It was the beginning of a summer break as a college student and I was looking for clients to do freelance work with.
I figured I could reach out to local businesses in the neighbourhood and offer to paint murals on their walls.
50 cold emails later, I got no more than a handful of responses.
Of those handful, 0 wanted my services (but that’s because I didn’t know how to reel them in).
Needless to say, I didn’t end up painting any murals that summer.
But, here’s what I learned from cold emailing:
- Cold email is a game of hard work. The more you send, the more chances you’ll get a response. I was super skeptical sending cold emails would go anywhere, mainly because I’m not an avid fan of opening random emails. Lo and behold, I surprised myself
- 99% of people you email won’t respond, but you only need 1 to get started
- When they DO respond, be ready to serve
As a creative, it was nerve-racking for me to reach out to strangers and sell myself and my work.
Looking back, I would definitely recommend all freelancers to try cold emailing out (even if you’re skeptical about it like how I was). You’ll never know what you’ll learn until you do.
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