Accelerating WorkHound Week 7

5 min readJul 28, 2015

Finding the cookie monsters, following up and cold calls

(Quick overview of this blog series at the bottom of page)

Finding the cookie monsters

When customers see something they want they’re like:

This week I got the gut feeling I’ve been searching for the entire accelerator — that gut feeling knowing we’re on the right track. We started to find the “cookie monsters”.

Look at the GIF above, when the cookie monster sees what he wants he does anything for it!

Like the actual Cookie Monster that goes out of his way to get his cookies, “cookie monsters” is the term for customers who are so eager for a solution that they get incredibly enthusiastic when they see a possible answer to their troubles.

In our case, these are the companies that have a serious problem with driver turnover, that have tried to solve it on their own, that aren’t happy with current solutions, are actively searching for something new and are willing to pay for a less-than-polished solution.

We’re setting demos with these companies in the coming weeks and I’m eager to get their feedback and get them onboard as beta partners.

Cookie monsters are the best form of validation in the early stages: the folks that are so happy you called and have something to help them that they’ll go out of their way to work with you.

Always follow up

View from the 40th floor of First National Bank in Omaha

This week, the Straight Shot teams were invited to a 40th floor event at First National Bank of Omaha. While it was impressive to see some of my brothers and sisters in the struggle all dressed up (even yours truly rocked a sport coat), the biggest reminder was the power of following up after networking events.

There were bankers, investors and mentors of the program there to mingle with one another and our teams. Great conversations were had, business cards were exchanged and the happy hour ended with good vibes.

As I’ve done with other networking opportunities, I grabbed the stack of business cards and napkin notes of other introduced contacts and followed up quickly. Some contacts followed up with a quick thank you, but others provided introductions to the right contacts at trucking companies we have been working to get in front of for weeks.

More often than not, a networking follow up is a simple connection, a LinkedIn add and a good contact to know. For the few times where the connection can add immediate value, it can be a game changer for lessons learned, connections made or even customers gained.

Always follow up.

Pro Tip

ToutApp is my go-to email communication tool when it comes to networking follow up. It’s typically used as a sales tool, but it significantly speeds up the follow up process.

Cold call coaching

For the folks that know me, they know I’ve got the spirit of a hustler. But even that spirit needs a little coaching.

I’ve never dug deep into the world of cold calling, but due to our focus in the trucking industry, it will play an essential role in WorkHound’s growth. Some vendors in the trucking industry share that 70% of their deal flow originates through cold calling, so it’s a key component for business development.

To step my game up, I recruited the help of a few valuable mentors this week to guide my efforts. Both groups worked with me to rehearse initial calls, asks, objectives, goals and prospecting.

While many modern day business development minds steer away from the cold call, it still is a brilliant art and science if you can master it. There’s a beauty in understanding a cold call funnel — learning more about what companies demand from a product, how much they’re willing to pay and the profile of which companies are cookie monsters.

So much of cold calling is pure psychology. The more I realize hangups and sour attitudes are not my issue but just part of the process, the more I can keep persevering.

Wrapping Up

This week and the coming weeks are all about bringing the MVP of the WorkHound product to life. We’re kicking off work with our first beta partner, continuing to build interest in the trucking community and learning every day.

Quick Overview

(See Week 1 post for more details)

At WorkHound, we’re tackling a big issue in the trucking industry: the 97% driver turnover rate. We’re building a platform to allow drivers to share feedback with their companies. Companies then receive the aggregated feedback to improve the driver experience.

This is our weekly post highlighting our learnings and actions each week in the Straight Shot accelerator out of Omaha.