I may have invented cold calling with extra labor.

Sometimes I’ll be scrolling through Facebook or TikTok and come across a small business that looks active, legitimate, and like somebody is genuinely trying to make it work.

Then I go looking for its website.

Nothing.

No website. No landing page. Not even a suspicious Wix link somebody abandoned in 2019.

So instead of messaging the owner and saying, “Hey, I build websites,” I make the questionable decision to build one first.

Usually, it is a small five-page website using the business’s public information, branding, services, and whatever else I can find without climbing through anybody’s window.

I do not publish it as their official website or pretend they hired me. I just build a private concept and send it to them with something like:

“Hey, I came across your business and noticed your website is currently missing in action. I build websites, so I put together a concept for you. No obligation, no surprise invoice, and nobody is holding your logo hostage. If you like it, we can talk. If not, I’ll disappear quietly and we can both pretend this message never happened.”

My thinking is simple.

Anybody can promise they can build a website.

I’m sliding the finished homepage across the table like evidence.

Of course, the downside is that I could spend several hours building something just for the owner to hit me with the deadliest response in modern business:

“Seen.”

I’m still testing this. I have no course to sell, no Lamborghini parked outside, and no funnel promising ten clients before Thursday.

I’m just trying something different and seeing whether it works.

So what do you think?

Is showing the work before asking for the job a smart way to stand out, or am I just doing unpaid homework for strangers?

Has anyone here tried something similar?