The ROI on cold DMs!
Ever wondered if you're a shark or a humpback whale when it comes to your business strategy? Intrigued? Then you've got to listen to this episode of the Weeniecast!
Hey, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and this is my podcast "The Weeniecast!"
Pssssst! Not sure if you've heard, but I'm inviting new members to the best community for business owners with ADHD - the Hyperfocused Community! You can join here - https://weeniecast.com/hyperfocus
Now, back to this episode...
We're gonna get hot and sweaty wrestling with a challenge that many business owners face when they're trying to drum up the cash monies for their biz. Sending DMs. Or, more to the point, the ROI on cold DMs, in terms of time and money spent sending them.
No spoilers, but it turns out, my alternative of attraction-based marketing strategy might just be your ticket to business freedom and flexibility.
But, I'll still run you through the numbers, and prove to you why all those people who cold pitch you every day, or invite you to let them do it on your behalf, are wasting their time.
Seriously!
Cold DMs consume your valuable time without promises of return. So don't just carry on with it regardless!
Have a listen to this episode and learn why switching to an attraction method like inbound marketing can lead to better, long-term results.
Timestamped summary
00:00 Unsustainable business practices lead to long hours.
04:27 Develop attraction culture for business success and freedom.
08:03 Cold DMs ineffective without personalization; takes time.
11:10 Create consistent, targeted content across platforms.
15:25 Humpback whales enjoying meals and friendships.
19:14 Smart work attracts high-paying clients, framework access.
Your next steps after listening
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Mentioned in this episode:
Join the Hyperfocused Community
Transcript
In this episode, I'm going to ask you,
Speaker:are you a shark or are you smart enough to be a humpback
Speaker:whale? Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset
Speaker:coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast.
Speaker:One of the core tenets of
Speaker:successful manifestation is knowing that you don't chase, you
Speaker:attract. And I would argue one of the core tenets of
Speaker:building a successful business that supports you living
Speaker:your ideal life is that you do not chase, you
Speaker:attract. There's so much noise online for
Speaker:chasing methodologies and this is really at its heart, hustle
Speaker:culture. And I want to name right off the bat, because I know some of
Speaker:you are going to be like, but Katie, like, I work hard and I do
Speaker:hustle. Like, what's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with that. I hustle
Speaker:as well. I work very hard in my business and I train my
Speaker:clients. I don't even have to train them on this. They work very hard in
Speaker:their business as well. One of the things that I have to work on with
Speaker:them is get them to work a little less honestly because they burn
Speaker:themselves out. I attract a lot of workaholics in my business,
Speaker:but when we think about hustle culture
Speaker:and what is being taught to new business owners and to business owners who
Speaker:want to scale into seven figures is
Speaker:there's this idea that if you just work harder, if you just work
Speaker:an extra 5 hours a day, if you just kill yourself
Speaker:a little bit more, then you're going to be more successful.
Speaker:And I think that's bullshit. And actually I don't think it's bullshit. I know
Speaker:it's bullshit because it's not sustainable. If you
Speaker:build a business where you are working twelve
Speaker:hour days, cold dming people, chasing people
Speaker:down, being really aggressive in order to get clients,
Speaker:guess what? Your business is always going to require
Speaker:you to work twelve hour days where you cold dm
Speaker:people and chase them down and be really aggressive to get
Speaker:clients. It's never going to get easier. And while
Speaker:sure like you might get some clients who are really happy, who
Speaker:may give you some referrals, you can't count on referrals to build your business.
Speaker:One of the things I always tell my clients is you want to have the
Speaker:ball in your court, okay? And this is a tennis metaphor. I actually do know
Speaker:a little bit about tennis, okay. I played it for a very short time
Speaker:in high school. I quit the team, however, because my partner didn't like that
Speaker:I was playing to have fun and not playing to win.
Speaker:Jackie Blut, I didn't understand you back then. I still don't really understand
Speaker:you now. But I kind of get it, actually. There was one
Speaker:moment during a tennis tournament that I realized, like, I was not
Speaker:meant to be in team sports. And it was when one of our
Speaker:best players, she was playing singles and she lost a game. She was crying, and
Speaker:I'm like, why is she crying? I don't understand. What's the big deal?
Speaker:Like, our school had, my graduating class had 79 people in it.
Speaker:It's not like our school was getting visits from people
Speaker:who are going to give scholarships out for tennis playing. We
Speaker:barely had enough people for a team. So here's the thing about tennis. When you
Speaker:have the ball in your court, you're able to hit it back. You're able to
Speaker:score. When you're building a business, if you're trying to build a
Speaker:business around getting referrals, the ball is always in the other person's court.
Speaker:It requires them to do something. They have the power, and they
Speaker:can either hit it back or not. It's kind of like playing fetch with Luna.
Speaker:She doesn't understand the concept. She thinks the concept is, you throw the
Speaker:ball, I go catch the ball, I go get other balls, I cram them all
Speaker:in my mouth and I hold them and I try to keep them away from
Speaker:you, which makes it really hard to continue to throw because she has all of
Speaker:them anyway. We're not building
Speaker:a business that requires you to work 12 hours a day if that's your
Speaker:dream. If you love work so much that you've always dreamed of working
Speaker:twelve hour days and burning yourself the out and always being exhausted,
Speaker:I'm not here to take that away from you. Go do your thing.
Speaker:However, if your dream is to have some freedom and
Speaker:flexibility, and by that, I mean you want to be able to
Speaker:wake up at a reasonable hour, like 07:00 a.m. in the morning and have a
Speaker:healthy breakfast and maybe work out and
Speaker:have time to meditate or do whatever it is that
Speaker:gets you on the right foot to have the perfect day and
Speaker:then log into work for a couple hours, meet with clients, have
Speaker:a nice lunch where you get to sit outside and maybe play
Speaker:fetch with your dog. If they actually know how to play fetch, go back and
Speaker:do a few more hours of work, and then maybe go for a walk with
Speaker:a friend if you feel like it and actually be able to
Speaker:plan life in a way that you get to enjoy
Speaker:it rather than what can I fit into my workday? If you
Speaker:want to follow the advice of the hustle bros and you want to hustle and
Speaker:grind, as they call it, be my guest. But if you want
Speaker:freedom and flexibility, then you need to invest your time
Speaker:in developing an attraction culture in your business.
Speaker:Attraction culture means you do the least amount of
Speaker:work, that gets you the most amount of
Speaker:results, and you set up systems so that once you do
Speaker:the initial groundwork, you don't have to do it again,
Speaker:and you let people come to you. This is also called inbound
Speaker:marketing. And this is exactly how I've built my business, to
Speaker:multiple six figures by creating content,
Speaker:sharing it on LinkedIn and now TikTok and Instagram.
Speaker:And I create this content speaking to my ideal clients, talking about their
Speaker:problems, the things that are really going on for them, the fears they
Speaker:have, the frustrations they're experiencing in starting or growing their
Speaker:businesses by creating content, talking about what they want more than
Speaker:anything, that maybe they haven't even told their best friend
Speaker:about because they don't think it's actually a realistic desire.
Speaker:And by sharing my own story, sharing the struggles that I
Speaker:overcome, sharing how I designed my approach to running my
Speaker:business, that makes the way I live my life possible. Not that I'm
Speaker:hopping on private jets or driving a fancy car.
Speaker:I drive a 2012 Fiat 500. Okay, it's not
Speaker:fancy, but I get to live life on my terms. I get to spend time
Speaker:with the people that I love. I get to play fetch with my dog
Speaker:who doesn't understand fetch whenever I want.
Speaker:And because I've designed my business in this way, the more work
Speaker:I put in, the less work I'll have to do in the future. And this
Speaker:is possible for you, too. So let's break down some of the advice that the
Speaker:hustle bros are giving you, and then let's talk about what the alternative
Speaker:is. How you can lean more into attraction culture in
Speaker:your business and inbound marketing so that you can
Speaker:get more results in less time. So I recently did a test
Speaker:about how long it actually takes to cold DM
Speaker:people. And so. Oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll
Speaker:have to keep listening to find out. But first, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel,
Speaker:squirrel, squirrel.
Speaker:So I recently did a test about how long it actually
Speaker:takes to cold DM people. And so I
Speaker:scripted out a cold DM that made it very clear that this was an
Speaker:experiment that I was not actually trying to sell anything. And as
Speaker:a proof, do not buy anything. That's one of the instructions I gave to everyone
Speaker:I cold DM'd and then I made an ask, if you want to
Speaker:respond, just send me a picture of your pet or your favorite animal. I got
Speaker:so many pictures of people's pets. I was delighted. It made my
Speaker:day. But I set a stopwatch and my
Speaker:goal was to cold DM this message, this cut and paste
Speaker:message to 20 people as fast as possible. And I was going to
Speaker:customize just a little bit. So instead of just having it be a cold message
Speaker:with no name, I needed to go in and type out manually
Speaker:hi and then enter their first name. Bare minimum of work. It took
Speaker:me nine minutes to cold DM 20
Speaker:people without any further
Speaker:customization. Now these cold DM's were
Speaker:so basic. When you're cold dming, you like, you
Speaker:have to know that you're not going to get a response if it's obviously a
Speaker:cut and paste message. And if you're not investigating their profile and seeing
Speaker:what's relevant to them, they're not going to buy. So
Speaker:what I did was never going to be effective. Even if I was trying to
Speaker:sell something. I did the math and it took me minimum of two
Speaker:minutes to go and examine someone's profile and get the general gist
Speaker:of what they care about, what they talk about, what their focus
Speaker:is, and to then put in like a simple little sentence that kind
Speaker:of makes the thing sound like I'm directing it towards them specifically.
Speaker:Still not great, still not a specific message to
Speaker:them and what their pain points might be. So if it took nine minutes for
Speaker:me to actually copy and paste and put their name in and let's just say
Speaker:I'm really efficient, two minutes per person to scan their
Speaker:profile, see their content and customize that message a little
Speaker:further, that means to reach 20 people, it would take me
Speaker:49 minutes. Okay, I have ADHD,
Speaker:so we know that. Just trying to gear myself
Speaker:up to sit at my computer and do something that's that boring and that
Speaker:repetitive, let's add another 30 minutes just to get into the
Speaker:flow of that. Now, I looked up the return on
Speaker:investment of cold Dming, and typically to get one
Speaker:appointment you need to cold DM 100 people, which
Speaker:means that 20 people is not going to get me
Speaker:an appointment. Maybe if I did 20 people a day for one week, I might
Speaker:expect to get one sales call, but that's 5 hours
Speaker:just for one sales call. If your closing percentage is
Speaker:25%, which is a good closing percentage, that's
Speaker:one client a month. For some people that might be good enough. But
Speaker:if you're trying to ramp up to full time. And you want to
Speaker:have a full book of business as fast as possible. That's not enough. Which means
Speaker:you're going to have to do 100 people a day, which means that's close to
Speaker:4 hours of cold dming. And that's only if you are
Speaker:your most efficient. If you are just focusing and not getting
Speaker:distracted. And that's not even counting the angry messages,
Speaker:you're going to get back with people being pissed off that you're cold dming them.
Speaker:That's not factoring in the Dave Harlands of the world who are going
Speaker:to try to f with you. If you don't know who Dave Harland is, you
Speaker:have to go and look him up on LinkedIn. He's hysterical. He messes with skin
Speaker:cameras all the time. It is so entertaining. And because this
Speaker:is what you're spending time on, this is how you're going to get clients forever.
Speaker:There's never going to be a time where you don't have to do
Speaker:this. Now imagine also instead you were
Speaker:invested in doing an attraction marketing
Speaker:method. And let's just say to write a sales post
Speaker:for LinkedIn, it takes you an hour, you know, because you're starting and you're
Speaker:not a good writer yet, and you really have to think things through, through and
Speaker:you have to edit as you go. Takes a little longer. So let's
Speaker:say instead of using 4 hours a day for a week
Speaker:to just cold Dm a bunch of people who are mostly going to be annoyed
Speaker:with you and then vow to never, ever work with you and they block you.
Speaker:Let's say you devoted 4 hours a day to
Speaker:writing posts for LinkedIn, posts that speak to your ideal
Speaker:client, that name, what they're struggling with, that talk about
Speaker:what they want more than anything, that invites them to book a call with
Speaker:you. And let's say each day you're doing 4 hours, and in
Speaker:those 4 hours you're just writing four posts because it takes you a while.
Speaker:You realize that's a month of content, right? If you were to write
Speaker:four posts a day for five days
Speaker:in a row, that's a month of content. And
Speaker:as you continuously post to social media, it could be LinkedIn, it could
Speaker:be TikTok, it could be Instagram. You're building your audience, you're
Speaker:building credibility with people because you are being consistent. So
Speaker:you might not get a ton of sales calls in the first month you post
Speaker:these. You might not get a ton of sales calls in the second
Speaker:month you post these. But people are watching. Thousands
Speaker:of people are watching. Not just a measly hundred people a day who are getting
Speaker:your cold DM and your clients. They may not be the ones who
Speaker:comment. They may not be the ones who like that post. Actually, they're probably
Speaker:not, because oftentimes our clients don't want anyone else
Speaker:to see that they need this help. They have some shame around having this
Speaker:problem, but they're paying attention. And every single
Speaker:time your name pops up, their brain will light up and think, oh my gosh,
Speaker:this is the person I think I want to work with. Let me see their
Speaker:post. And even if the post doesn't resonate with them, even if it's not about
Speaker:what they're struggling with, you've still reminded them that you exist.
Speaker:So let's weigh the impact here. Okay? So
Speaker:if you want to cold DM 100 people a day for a week,
Speaker:you will reach 500 people, most of which will vow to never work with
Speaker:you. A good chunk will probably block you. Some people
Speaker:will be rude to you, others will with you. And probably
Speaker:one, two, five people will book a sales call. So you might get a
Speaker:client. Or you could do 4
Speaker:hours of work a day for five days, create 20 pieces of content.
Speaker:Those 20 pieces of content will each get thousands
Speaker:of views, and they will be repurposable, so you won't have to
Speaker:ever write them again. You'll just have to do a quick little update, make it
Speaker:relevant to the moment. Which would you prefer? If you
Speaker:prefer to only reach 500 people by cold dming and having all that bad
Speaker:juju, then you need to stop listening to my podcast right now. I cannot help
Speaker:you. But if you want to work smart and not hard, you
Speaker:have found your people.
Speaker:When you have ADHD, you know that what
Speaker:you're interested in right now will not last. How many times have you gotten
Speaker:a new hobby, found a new hyper focus, and then gotten bored of
Speaker:it two months later? Unfortunately, for my little stint as a
Speaker:screen printer, it's not like the screen printing could just be
Speaker:forever generating after I did it once.
Speaker:But with content. When you create attraction content to get new clients,
Speaker:it can work for you forever. Until you want to update it, until you want
Speaker:to evolve it, and then you just have to do it one more time. The
Speaker:hustle bros don't know how to do this. They know how to work hard, not
Speaker:smart. They're also going to tell you you need to get up at 05:00 a.m.
Speaker:you need to get up before anyone else is up because your competition's out there
Speaker:and you need to beat them to the punch. When you're focused on an
Speaker:attractive methodology for getting clients, you're not worried about the
Speaker:competition. In fact, they're not even competition. They're your
Speaker:colleagues. When someone books a sales call with you, if
Speaker:they're not the right fit, you have all these incredible humans that you can
Speaker:say, hey, you know what? I know and trust and, like, this person, and I
Speaker:think they'll be a better fit for what you're needing. That's the beauty.
Speaker:It's not an ocean full of sharks. It's a beautiful,
Speaker:symbiotic environment where everyone kind of supports everyone
Speaker:else. Fun fact, did you know that humpback whales will actually
Speaker:protect gray whales and their babies from killer whales on the
Speaker:coast of California? Like, literally, they will intervene, and they will
Speaker:protect these pods of whales from other whales. And
Speaker:also, humpback whales are the only mammal that we have identified
Speaker:that will organize across species to go hunting. They will get
Speaker:dolphins and seals and elephant seals and all
Speaker:other kinds of mammals who eat sardines. And
Speaker:they will organize them to swirl around these massive schools of
Speaker:sardines off the coast of Monterey, California, and they
Speaker:will all just be able to pass through with their mouths open and get a
Speaker:full belly full. Like, how incredible is that?
Speaker:Wouldn't you prefer to be a humpback whale to a shark? Wouldn't you
Speaker:prefer to have, like, dolphin friends and elephant seal friends and, like, little
Speaker:harbor seal friends, then be the kind of animal that when you swim
Speaker:through, everyone skedaddles and gets out of your way, who is constantly looking over
Speaker:your shoulder? Well, I don't know if sharks can actually look over their shoulder. I
Speaker:don't think their necks work that way. But I imagine if you're a
Speaker:shark and you understand your job as a shark, you're aware that there are other
Speaker:sharks who might be bigger than you, who might see you and think, mmm, that
Speaker:looks tasty. This is what I spend a lot of time thinking about.
Speaker:If you're listening to this and you're like, okay, cool, Katie, that is obviously your
Speaker:roman empire. I have a different roman empire. Please
Speaker:perplex everyone and put that in a review for this
Speaker:podcast. Just share the random shit you think about. That would be
Speaker:hysterical, and it will confuse everyone on Apple
Speaker:podcasts. Spotify, what have you. They'll think, what the fuck is this person
Speaker:talking about? It will make my day. I don't know about you, but
Speaker:I'd prefer to have the humpback whale vibe than the shark
Speaker:vibe. Some other bad advice that the hustle bros will tell you
Speaker:is to go and like comment for hours on other people's
Speaker:content because then they owe you and they will comment on your stuff
Speaker:back. They'll tell you all these strategies to
Speaker:get thousands of followers, which by the way, those thousands of
Speaker:followers are usually fake. They'll get you joining their
Speaker:group to increase your followership and increase engagement. These are called
Speaker:pods and over time they actually hurt you.
Speaker:And actually, when you're involved in pod behavior,
Speaker:you're not getting your ideal clients seeing your content. You're only getting other
Speaker:people who are also desperate for clients seeing your content
Speaker:versus if you're just creating content that's specifically geared to
Speaker:your ideal clients to build trust and empathy and a
Speaker:relationship. Who's going to see that? Your ideal
Speaker:clients. People who are desperate for clients probably aren't gonna be
Speaker:commenting on your stuff cause it's not gonna be relevant to them. Unless of course,
Speaker:you're a business coach and you help people get clients. Then they might be a
Speaker:client who entered my world just by seeing my content. And
Speaker:she joined a challenge in December and has just been in the
Speaker:periphery, circling and circling and circling. She just joined BYOB,
Speaker:my build your own business beginner program last month. And right
Speaker:away she feels more focused. Right away she is hitting the ground running.
Speaker:She's having incredible conversations with her ideal client. She's sending out
Speaker:proposals and she's getting super hyper clear about what she's been doing
Speaker:that's been ineffective in the last year. This beautiful human
Speaker:Dena Vince just this morning sent me an AI generated
Speaker:song about me. It actually made me highly uncomfortable
Speaker:because when people do thoughtful and nice things for me, I get uncomfortable. And when
Speaker:I get uncomfortable, I laugh. But it was genuinely a really sweet
Speaker:gesture for her to do. But this is the kind of client that you
Speaker:attract when you are invested in attraction culture in your
Speaker:business. So here's a little snippet. Now Katie make a
Speaker:minus she's a. Strategy just queen knows how
Speaker:to make that money machine with her business
Speaker:mindset she is on top teaching
Speaker:us all never gonna stop stop being
Speaker:a weenie take control.
Speaker:Katie's here to help body and soul.
Speaker:No more excuses. Just take the lead,
Speaker:start your business,
Speaker:don't go to sleep.
Speaker:Squirrel and music about you aside, don't you want to
Speaker:have people in your business who are so excited to work with
Speaker:you that they do thoughtful things like this? The hustle bros, I promise
Speaker:you they don't have people who are working for them that are doing this kind
Speaker:of stuff anyway. The point of this is work smart,
Speaker:not hard.
Speaker:If you like the idea of this, if you're like, yeah, absolutely. I don't want
Speaker:to work four to 12 hours a day dming people who don't want to
Speaker:hear from me, and I want to do the work once and I want
Speaker:it to be able to attract high paying clients who are perfect for me, who
Speaker:might serenade me with some music at one point. Know that this is what I
Speaker:develop with my clients. I literally have a whole
Speaker:framework that walks you through step by step how you
Speaker:develop a good four months worth of content that's
Speaker:designed to attract your ideal high paying client,
Speaker:that you can write once, and every four months you just go and
Speaker:reschedule it. I even have a whole ClickUp tip
Speaker:templates that you can store everything in that will
Speaker:automatically remind you when a piece of content has had
Speaker:enough time to be reposted again. And if you're curious about
Speaker:how you can get access to this framework, then I urge you to book a
Speaker:generate income strategy call with me where we can talk through if one of
Speaker:my programs might be a good fit for you and your business. And if you
Speaker:want to book that, then go to
Speaker:weeniecast.com/strategycall. But for
Speaker:now, remember to be a humpback whale and not a shark.
