Sending 250 emails and other lessons
I took a call yesterday with Paul who runs Sky Blue Adventures, he organises and runs mountain adventures for charities and individuals. He started his business in 2012 and by the sounds of it, has gone from strength to strength. I came away from the call feeling inspired and keen to crack on with a new year of adventures.
We chatted about collaborating on some cycling adventures with my company More Adventure which could turn into a very nice partnership, but my key takeaways from the call were as follows:
- Sending 250 emails. Paul described how, when he first started, he sent 250 emails to 250 charities asking whether he could organise and run their fundraising challenges. Yes…250 emails! I was blown away and thought to myself, who would be willing to do that, to put in that much work and time for what could have been a completely fruitless exercise? I was in awe. But this level of grit and determination is sometimes what is required to get your business up and running. There aren’t any guarantees, but Paul understood this and put in the work to get off the ground, and it obviously worked!
- Partnerships are the way forward. Blue Sky Adventures specialise in mountain-based activities, mainly trekking. Paul had been so inundated with requests from his already solid client list (mostly the result of sending 250 emails!) about new fundraising events, he knew he had to reach out to other businesses like his in order to help his clients. This was the reason for the call, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to squeeze in everything he was being asked to do and wanted to see if someone else was interested in running some trips for him. In this case, he wanted to develop a partnership with me so he could offer cycling events to his clients. If we make it mutually beneficial, it really can be a no-brainer.
- You don’t know who’s watching. I’ve been blogging, podcasting and putting content out into the world now for over ten years. It hasn’t quite been as consistent as I’d have liked, but Paul mentioned some of this content during our conversation. Despite having metrics of views, listens and website visits, you never really know what impact your content is having, until someone gets in touch and tells you they’ve been consuming it and it’s been earning you trust for longer than you think.
I hope you find the above useful!
