The 3-part opener

A strong opening has three parts, and it fits in about 20 seconds.

1. Short introduction

Your name and company in one sentence. No titles, no history.

Why you are calling this person, today. A trigger (they moved, grew, asked, changed something) beats a generic reason.

Hand the conversation to them with a question they can answer easily.

Say this

“Hi Nino, it's Luka from our team. I noticed you were looking at options like a 15% stake in your startup; can I ask what made you start looking?”

Avoid this

“Hi, how are you today? Let me tell you about our amazing company and everything we offer.”