Would you reply to your own cold emails?

Today’s Skill: Humanize Your Cold Outreach

I am on the warpath to rid Founders from sending horrific generic cold emails. So, let's play another round of "Why this cold email sucks?" and give you some helpful, actionable takeaways to make yours stand out.

(You can read my critique of another cold email here: “Why Your Cold Emails Fall Flat”)

First, here’s the email I received:

Before you read further, think for a second about what looks wrong with this email.

Is this one that you would reply to?

What stands out that you would change immediately?

Here's My List:

1.) “Hello” to start the email tells me this is spam.

→ Nobody I personally know addresses an email like this.

2.) What "milestone" for Just Get Started are you referring to?

→ Why would you be vague when you could be specific?

3.) Where did you read I want to streamline my tech stack?

→ Similar to #2, put a link to the post, provide some context, make me feel you did something.

4.) Pitched wayyyyyy too early and using lingo that might not mean anything like “IT MSP.”

→ Bad emails resort to industry jargon and generalized “problems”.

5.) “We help teams like yours” is very broad and without specifics, sounds spammy.

→ How do you actually know what my "team" is like. (Hint: it's just me 🙂 )

6.) What is your complimentary service? You didn’t explain it.

→ Why would I want a 14-day trial of something I don’t have any info on.

7.) So, let me get this straight, I have to sit on a call for probably 30-minutes to get $25? An offer like this shows me you care about the metrics and not about me personally.

→ That trade-off isn’t worth it. It values my time at $50 / hour. No, thank you!

8.) The P.S. is awful and unnecessary 🤦‍♂️

→ Cramming everything in does worse for you than you think.

AND...drum roll please..The biggest whiff of all…

9.) I have zero idea on how to check up on the company if I wanted. There is no website and the domain in the email address doesn't work.

→ Maybe this is a scam after all and they want me to reply to the email to get me on the hook.

If you’re doing these sorts of things, let’s improve it immediately.

How I’d Rewrite It

Brian,

I just saw you posted episode 468 of the podcast. Impressive to keep it up for that long! Legit curious…What’s your best advice for someone crazy enough to start their own?

I went down a rabbit hole after coming across the show and noticed you’re also coaching, writing a newsletter, and have written 3 children’s books!!! My word. Would love to know how you cram it all in!

Do you have a VA or someone helping you with the admin stuff?

Truly impressed with the work ethic!

Keep up the great work,

Brian

How You Can Write Your Own

1. Their name → no funny business needed here.

2. Genuine research → Have some curiosity about something specific you notice from their website, Linkedin, etc.

3. Thread to weave what they do to where you help → Notice I didn’t pitch.

4. Ask a question based on #3 → Something you’d need to know to qualify if they are a fit or not.

5. Closing statement / sign-off → No need to try and schedule a meeting right now

There is no perfect cold email and it is harder now than ever to get through to people’s inbox and get their attention. But, with today’s lazy approach using AI-generated, auto-send, generic emails, the bar has never been lower to stand out.

So, stand out! Don’t try to close on the first transaction. Make it sound like this is the only email you’re writing today.

Take a long-term approach to your outreach. Your business reputation is on the line.

What type of business do you want to be known for?

Action Item

Pick a contact and use the framework above to write your own.

Imagine you were reading it to them out loud and not through text. Does that sound like your voice? Is that how you would talk? If not, don’t put it in an email.

Make it sound human.

Make it sound like you.

I’m 100% confident you’ll start to get some replies to it!