Dennis Yu

Cold-calling sellers are the modern digital purse snatchers

Some people call it consultative selling– to add value via your expertise, as opposed to regurgitating what anyone can find online already in your marketing materials.

But it’s more than that.

You have to be a committed ambassador of the thing you stand for.
It’s that passion that causes people to convert– enough to practice “rational ignorance”, which is to make a smart choice without having to do the arduous research.

When people practice “rational ignorance”, they willingly forego the mental exercise of further evaluation, since they trust your brand.
And if you believe that your brand is the sum of what others say about you, as opposed to what you might say about yourself, then it makes sense.

We’ve called this inbound marketing, content marketing, SEO, public relations, social media marketing, and word-of-mouth marketing.
They’re all the same thing since they fundamentally involve getting others to endorse you, whether it’s a backlink, testimonial, or otherwise.

Naked selling is outright shilling when you haven’t earned the right yet to provide your opinion.

It’s the preferred practice of the digital purse snatcher, who would love to run your credit card to sell his services over your objections and whether or not there’s a fit. He’s not even looked at what you do, so there’s no way there could possibly be alignment. But he’s too lazy to care.

Here’s a garden variety example:

And my response, which I have given to many of their aggressive salespeople:

This is coming from the Forbes startup of the year, according to their email signature, no less.

Usually, they don’t reply, which is what happened here.

Jakob Hager, who is the CEO and Co-founder of Taskwunder, stresses the importance of not damaging your brand’s image, providing personalized value, and having a relationship instead of  selling out of the blue:

A lot of people believe that it’s ok to do “growth hacking” and send out as many emails as possible in order to generate leads for their startup. Sometimes, this may be successful and get you leads, but you have to be very careful and avoid hurting your brand when you do cold emailing. You may just end up with bad customers, who don’t have the money but demand a lot of time and effort. The best in the industry see through what you are doing and they are annoyed by it. You may end up getting a few leads, but annoy a lot of people who could have been your customers if your first point of contact had been different.

If you believe you have to write cold emails – in fact, not only for selling your services, also in general for contacting people – make sure you first read about what they have said publicly and then provide value for them. Offer them something that they could need and be relevant. Say things like “I’ve read your articles about topic A, B and C and I would like to know your opinion about X”. Don’t try to sell something right away. You will be surprised how many people reply. If they don’t reply, at least you didn’t hurt your brand. The least you want to do is annoy all the influential people in your industry.

Many of these spam messages start with false personalization around how they love our company, in the hopes of then arranging a meeting to discuss their product. Because I’m the catch-all on our domain (so all ex-employee emails go to me), I often get a dozen of these messages all at once with identical wording.

We can hope that the email spam filter and various newsfeed filters will catch folks like this.
But more importantly, folks like these will be eventually penalized, since their cost of generating business will increase.

They must adapt by showing genuine interest in the people they’re reaching out to.
They have to become content marketers who wish to educate first, earning the right to a conversation.

Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu is co-author of the #1 best selling book on Amazon in social media, The Definitive Guide to TikTok Ads. He has spent a billion dollars on Facebook ads across his agencies and agencies he advises. Mr. Yu is the "million jobs" guy-- on a mission to create one million jobs via hands-on social media training, partnering with universities and professional organizations. You can find him quoted in major publications and on television such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, and LA Times. Clients have included Nike, Red Bull, the Golden State Warriors, Ashley Furniture, Quiznos-- down to local service businesses like real estate agents and dentists. He's spoken at over 750 conferences in 20 countries, having flown over 6 million miles in the last 30 years to train up young adults and business owners. He speaks for free as long as the organization believes in the job-creation mission and covers business class travel. You can find him hiking tall mountains, eating chicken wings, and taking Kaqun oxygen baths-- likely in a city near you.
I'm a member of Blitzmetrics Academy and a friend of Dennis to boot. Not only is Dennis highly intelligent and full of great and creative ideas, he's also incredibly generous with both his knowledge and his time. Success couldn't come to a better guy. Thank you for all that you do for the world, Dennis! 🙏

Michael Pacheco

Marketer

Thanks 🙏 for being shining light in this industry. Love what your building for works overseas too network for jobs so innovative. Dennis helped me navigate having bad experiences with marketing agencies and doing dollar a day marketing which has helped my personal brand tremendously. Highly recommend.

Eric Skeldon

Founder at Kingdom Broker

Working with Dennis has been a delightful experience. After meeting him in 2015 I got to collaborate with him on countless occasions. His understanding for state-of-the-art marketing, his implementation, and his leadership put him into the top 0.01% of marketers and mentors.

Jan Koch

Ihr kompetenter Partner für innovative KI-Strategien.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dennis for my podcast in 2021 and since then we have maintained a friendship that grows with each interaction. I have seen Dennis' devotion to his friends and clients firsthand, and our conversations often result in us talking about how we can provide more value to the people around us. He is someone whom I can ask questions on a technical level, and look to on a personal level. If you have any hesitancy about hiring him, get over yourself and do it!

Isaac Mashman

Help scaling personal brands.

Geez, where do I start recommending Dennis? First, he is an absolutely brilliant marketer who understands where marketing is today and where it's going tomorrow. He also has an incredible passion for the International Worker community. The lessons he has taught me from his almost 20 years of experience hiring International Workers have been immense. Most importantly though. Dennis Yu is someone who wants the absolute best for you and is willing to tell you the truth. Dennis sat with me at a point in my business where I was floundering but did not want to admit it. He asked some very straight forward questions to get me to admit my issues, highlighted the issues, and then helped me create a roadmap to success.

Atiba de Souza

International Keynote Speaker | Video Content Superman | Superconnector |

Dennis, which I had the pleasure of working with is one of the most giving, honest and tell you as it is person I ever know. The knowledge this man has is remarkable and he just gives it out freely. He is not pretentious and always entertain anyone big or small in the industry always willing to help. If you ever get a golden opportunity to work with him or mentored by him say YES!. You will notr regret Dennis, which I had the pleasure of working with is one of the most giving, honest and tell you as it is person I ever know. The knowledge this man has is remarkable and he just gives it out freely. He is not pretentious and always entertain anyone big or small in the industry always willing to help. If you ever get a golden opportunity to work with him or mentored by him say YES!. You will not regret

Nixon Lee

The PR Whisperer

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