🎩 A trick that finally made me cold mail
It's been a while since I cold emailed someone. And frankly speaking, it's not my favorite as the conversion rate is low and you get to be ignored quite much which doesn't feel great, does it?
☝️ However, it does convert some prospects.
What I want to share in this little post is how I found myself closing the plan for the week for my cold emails even though it's only Monday (it's not a big plan though, but for me, it was important to complete it).
🥁 So, here's the trick that made me send all those emails:
1️⃣ I defined a todo list of emails I wanted to send. Making it concrete made it felt way easier.
2️⃣ I made the scope of each todo extremely small so that I could hit them one by one.
😌 So to the results - it's only Monday, and I found all the items in the 'Completed' state already.
It might not seem that big of a deal, but to me it definitely was. Hopefully, this simple approach can help some of you too.
Stay curious! ✌️
Awesome Anton. Creating a system THAT WORKS FOR YOU and sticking to it is the way to go.
Indeed. ✌️
Great tips. We did this at the start too! The quality of the emails I feel was the biggest differentiator in prospects replying or not.
I heard Jason Cohen recommend writing out "let me buy an hour of your time at whatever price you name". Almost no one asks for the money, but most reply. And this works better with more personable mediums like LinkedIn or Twitter (we've had great success there for our beta sign ups).
That’s indeed catchy! 😅 May I ask you how you’d structure your typical cold mail?
Full disclosure, I don't have a background in Sales, but I've been a solo founder before, and now I'm working on another product as part of a team. My main skillsets are engineering.
Someone with more experience can tell you a better structure, but here's mine.
------
Hi <prospect>
<Something relevant about them, whether it's a blog post, article, or company they work for. Something that makes the email more personable so it isn't a one email template that you copy and paste> E.g. Loved the article you wrote about cold email structure and hacking on IndieHackers and I completely agree with the process! We structure our cold emails in a similar fashion as well.
<1 to 2 lines about the product, again, making it personable. I've found a few phrases work really well. The one I use the most is as follows, but it depends on the level of pull your prospect has. For example, if your target is to sell your product to charities, and you're writing an email to a nonprofit consultant, you would write it differently than you would if you cold emailed an Executive Director> E.g. I've spent the last few months working on a great platform that helps enable sellers to adhere to a sales process by allowing better opportunity management and buyer collaboration. I'd love to buy an hour of your time to get your feedback.
<give a specific timeslot here with a few options> E.g. Does anywhere next Tuesday between 1 to 5 PM EST work?
<add a P.S. section with something specific about your prospect again>
P.S. I saw the pictures of your dog on Twitter. Retrievers are such a fun breed!
Regards,
<your name>
-----
I hope this helps man! I'm still learning sales so if anyone has any feedback, please let me know.
Thanks for sharing! 🙏
My background is in sales (I know, rare on IH) and I can attest that @hassanprocesslogic 's approach works. I generally try to follow a structure of "<why you>, <why us>, <why now>". In as few words as possible. I can't stress enough the value of keeping it short. The goal is to perk their interest, nobody wants to read an essay.
Also, make sure you follow up. I would estimate 80-90% of my responses come after the 2nd or 3rd email. Persistence is key!
Good luck and happy hunting!
Yes! Totally forgot to mention follow ups. Don't be afraid to message a few times until you get your response before you mark a lead as stale.
Thanks for sharing this. Super helpful for me, as I never cold-emailed before, and I really have to start now.
My pleasure!