold call script. Anyone else get a single tip from a stranger that beat out a whole paid course?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana5121mo ago

Well, that tip only really works if you're talking to a decision maker who actually knows who their sales team lost deals to. I’d double check that the person you’re asking has that kind of visibility before you build your whole process around it.

avery_jackson1mo agoTop Commenter

Swapped my thinking on this one after getting burned twice. First time I asked the VP of Sales about lost deals and got a whole list of competitors, only to find out later the rep on the account was just making excuses and the deal never even got to a formal review. Second time the person I asked was the rep themselves and they gave me a totally different story than their manager. Now I just ask two questions first: who actually sat in on the final pitch, and did they read the loss reason in the CRM themselves. If they can't answer both without checking their phone, I move on. That saved me from building a whole strategy on garbage intel.