"Would never say no to free meetings. What's the catch"

That came back from the CEO of an industrial AI and automation company, on a cold campaign, from an audience that gets pitched by an agency most weeks of the year.

It is the most honest question in B2B and almost nobody asks it out loud.

The catch is that we book the first meetings before anyone pays us, because the only way to sell a service like this to someone who has already been burned twice is to go first.

That campaign ran at UK founders and leaders in 11 to 200 person firms. 300 conversations. 68 replies. 4 booked.

No clever signal on that one. Just an offer that carried its own risk.

If a proposal cannot survive the question "what's the catch", it was never an offer. It was a brochure.
