Keep your ego small

If you’ve read almost any book on sales, you’ll know that we need to keep the focus on benefitting the prospect. First, find their potential problem and then show how you can fix it better than anyone else. It’s the second part of this process that can screw up a cold outreach.  We are all too eager to make it to the punchline telling people that we can earn them “X”% or save them “Y” hours with our revolutionary product/service that does blah… blah… blah…

Focus less on the punchline and more on generating curiosity based on providing value that is attainable.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. For example: just because you have helped one company increase the number of flip-flops sold to Alaskans by 500% doesn’t mean that it’s the stat that should go into your emails. Share results that are believable and repeatable and you’ll get better responses instead of desperate response.

Read your emails from your prospect’s perspective before you send. Would you respond? What kind of jargon/slang are you using? Is it appropriate for the industry and the persona that you are writing to? Is it easy to understand what you’re talking about and what value you are providing to the prospect’s company or team?

Keep a conversational tone

You’ve likely taken a prospect to coffee for a sales conversation. Imagine reading your email prospecting to them. Would it spark their interest, or would they laugh in your face?

Don’t flood the body of your email prospecting with your company name. This is almost as annoying as talking about yourself in the 3rd person, and it’s also not something you would do when talking about your company over coffee.

Don’t introduce yourself. When a prospect is reminded that they don’t know you in the first sentence of an email, they are more likely to stop reading. A personal introduction in the body of your email instantly ruins your conversational tone and pulls the reader’s attention away from the true purpose of the message. Rely on your signature. (if your reader didn’t make it to your signature, they probably don’t care who you are anyway.)

Keep your signature simple and light

All of the information your prospect needs to find more info or continue the conversation should be found in your signature. KEEP IT SIMPLE. It should take no more than one glance and one click to get in touch.

Keep it minimal - Only put the information that is helpful to the prospect. No videos, and keep images simple and to a minimum. If you’re going to add social media icons, keep the copy to a minimum.

Keep a consistent font and color scheme. Utilize bolding/weight to emphasize important info and add depth. (not a great designer? - there are plenty of signature generators online that let you input your info and copy/paste the result)