Membership Required: Upgrade to Expose Nearly 1,000,000 Posts
Ready to Unleash the Millionaire Entrepreneur in You?
Become a member of the Fastlane Forum, the private community founded by best-selling author and multi-millionaire entrepreneur MJ DeMarco. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has poured his heart and soul into the Fastlane Forum, helping entrepreneurs achieve reclaim their time, win their financial freedom, and live their best life.
With more than 39,000 posts packed with insights, strategies, and advice, you’re not just a member—you’re stepping into MJ’s inner-circl, a place where you’ll never be left alone.
Become a member and gain immediate access to...
- Active Community: Ever join a community only to find it DEAD? Not at Fastlane! As you can see from our home page, life-changing content is posted dozens of times daily.
- Exclusive Insights: Direct access to MJ DeMarco’s daily contributions and wisdom.
- Powerful Networking Opportunities: Connect with a diverse group of successful entrepreneurs who can offer mentorship, collaboration, and opportunities.
- Proven Strategies: Learn from the best in the business, with actionable advice and strategies that can accelerate your success.
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with the most..."
Who are you surrounding yourself with? Surround yourself with millionaire success. Join Fastlane today!
Join Today
Fastlaners,
I give all credit for starting this thread to @MartinH! I was greatly inspired by his thread - so much that I made my first idea extraction calls last Thursday. Since Martin does not seem to be taking up his thread again, I want to start sharing my experiences and insights with you.
(If you don't now what I mean by idea extraction be referred to Dane Maxwell's explanation at SPI)
And now...Day 1
Why the heck I'm doing idea extraction (IE)?
Well, I'm nearing the end of my studies and am basically pretty old for that. This is because I've tried many things (a musician in an orchestra for one year after school, then training as police officer for two years, then studying two different majors) got good at them and...QUIT. Because I realised they wouldn't take where I want to be: in a situation where my work doesn't tie me to one location. I like being around my family (which is hundreds of miles away from me), I like being around friends (which are spread out over the world), I like traveling to unfamiliar places, and I love being around my girlfriend. I DON'T LIKE TO HAVE MY JOB KEEPING ME FROM UNITING THESE WANTS.
So, when I discovered Dane Maxwell's "method" that really blew my mind. A SaaS business would not only be location-independent, it would also mean to not trading time for money. That meant...FASTLANE...so I jumped right in.
Picking an industry
In my free time I'm a passionate drummer, so I really just went from there and literally typed "drums uk" into Google. Most sites one the first Google page were drum retailers, and a search of that term brought up more than a million pages, so I just went ahead with that industry. (I haven't found quite the UK equivalent to manta.com, but I found this business directory which at least gives you emails and names of company owners you wouldn't be able to find on the comany website)
Cold emailing
The first small challenge (and a bit of work) is finding out email addresses of business owners. I got the best results by taking the @example address from the company website and searching for "manager(or "director" or "owner") email @example" via Google. For more email hacks check out this article of Josh Isaac.
Having collected a dozen emails addresses, I sent out this email which got me about a 20% response rate.
"Dear <name>,
I was looking at your website and thought it was great, so I felt the need to reach out.
My name is Yannick and I am a drummer turned entrepreneur doing research on the drum retailing industry. My goal is to learn about the biggest pains you have running your business and to solve a big problem that will make your life easier.
What are the biggest frustrations with managing your business?
I would love to hear back from you, even if it’s only one sentence.
Cheers,
Yannick
-------------------
Yannick Weiler
LinkedIn profile"
Jumping ahead to cold calls
The responses I followed up by asking for a phone call which in 0 cases landed me one. Might be that I should have emailed back and forth some more to build up trust and then asked for the phone call. But by the time of my second mail I had simultaneously tried to directly cold call retailers without sending an email first...And that lande me TWO IE CALLS IN ONE DAY.
To get past the gatekeeper I used this script:
(authoritative voice) “Hi, my name is Yannick, can I speak to <name of business owner>, please?"
This did the trick once. The second gatekeepee asked in what matter. Response:
“Well, I’m a student doing research on drum retailers in order to make their
day-to-day-business easier and more profitable. I want to find out about the biggest
problems you face in your store in order to come up with a solution. Can I set up a time to speak to him?”
I didn't want to set up a time, but I guessed this more polite version would stand better chances of being put through. In any case, it worked.
The calls
Contrary to my expectations, both owners were actually really happy to talk, and even though one said he had customers in the store and couldn't talk for long we ended up speaking for 30 minutes. People do like to rant about problems, it seems!
So, my nervousness quickly faded and I pretty much went straigth ahead by asking the following questions:
"What’s the most painful task you have day-to-day?
What takes up most of your time?
What are some of the repetitive tasks that you have to do on a day to day basis?
What are the tasks that you do that take up the most time?"
I asked in that order and only one at a time. When something faintly problem-like came up I dug deeper via "Tell me more about that". Imho THIS REALLY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART, since if you do not dig, you'll not even see the problem.
One of the guys for instance told me that both emails and accounts are his most painful tasks. Interesting I thought, and wanted to know more about the emailing: "Tell me more". Basically, far too many customers were enquiring for better prices than on the website via email. When hebfinished explaining I tried to rephrase that, he confirmed, and I thought...WELL, I DON'T SEE THE SOLUTION...and went on to ask about his accounts. Pretty much the same here: he talks about surface problem, I rephrase, don't see the solution. Then the conversations trickles out.
Lesson learned
I'm grateful for any sort of comment, suggestion, criticism!
I give all credit for starting this thread to @MartinH! I was greatly inspired by his thread - so much that I made my first idea extraction calls last Thursday. Since Martin does not seem to be taking up his thread again, I want to start sharing my experiences and insights with you.
(If you don't now what I mean by idea extraction be referred to Dane Maxwell's explanation at SPI)
And now...Day 1
Why the heck I'm doing idea extraction (IE)?
Well, I'm nearing the end of my studies and am basically pretty old for that. This is because I've tried many things (a musician in an orchestra for one year after school, then training as police officer for two years, then studying two different majors) got good at them and...QUIT. Because I realised they wouldn't take where I want to be: in a situation where my work doesn't tie me to one location. I like being around my family (which is hundreds of miles away from me), I like being around friends (which are spread out over the world), I like traveling to unfamiliar places, and I love being around my girlfriend. I DON'T LIKE TO HAVE MY JOB KEEPING ME FROM UNITING THESE WANTS.
So, when I discovered Dane Maxwell's "method" that really blew my mind. A SaaS business would not only be location-independent, it would also mean to not trading time for money. That meant...FASTLANE...so I jumped right in.
Picking an industry
In my free time I'm a passionate drummer, so I really just went from there and literally typed "drums uk" into Google. Most sites one the first Google page were drum retailers, and a search of that term brought up more than a million pages, so I just went ahead with that industry. (I haven't found quite the UK equivalent to manta.com, but I found this business directory which at least gives you emails and names of company owners you wouldn't be able to find on the comany website)
Cold emailing
The first small challenge (and a bit of work) is finding out email addresses of business owners. I got the best results by taking the @example address from the company website and searching for "manager(or "director" or "owner") email @example" via Google. For more email hacks check out this article of Josh Isaac.
Having collected a dozen emails addresses, I sent out this email which got me about a 20% response rate.
"Dear <name>,
I was looking at your website and thought it was great, so I felt the need to reach out.
My name is Yannick and I am a drummer turned entrepreneur doing research on the drum retailing industry. My goal is to learn about the biggest pains you have running your business and to solve a big problem that will make your life easier.
What are the biggest frustrations with managing your business?
I would love to hear back from you, even if it’s only one sentence.
Cheers,
Yannick
-------------------
Yannick Weiler
LinkedIn profile"
Jumping ahead to cold calls
The responses I followed up by asking for a phone call which in 0 cases landed me one. Might be that I should have emailed back and forth some more to build up trust and then asked for the phone call. But by the time of my second mail I had simultaneously tried to directly cold call retailers without sending an email first...And that lande me TWO IE CALLS IN ONE DAY.
To get past the gatekeeper I used this script:
(authoritative voice) “Hi, my name is Yannick, can I speak to <name of business owner>, please?"
This did the trick once. The second gatekeepee asked in what matter. Response:
“Well, I’m a student doing research on drum retailers in order to make their
day-to-day-business easier and more profitable. I want to find out about the biggest
problems you face in your store in order to come up with a solution. Can I set up a time to speak to him?”
I didn't want to set up a time, but I guessed this more polite version would stand better chances of being put through. In any case, it worked.
The calls
Contrary to my expectations, both owners were actually really happy to talk, and even though one said he had customers in the store and couldn't talk for long we ended up speaking for 30 minutes. People do like to rant about problems, it seems!
So, my nervousness quickly faded and I pretty much went straigth ahead by asking the following questions:
"What’s the most painful task you have day-to-day?
What takes up most of your time?
What are some of the repetitive tasks that you have to do on a day to day basis?
What are the tasks that you do that take up the most time?"
I asked in that order and only one at a time. When something faintly problem-like came up I dug deeper via "Tell me more about that". Imho THIS REALLY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART, since if you do not dig, you'll not even see the problem.
One of the guys for instance told me that both emails and accounts are his most painful tasks. Interesting I thought, and wanted to know more about the emailing: "Tell me more". Basically, far too many customers were enquiring for better prices than on the website via email. When hebfinished explaining I tried to rephrase that, he confirmed, and I thought...WELL, I DON'T SEE THE SOLUTION...and went on to ask about his accounts. Pretty much the same here: he talks about surface problem, I rephrase, don't see the solution. Then the conversations trickles out.
Lesson learned
- Cold calling is far from scary, it is actually quite fun. People seemed to appreciate being listened to, so I'm stoke to continue calling tomorrow.
- Digging deep is difficult. I should have gone into much more detailled questions about his emailing and accounts. Dane, in this live IE call, does it mainly by asking: "What's do you do first? What's thebsecond step? What the third etc.". It is only in that way, I think, that I - as someone with zero retailing experience and not knowing the person I speak to - can understand the actual processes in order to improve them. So, perhaps it's less about finding problems in general (the other owner's biggest problem were currency exchange rates) and more about finding problematic processes?!
I'm grateful for any sort of comment, suggestion, criticism!
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionare mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Last edited by a moderator:
