This is the last in our short series of posts about selling online courses to corporates.

Corporates are a great place to start if you already have good contacts.

You can chat to them informally to get an idea of what they're looking for. You already know who to speak to and who makes decisions. They already trust you so there's less risk.

But what if you don't have an existing contact base in corporates but you still want to focus on them?

That's much harder.

Cold outreach is really difficult for most of us.

There are some people who are perfectly happy to pick up the phone or shoot off an email or Linkedin message to someone they don't know to try initiate a connection to talk about their products and services.

For most of us though, it's really difficult psychologically.

We hate the idea of being seen as pushy or salesy or desperate so we're hesitant to reach out. If we do, it's only after agonising over it for ages. And the inevitable high percentage of rejection really gets us down and we quickly abandon the whole process.

Of course, someone who's naturally comfortable at cold outreach will be reading that and thinking “oh come on Ian, get over yourself. Just do it, what's the worst that can happen?”

But to those of us for whom cold outreach is difficult, that advice is about as much use as Bob Newhart's psychiatrist.

But what does work are a couple of approaches to cold outreach that bypass all those feelings of angst and fear of what people might think. And the people you reach out to actually appreciate them.

The first is to lead with value. In other words when you contact people cold, instead of trying to pitch at them or quiz them with questions to “get to know them”, you offer them something valuable for free with no strings attached. 

Usually that's a free report or video but it can be anything and I've written about this approach many times under the heading of Value Based Marketing.

But today I want to talk about the second way to make contact that is psychologically easier and is actually appreciated by the people you reach out to.

It's to ask for help.

Normally you'd ask for help and feedback from people you know. But if you're in the early stages of creating an online course there's absolutely no reason why you can't reach out to people you don't know to get their feedback on your course ideas.

I need to be really clear here: your primary goal is to get actual feedback. You're not pretending to get feedback in order to make contact and then at some point offer your course.  You're making contact to genuinely get feedback to help shape your course – and as a side effect you'll now have a contact who might be interested in buying it downstream.

Why would someone you don't know be willing to give up their time to help you and give you feedback?

I really don't know for sure – we're strange creatures we humans. But for some reason many people are. 

My guess is that many of us naturally like to help others (which is a good thing and probably one reason our species has survived so long). And being asked for advice is a bit flattering too.

So as long as you keep your request modest – a 15-minute call or 20 minutes over coffee for example – many people will say yes and help.

You can watch my Course Builders TV video on how to validate your course ideas to find out what to ask to get good feedback here. 

After you've got your feedback they'll have got to know you a little through the process. Some will voluntarily ask about the course you're planning.

With others you can ask them if they'd like you to send details when you've consolidated your feedback. Some will say yes, some will say no.

The point is that none of it is embarrassing. None of it feels like you're being pushy. Or that you're desperate.

All of it feels like a proper conversation between two grown ups.

Which means even the most reserved of us can feel comfortable doing it. We don't have to “get over ourselves” or “just do it” or even “stop it” (thank you Bob).