# Stop Cold Calling, Do This Instead

#source #sales #partnerships

## Source Metadata

- **Title:** Stop Cold Calling, Do This Instead
- **Speaker:** Dan Martell — named in the raw note itself (documentary attribution, unlike the 07-19 clip)
- **Root source:** YouTube video, 4:38 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk5MpA2ckTI
- **Raw path:** `raw/sources/Stop Cold Calling, Do This Instead.md`
- **Source date:** undated (ingested 2026-07-22)
- **Type:** conclusions note from a US coaching video; **third [[dan-martell]] source** in the vault

## Core Claims

1. **Pipeline or hope.** Every business either has a repeatable pipeline (attention → conversion → customer) or it stops growing. *"If you can't describe your pipeline in one sentence, you don't have one — you have hope."*
2. **Exactly three pipeline sources — Publish, Paid, Partners** — and the rule to **pick one and go all in**. This restates the three-lever taxonomy from [[2026-07-20-referrals-will-sink-your-business]] verbatim in structure (publish/content, paid, partnerships), which confirms it is a stable framework for this author — and adds nothing to its evidence, since it is the same voice.
3. **Cold outbound into enterprise is the hardest path** — procurement, getting the meeting, closing *before someone gets fired or the board reshuffles*. Anecdote: four years in a suit at 24 selling to Fortune 2000 ("you might as well go run an ultra marathon"; the PTSD-and-button-up-shirts bit).
4. **Partnerships is the fastest lever, especially for enterprise, because of borrowed credibility** — someone the buyer already trusts walks you in, so the buyer arrives pre-sold. Anecdotes: one system integrator walked him into **7 New Jersey pharmaceutical companies** (Novartis, J&J, …) in one shot; **$95K contracts signed three weeks** after introduction.
5. **Both sides win, which is why it repeats.** The integrator held a multi-million-dollar contract on the same account; bringing in a vendor who delivers strengthens the partner's position. No revenue-share mechanics are described — the partner's payoff is account value, not commission.
6. **The insight is the system, not the intro.** Most founders treat a good partner as luck. The move is to **reverse-engineer the partner that worked** (six questions: where did we meet; what was true about them; how many more like them exist on that channel; can I make content for that audience; can I use their success story as bait; can I make my offer stupid-easy to say yes to) and become a *"professional recruiter of system integrators"* (his targets: Tata Consulting, IBM Global Services).
7. **The playbook:** find who inside the partner org makes the "who do we bring in" decision → go to the **events they attend, not the events your peers attend** → win the individual first → let them bring you into accounts → deliver → systematize content/offer/story to attract more of the same partner archetype.
8. **Ten good partners can replace an outbound sales team.**
9. **Scope, stated by the source:** mid-market/enterprise, agencies, B2B services, deal sizes justifying a relationship motion (~$10K+ ACV). Explicitly not low-ticket DTC.

## Key Evidence / Details

| Claim | Support offered | Grade |
|---|---|---|
| Partner → 7 pharma companies in one shot | Personal anecdote, companies named | Unverifiable, survivor-selected |
| $95K contracts 3 weeks post-intro | Personal anecdote | Unverifiable |
| Partner's multi-million contract (the both-win logic) | Personal anecdote | Unverifiable, but the *structural* point (partner is paid in account value) stands without the figure |
| Cold enterprise outbound is brutal | Personal experience, 4 years | Anecdote, though independently echoed by [[sebastian]] — see Connections |
| Ten partners replace an outbound team | Assertion | No cohort, no numbers |

Evidence grade overall: **advocacy** — a coaching clip built on the author's own war stories, no data, from someone who sells the prescribed discipline. Same grade as the other two Martell sources. What survives without the figures is the **mechanism**: borrowed credibility lowers enterprise entry friction, and partner *acquisition* is a controllable input where client referrals are not.

## Connections

- **[[partnerships]]** — created from this source; the full mechanism lives there
- [[marketing-system]] — the third lever, previously "named and never explained," now explained; the standing open question there is closed
- [[referrals]] — answers that page's open question "is there a version of referrals *with* a throttle?" — yes: partner-sourced intros, because you control partner recruitment
- [[client-acquisition-channels]] — a new counter-position on **cold outbound** (the title's target), and a qualification to the "all three levers are one-to-many" reading
- [[relationships-as-moat]] — convergence from an unexpected direction: the content pole's own author prescribes **trust-mediated, in-person entry** for enterprise (events, win the individual), differing from [[sebastian]] only on *whose* trust — borrowed vs. built
- [[dan-martell]] — third source; extends the through-line (systematize the lucky win)
- [[sales-discipline]] — "commit fully to one channel" restated
- [[eugene]] — gives his networking blocker a *target*: recruit a partner archetype, not "network" generally

## Open Questions

- **What does the partner actually get?** The both-win logic here is account value (the integrator's multi-million contract benefits from a vendor who delivers). Is that generalizable, or do smaller-scale partner plays need explicit rev-share/referral fees?
- **What is the minimum credibility bar?** The anecdote comes from a funded SaaS founder with a product. Would a Tata-class integrator take a meeting with a no-name solo developer at all? The source doesn't say.
- **What is the SMB analogue?** If the buyer is SMB (Eugene's likely near-term market), the system-integrator archetype doesn't exist — are agencies, MSPs, accountants, or hardware vendors the equivalent partner class?
- Recruiting a partner still requires approaching a stranger (event, introduction) — outbound redirected at a higher-leverage audience, not eliminated. The title over-promises relative to the mechanism; does the source's own playbook step 3 ("introduce yourself and win the individual over") differ from warm-ish cold outreach in anything but target selection?

## Change Impact on Wiki

- Created [[partnerships]] — new concept page; the third lever now has a mechanism, an economics sketch, and a scope
- [[marketing-system]] — lever table updated (partnerships no longer unexplained); one-to-many characterization qualified; open question closed
- [[client-acquisition-channels]] — cold-outbound counter-position added; three-lever paragraph updated
- [[referrals]] — throttle question answered; referral-partners paragraph now points to [[partnerships]]
- [[relationships-as-moat]] — borrowed-vs-built trust convergence recorded
- [[dan-martell]] — third source added; partnerships question closed; through-line extended
- [[eugene]] — partner-archetype reading of his networking blocker added
- [[overview]], [[index]], [[log]] — counts, threads, contradictions updated
