What a line.

The old movies really are the best, aren’t they.

And as much as I’d love to write an entire article about how to get Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver on the phone (sadly, I haven’t quite cracked that code yet), this post is in fact all about how to make your prospects want to get on a call with YOU.

Because picture this:

You’ve nailed down your offer.

You’re your crushing the content game every day.

And now you’ve suddenly stumbled upon an ideal prospect for your services.

Fucking A.

Except now there’s a problem:

You’ve got no idea how to get your offer in front of them.

You’ve spent all this time crafting the most disgustingly valuable offer of all time and writing content every day that helps people solve their problems, but you don’t know how to actually convince people to work with you!

Fortunately, there’s an easy fix for this.

And that’s what I’m going to show you in this post.

Because I’m about to give you the step-by-step DM strategy that’s helped me scale my own brand to $10k/month as well as help my clients land multiple $4k+ deals in the last few weeks.

A heads up: this is gonna be a long one.

So if you hate reading tons of valuable info that could potentially land you $1,000’s worth of clients over the next few weeks, this is your time to bail.

If, on the other hand, you enjoy getting paid, let’s dive in.

First - why the hell do we even need to send DM’s in the first place?

Why (warm) outreach isn’t optional (at the start of your journey)

In business there’s something called a “sales cycle”.

This is the average time it takes from your first ever interaction with a person (whether that’s via your content, commenting on their posts or them dropping you a follow) and that person becoming a customer.

And in most cases, that sales cycle length is roughly 90 days.

Which sucks.

Because that means from the first time someone ever sees your content, you’ll have to wait a whole 3 whole months before you get a single sale out of them.

And if your goal is to scale your brand as quickly as possible, this just ain’t gonna cut it.

So, for now at least, we do need an outreach strategy.

Not a cold outreach strategy - I fucking hate those “Hey bro, how would you like a landing page that converts at 25%” messages from a bloke you’ve never met before and whose profile picture is a cat wearing a sombrero.

Instead, we’ll be sending messages to people who already know and somewhat trust us.

Because outreaching to someone who already trusts us with a message that specifically addresses something they’re struggling with can slash that sales cycle down from, say, 90 days to just 3-4 days.

Which is a whole lot more palatable.

So - let’s dive in and see how this works shall we?

Stage 1: Get your ducks in order

Before you DM someone, understand this:

Anyone you DM will check out your profile before they reply.

That’s why your profile needs to demonstrate competence:

1. Use your bio to CLAIM your competence (”Scaled my brand to $10k/mo in 4 months with nothing but words.”)
2. Use your pinned post to PROVE your competence (e.g. my pinned tweet is a detailed breakdown of a full marketing campaign I ran for a client that generated him $18k in sales without us even having a product yet).
3. OPTIONAL: Use your link to CONVERT your competence (e.g. link to a landing page which explains your offer and invites people to book a call with you).

If your bio and pinned post do not demonstrate undeniably that you know how to get results, there is a 100% guarantee you are getting ghosted.

So get these dialled in before you even consider outreaching.

Next, we need to do a deep dive into our prospect and their pains.

Stage 2: Research your prospect

You MUST research your prospect before you DM them.

This is so you can identify their most burning pain point.

I call this “matching the bait to the fish”.

If you skip this step, your response rate will be dramatically lower.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Read their bio to identify their offer and understand how established they are (i.e. are they just getting started or do they already have a 6-figure MRR business?)
2. Read their pinned post to assess their personality and competency
3. Read through their recent replies - they will likely be commenting on posts which solve their biggest pain points. This gives you ammo to use when you DM them (more on this later).

After you’ve spent 10-15 minutes reading through this, you should have a decent idea about the prospect and their potential pain points.

Now we need to warm them up (remember: no cold DM’s here).

Stage 3: Warm them up

People are 100x more likely to respond to your DM if you’ve previously interacted with them on the timeline.

So start warming the waters.

First, drop them a follow.

Then, for the next 3-5 days:

1. Like all their posts
2. Leave genuine, insightful comments under each post

There’s then 2 cases:

Case 1: They follow and start engaging with you back.

If this happens, great - you’re ready to DM them.

Case 2: They still haven’t followed or engaged with you back after 3-5 days.

If this happens, continue to engage with them for 2-3 days more and hopefully they’ll reciprocate.

If they don’t, you should just shoot them a DM anyway - you can only warm people up for so long and, as Wayne Gretzky says “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”.

Now we’re onto the scary part:

Sending the DM.

(I know - I can already feel people’s hands starting to shake faster than the poor kid at football who’s been sat on the bench in the freezing cold of December for the past 90 minutes).

If sending someone a DM genuinely terrifies you, all I can say is this:

Get over it.

You could send the most horrifically worded, useless DM of all time and no-one - and I mean no-one - in the entire world remember it for even a second 2 days later.

Start sending DM’s TODAY or forever confine yourself to a $0/MRR business.

Stage 4: Send Your Opener

There’s two camps when it comes to sending your opening DM:

Camp 1: Open softly, compliment them on their content and try to get to know them as a person BEFORE you start mentioning your offer.

Camp 2: Go straight for the jugular and immediately dive into a potential pain point.

I am FIRMLY in camp 2.

You do not need all that pussyfooting around BS.

Why?

Because if someone is genuinely struggling with something, they want it solved ASAP.

If you send a Camp 1 message, you will give the impression you just want to be friends and then they will think you weren’t genuine when you start pitching your offer later on.

It’s the business equivalent of getting friend-zoned.

You’ll get lower response rates with Camp 2 messages - obviously - but the responses you do get will be 100x more likely to entertain your offer.

Now, I’m not going to give you a script for this opening DM.

Because it’s far more important for you to understand WHY we send messages this way. This way you can adapt your DM strategy to any specific prospect you come across.

So instead, I’m going to give you a set of guiding principles (plus accompanying examples, of course).

Principle #1: Ask questions which reveal a potential deficiency or pain point

You know all that research you did on your prospect earlier?

Well, here’s where that comes in handy.

The goal with your opening DM is to trigger an emotional response in the prospect’s mind by targeting their most burning pain point.

For example, let’s say the person you’re DM’ing is an email marketer.

Well, if they’re emailing their list every day then their biggest pain point is probably the amount of time they have to spend writing emails.

In this case, you’d send them a DM like this:

“Hey [name], noticed you’re stacking up a decent number of email subs on your newsletter. Fucking love that man. How many hours a week are you currently spending writing emails for that?”

On the other hand, if they have a weekly newsletter, their biggest pain point is likely the number of leads they’re getting from their list.

“Hey [name], noticed you’re stacking up a decent number of email subs on your newsletter. Fucking love that man. How many leads are you currently getting from it?”

See how you cater your opening DM to the specific problem your research suggests the person is struggling with?

Principle #2: Ask open-ended questions

Don’t ask questions which start with the following phrases:

1. “Is it…?”
2. “Has it…?”
3. “Do you…?”
4. “Are you…?”
5. “Would you…?”

These are all closed-ended questions.

They will cause the the conversation to get shut down early.

Instead, open with open-ended questions such as:

1. ‍“How are you currently getting leads for your high-ticket offer?”
2. “How many/much [leads, clients, revenue] are you getting each month?”
3. “Where are you driving most of your revenue from each month? Newsletter? Or is it mostly DM’s atm?”

You can see the difference between the two in the examples here:

Bad opening DM:

“Hey [name], noticed you’re building out your coaching business - that’s dope AF. Are you happy with the number of leads you’re currently getting?”

This will instantly get closed down.

The person will either not respond or say they’re happy and that’ll be that.

Here, on the other hand, is a good opener you could use.

Good opening DM:

“Hey [name], noticed you’re building out your coaching business - that’s dope AF. How are you currently generating leads for that?”

This invites the person to elaborate more on their current process.

They’ll be inclined to do so because of the slight possibility you might have some insights to share on how to improve this.

Pro Tip: Your opening DM should allow people to open up and elaborate. That way, you get the chance to spot stuff they’re doing wrong and can jump in to save the day.

Principle #3: Act like a real person

Which of these messages would you be more likely to respond to:

Message 1: “Hey friend. Got to say, I’ve really been liking your content recently. I’ve also noticed you’ve been building out a newsletter. Congrats! Can I ask, how many subs have you currently got and how much time are you spending writing emails per week.”

Message 2: “Yo dude. Love the newsletter - dope emails. Wanted to ask - how much time you spending writing emails every week?”

Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I receive anything remotely resembling message 1, it’s going straight in the delete pile.

Whereas if someone sent me message 2, I’d say there’s an almost 100% chance I’ll respond to it (provided I actually see the message).

And (from chatting to other people), they’re exactly the same.

So lose the “formality” from your opening message.

Start treating it like a WhatsApp chat between you and a mate and I guarantee you’ll see an increase in your reply rates.

Now, at this point, you’ve got a response.

So it’s time to drill into their pain points.

Stage 5: Identify a pain point

The person will respond to your opening DM in one of two ways.

Case 1: They immediately reveal a pain point

For example, they might say:

“Yeah, I’m not really getting many leads atm lol. Not really sure what I’m doing wrong.”

This is the ideal case and you can immediately jump to Stage 5 of this guide.

Case 2: They give you opportunity to create a pain point

For example, if you asked them how many leads they’re currently getting each month and they respond with:

“Oh I’m getting like 10-20 leads a month atm so it’s going pretty sweet!”

In this instance, most people would give up and move onto the next prospect.

But you don’t have to quit just yet.

Because while they might be landing lots of leads every month, they might also be spending hours and hours to achieve this.

So how about we try and target a different pain point:

“Oh awesome man. How much time are you having to spend to make that happen though?”

If they say they’re only spending a few hours a week, then fine - it’s time to move on.

But if they then open up and say it’s taking longer than they’d like, then boom - you’re in.

At this point, you’ve identified a pain point.

So now we need to figure out what THE PROSPECT thinks is wrong.

Stage 6: Ask them to explain what they think is wrong (the “perceived” problem)

People don’t buy based on problems.

They buy based on PERCEIVED problems.

For example, let’s say you’re a personal trainer and you’re chatting with a guy that’s 100lbs overweight.

He’s aware he’s overweight, obviously.

But, more often than not, his perception of why he’s overweight will be completely different from reality.

So you’d ask him something like this:

“What do you think is causing it then? Any ideas why you might be having a hard time losing the weight at the moment then?”

He’ll say something like he’s got a slow metabolism, he’s super stressed at work or everyone in his family is overweight so he must’ve just drawn a bad hand.

Now you, as the expert (and, more importantly, as the person with an external perspective) know this likely isn’t the case - that it probably has more to do with the 4 double bacon cheeseburgers he’s been inhaling every day for the past 3 years…

But if you say something like this:

“Hey man, I’m gonna be honest. Slow metabolism and genetics are very unlikely to be causing your issues. It’s much more likely to be your diet and exercise regime which is something I can totally help with.”

Guess what’s going to happen?

There’s going to be a gap between what he perceives his problem to be and the solution you’re presenting him with.

You therefore need to cater your solution to what he currently BELIEVES is his problem (with the aim of slowly re-educating him as you start working together).

So instead, you might say something like this:

“Hey man, I hear ya. That metabolism definitely starts to crank down once you hit the big 30 as well right haha! There is actually a lot you can still do to raise it though - super simple stuff too!”

This way, he’s going to be FAR more receptive to hearing you out.

Because you’re targeting exactly what he PERCEIVES to be the problem.

And, as I said at the start, people don’t buy based on their real problems - they buy based on their perceived problems.

Now all that’s left to do is to further expose this gap in knowledge between you and and further position yourself as the solution to their problems.

Stage 7: Create “The Gap”

Explain why what they’re currently doing isn’t working.

But, and this is a big but - don’t reveal the solution just yet.

Let’s look at an example:

Suppose the prospect is a ghostwriter for SaaS companies.

They’ve just told you they aren’t getting any inbounds.

But you’ve looked through their content and noticed something: their writing is good but they’re not really targeting their ICP’s pain points (hence no leads).

Well, in this case here’s what you might say:

“Ahhhh I see why man. Think about who your ideal customer is - you’re a ghostwriter for SaaS companies. But when I look through all your latest content, it’s all focused around storytelling! Don’t get me wrong - you’ll grow loads of followers with that. But it’s not gonna attract the type of clients you wanna work with. If I were you I’d be focusing all my content on insights those guys will actually care about.”

This does one key thing:

It positions you as the expert.

It creates a gap between your knowledge and theirs, creates intrigue and makes them feel like you have the “answers” they’re looking for (which, to be clear, you do).

And now all you gotta do is lock in that call so you can help them out!

Pro Tip: Never tell people they’re doing something “wrong” - bruises their ego and turns them away. Instead, explain what YOU would do in their shoes. Same message, better delivery.

Stage 8: Invite them to a call

When it comes to getting someone on a call, there’s two core principles:

Principle #1: Non-needy

Don’t come across as desperate.

Remember: You don’t need them - they need you.

Your CTA therefore needs to be incredibly direct and and non-needy.

Principle #2: Give them a “because”

People are much more likely to agree to a call if you explain WHY.

For example, here’s a bad way to invite someone to a call:

“Shall we book a call together for sometime next week so we can diagnose what you’re struggling with and see if we can work something out?”

Too long.

Too confusing.

And you don’t even sound sure you can help.

On the other hand, here’s a perfect example of how to invite someone to a call:

“Stick some time in here. That way I show you the sort of content that’s gonna attract those inbound leads. [Calendly / landing page link]”

Clear.

Direct.

To the point.

And, most importantly, not needy at all.

Pro Tip: Never say the word “call”. No-one wants to jump on a call. However, they’re happy to “have a chat”. It’s a subtle re-frame but it makes people much more likely to take you up on your offer.

Well, there you are guys.

That’s exactly how to start landing clients TODAY through the DM’s.

I haven’t seen many people give a detailed breakdown like this before so I hope that was super insightful for a few of you.

Talk soon,

Harry

PS. I don't know everything about building a business. But I have found a way to build a $10k/month business doing what I love: writing about life and my thoughts.

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