#35 · How I Cold Email Larger Companies ($2.4M Earned)
You don’t have to promise a 20× return. The 20× figure is just social proof from a single case where the client made about $300,000. You can still use that story, but you should only guarantee a more modest uplift—say 2× or whatever is realistic for the prospect. The key is to be transparent that the massive ROI was an outlier and that you’re delivering a solid, achievable result rather than over‑promising.
I can't truly guarantee growth, but I can offer a full money-back guarantee as risk mitigation. You can't guarantee growth because you don't have a crystal ball; you can only express high confidence based on probability. The best approach is to always have some risk mitigation, like a refund policy, rather than promising guaranteed growth.
You should guarantee revenue. Do whatever it takes to get people on a call where you can explain the product. Remember, you’re not selling the tool itself but the outcome it delivers—revenue. A guarantee can be framed as: I will generate X amount of revenue for you within Y time, or I’ll give your money back. Focus on getting as many qualified calls as possible, then qualify prospects on the call to ensure you can deliver the promised results. For example, it’s easy to generate an additional $10,000 in revenue for a business that already makes $100,000 a month by identifying and fixing a few blind spots, which can boost total revenue by about 10%.
Your price is about 56% of the claimed value, which is too high; aim for roughly 15% of the value you deliver (e.g., $15K for a $100K problem) to give a 7x ROI, making the offer far easier to accept. Lowering the price improves perceived ROI and reduces client risk.
It'd be nice if there were a beautiful ROI screen that instantly showed the return for every client, but for systems that aren't directly growth/marketing related, ROI is genuinely hard to quantify — how do you put a number on the value of a dashboard? What you can do is track that having a clear, well-built dashboard measurably increases the number of strong, actionable decisions a business owner makes in a month, and those decisions are what move the business forward — even if that chain is hard to track precisely. You need to align with the client on a shared understanding of ROI, and constantly check in: 'I noticed you made a couple of new decisions last month, how important would you say the dashboard was to that?' Take notes on their answers and keep building a case for why they should keep working with you. I treat my weekly strategy calls like sales calls, not just status updates — I open with 'you would not believe how much money we made last week' and show the numbers (e.g. 'that system generated $12,400 last week alone, we're on track for 40-50K a month'), then pitch the next system to add scope to the relationship. You should always be selling yourself.