the comeback is better than the opener

one thing about sales is timing isn't always in your control. last week, another sdr on my team booked meetings with two people i'd been talking to months ago. different accounts, different timing. just how it goes sometimes.

it was one of those reminders that pipeline isn't always about who gets there first. sometimes it's about who gets there when it matters.

so i started going back through old conversations. people i'd talked to in november, december, people who ghosted or said "not now" or just stopped replying. i wasn't looking for anything specific. just seeing if anyone felt worth trying again.

turns out, some of them were.

Ope Okejale: SDR Career Accelerator has paid to be mentioned at the end of this issue. thanks, Ope, for your support.

sometimes the move isn't clever. it's just showing back up.

i'd talked to this guy back in november. he posted something about linkedin goofball content, i asked what he'd rather be doing with his time, and then… nothing. two months passed. the thread went cold.

but when i went back through my old messages, i noticed something on his profile: he said he was into conversational italian.

so i took the pitch, ran it through chatgpt for conversational italian, and sent it over.

here's what i said:

"Ehi! Cosa dovrebbe essere vero perché tu possa dare un'occhiata ad AskElephant? Per il team BDR possiamo aumentare i tassi di conversione del 10–15%."

(translation: "Hey! What would need to be true for you to take a look at AskElephant? For the BDR team we can increase conversion rates by 10–15%.")

he responded almost immediately: "Hey Mike – I appreciate the Italian outreach. Mi piace L'italiano! )"

then he gave me his tech stack, his availability, his email, and closed with "Ciao."

i replied "Ci sta, assolutamente" (that works, absolutely) and sent the invite. he confirmed. meeting booked.

the lesson wasn't about speaking italian. it was about the fact that two months ago, the timing wasn't right. this time, it was. showing back up mattered more than the opener.

would i do it again? yeah. would i tweak it? maybe add one line acknowledging the gap. but honestly, i think the gap didn't hurt. it gave him space to forget the first conversation and meet this one fresh.

this dm sent using kondo. you can use this link try it for a month for free. this is a great way to support me directly. :)

kade hinkle was one of the first people i met on here.

we've been chatting for months now. i can call him a good friend at this point. he's a great chess player and a super nice guy.

we've been talking a lot about linkedin strategy lately. just bouncing ideas around, figuring out what actually works.

he's also running a charity chess tournament right now. like 90 people entered. i've already been eliminated, but he's still in it. i think there's like 8 people left.

go give him some love.

go through your old dms and just throw some lines in the water. take some at bats. see what might happen.

fire ants can detect changes in barometric pressure up to 18 hours before a storm arrives.

ope is the reason i have my job at askelephant.

i was trying to break into the tech space. couldn't get in anywhere. was firing out applications like crazy. 33 days after i hired her, i had an offer at askelephant.

she helped me navigate the tech space. spotted red flags. avoided pitfalls. more than that, she taught me the basics of being an sdr before i even got the job. made me way more marketable.

don't tell her this, but i would have paid double for what she did for me.

if you're trying to break into saas, or you know someone who is, have them reach out to ope. she will help you get a job and teach you the core sdr skills that you're going to need to know.

here's a link to check out her coaching.

by the way, i pretty much wrote this entire issue with claude. yeah, i switched from chatgpt. so far, i like it a lot better. if you want to see the process for the sake of transparency, here’s the thread where i built this issue. feel free to check it out.

if you found this issue helpful or enjoyable, please consider sharing it with a friend! it would mean a lot. here is a link to subscribe :)

just an fyi, if you respond to this newsletter, it will go to my personal inbox, feel free to send any and all questions, comment, or threats there. lets chat!

if we get to 200 subscribers, the next issue will be entirely in conversational italian.