Pua dives into a topic many business owners dread: outreach. Whether it’s sending cold emails or reconnecting with old clients, outreach often feels awkward, pushy, or even sleazy. But Pua flips that narrative on its head and makes a compelling case for why outreach—done right—is one of the most powerful tools you can use to build a consistent, aligned client pipeline.

She shares the personal mindset shift that finally got her out of the feast-or-famine cycle, and what happened when she started reaching out from a place of service rather than scarcity. You’ll hear how she approaches warm outreach with former clients and professional contacts, how she sends cold emails that don’t feel awkward, and why relationship-building—not pitching—is the key to turning conversations into opportunities.

You’ll also learn how to track your outreach efforts, use social media engagement as a light-touch follow-up, and keep yourself grounded when imposter syndrome or introversion kicks in before a call. If you've been hiding behind content and hoping clients magically appear, this episode is your call to take action—and do it in a way that feels good.

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Transcript

Pualena 00:00

Entrepreneurs who master outreach are the ones who never have to worry about where their next client is coming from, and that kind of confidence changes everything.

Hello and welcome back to The Rebel Media podcast. I'm your host, Pua, and today we are talking about something that is going to make some of you uncomfortable, and that's exactly why we need to talk about it. We're talking about outreach, cold outreach, warm outreach. I kind of like to think about this as digital door knocking. If you think about going door knocking, I have friends who are financial planners, and one of the things that they had to do when they first joined the company is literally go in their neighborhood and go door to door, talking about what they do. If that is not my ultimate nightmare… so when I say digital door knocking, I come from that perspective of… please, anything but this. But listen, I know you're rolling your eyes. I know that you think, I'm not gonna do sleazy sales, so I'm just gonna stop listening to this podcast, but please, please, please, stay with me, because I'm about to share with you some strategies personal stories of recently doing this and really enjoying it and having really, really good business outcomes.

I have to say, I did this recently from a place of desperation, and I was like—listen, this feast or famine in business… we can't be doing this anymore. I cannot be living like this. It is way too stressful, way too much anxiety, it's just if you, you know, right? Like, oh, I'm 100% referral-based. That means everybody loves me, that works with me. No, that means that you don't do any marketing, and you don't do any outreach, and so you don't ever have a wait list or a pipeline to draw from, and if you do, it's an accident, and you have three people coming to you at once, and then you have nobody for six months, and then you're living off of those three projects. You know what I mean, right?

So this, to me, is like the forgotten hustle and the only hustle that I've done recently that actually made a difference, and I see the importance of it, and I see the benefit of it so much now. To be honest, I never, ever did this before because I was scared of it. I didn't want to do it. And when you come and show up on these calls from a place of building genuine relationships and allowing that to fill your pipeline with quality leads, you actually create a network of people who genuinely want to refer business to you. It's insane, I know. It sounds totally crazy, and I wouldn't have believed me, so if you're out there and you're like, I don't even want to listen to the rest of this, I know what you're going to say and I don't want to do it, please just hear me out, because I was you. And to be honest, sometimes I still am, and I know that you don't want to hear this, but sitting behind your computer hoping for clients to magically find you is not a strategy, and it's something that I did for years. So don't feel bad if that's what you're doing and you can't be passive. This is a very active experience, and an active activity, and it's, it's the only thing that really moved the needle for us when it came to filling our pipeline. Because for so long, I was like—Oh, if we post on social media regularly, people will come. If we start sending newsletters, we'll get referrals. We did all those things, and they're great. There is value to that. But those do not lead to leads. They just don't do it right away. And so we're going to talk about good outreach and ending the feast or famine cycles and the hoping and praying for referrals, and really talk about taking control of your lead generation, because this is what I've learned.

Pualena 04:48

Entrepreneurs who master outreach are the ones who never have to worry about where their next client is coming from, and that kind of confidence changes everything. Okay, so we're going to talk about what outreach actually is and what it isn't. Because I think the reason why most entrepreneurs avoid it is because they have this image of being a sleazy salesperson, or car sales, no offense, car sales people. You know that there's a stigma, so I'm just going to throw that out there as a relatable piece. You don't want to sell to your friends, so warm outreach feels like it's not on the table, but unless you're doing like, copy and paste, pitches like a mass BCC to your entire contact list in email. That's not outreach. That's spam.

Real outreach is about building relationships, and the sooner you understand that, the sooner you'll feel good about doing this activity. It's about offering value before you ask for anything. It's about asking questions and actively trying to listen to what they have to say, learn who they are as people, learn about their business. Just be a helpful human who happens to run a business, not be a walking sales pitch, and that is going to change everything for you. I promise.

My biggest fear for warm outreach, actually for cold outreach too, but especially to people that already knew me, is I was afraid that they would see me as only reaching out when I wanted them to buy something. And I think that awareness, in and of itself can kind of help you to not show up that way. If you have that awareness, you're not going to show up with—What can I get from this person energy. But what I think you don't always realize is, that's not the only option. You don't have to just jump on a call and sell. You can jump on a call and say, What can I give this person? How can I serve this person? How can I help this person? And on so many of my calls recently where I actually sold something, people would say, “Oh my gosh, business is going great. I'm struggling with a couple things. But, you know, it's overall, it's, it's pretty good right now.” And I'm, like, “That's awesome.” I'm curious, and I promise and I'll even say, because I'm overly conscious of this, and it might even not be a great idea to say it, but I'm just going to be honest. I'll say, “I promise you, I'm not trying to sell any services to or anything. I'm just genuinely curious what, those things are that you're struggling with, and if I can give you advice or guidance or a referral or help you in any way, if you're willing to share with me, I'm just curious, what are those challenges you're having?” And a lot of times, people will be like, “Well, actually, that's why I was really excited to talk to you, because I looked at your website before the call, and I actually don't like my website.” And I'm like, “I swear I did not ask you to jump on this call to sell you a website.” And I'll even try not to sell them anything. I'll be like, “Oh my god, yeah, let's take a look at it, and if I can give you any tips on things that you can adjust that are probably really quick and easy and might make a big difference, I'm happy to share those with you.” And I swear to you, they're like, “Oh my god, yeah, you know what, I kind of just want to hand it off, though. I don't really want to do this myself.”

Pualena 08:23

So think about what it is that you offer, and how you can show up on that call from a place of service and helpfulness and kindness and genuine curiosity, and I think you would be surprised how often those calls actually turn into people who are already interested in your business. So I want to talk to you about this approach before I talk to you about sourcing the people for these calls, because I think that mindset alone cannot just shift you out of fear of showing up like a salesperson or feeling scammy, but actually shift you into a place of—I'm actually super excited to do these calls, and I have to remind myself of that constantly, because I'll wake up, I do my calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I'll see a, you know that happened this morning, I see a Tuesday full of calls, and I'm like—oh, I don't want to, but I have to remember and, like, remind myself of this, and then I get a little bit excited, but I will say before every single call, I'm anxious a little bit, and I'm a little bit nervous, and I'm a little bit praying that they don't show up. And I hate to admit that, because every person that shows up, with very few exceptions, I have a really fun and great conversation with, but there is just that, like, introverted part of me that's like, “Oh, I ...