Most cold outreach stalls at the same point. The person you’re talking to isn’t the buyer, they know it, and they say so. “I don’t have budget for this.” “That’s not really my area.” “You’d need to speak to my VP.” Then the conversation ends.
The version I see most often is the customer success manager. CSMs live with the product every day. They know where it breaks, which features nobody uses, and what the renewal conversation will look like. But they almost never sign anything, so when I ask them for a call, they politely block it.
I’ve started changing the ask. Instead of asking for a meeting, I ask for feedback.
The wording is roughly: “I’m not trying to sell you anything. We’re looking at how teams in your space handle [the problem], and I’d value your honest take on whether we’re pointing at the right thing. Would you be open to ten minutes of your opinion?”
Why does this work? A meeting asks someone to spend time on a conversation they expect to be a pitch, and they can’t say yes to that without authority. Feedback asks them for an opinion, which costs them nothing and makes them the expert in the room. It answers the question they’re really asking, which is “why am I being asked to do this?”
Saying no to a meeting feels like a decision. Saying yes to “tell me what you think” feels like being helpful. The stakes drop, and that’s the whole point.
[Insert a real example here: the role, the company size, and the exact line they replied with.]
The feedback call is not the goal, though. It’s the route to the person who has the budget. In the call, I ask three things:
Who else would notice first if this went wrong? Usually it’s their manager, a head of CS, or someone in RevOps.
If this were worth looking at, who would have to say yes? Most CSMs know the answer even when they don’t own it.
Would it be okay if I sent your manager a short summary of what you told me? I don’t want to waste anyone’s time, and I’d rather they hear it from you.
That last question matters most. A manager who hears “my CSM says this is a real problem” will take the call. A manager who gets a cold email from a stranger often won’t. The CSM becomes your internal reference, and you never have to pretend they were the buyer.
Keep the follow-up honest. Send a summary of what they actually said, not a pitch with their name attached. If it reads like a sales email, you’ve lost them. Thank them, quote their words back accurately, and ask the manager one specific question. Don’t reshape their feedback to make it sound better for you, and don’t forward a criticism as praise. If they told you the product is wrong for their team, that’s useful information, and you should treat it that way.
Some of these conversations will go nowhere. The CSM will be happy to talk and their manager will never reply. That’s fine. You still learned something about the account, and you didn’t burn a relationship.
The lesson is simple. Lower the stakes of the first yes, then earn the second one with a specific, useful follow-up. Asking for a meeting asks someone to take a risk. Asking for their opinion asks them to share what they already know.