Email and phone outreach
Even if you are fortunate enough to have your deals come find you (maybe you’ve had good press, or industry reputation) you still need to craft an email and phone cadence for talking to prospective customers. If you don’t try this messaging out in the first few deals then when you try to scale beyond friends and family deals you won’t know if low conversion is a problem with the product, with your sales technique or with your messaging. Remember, everything we do is about controlling variables.
How you do it
To start your email and phone outreach you need to revisit your notes from the customer interviews. Syncing your messaging to the client’s pain points is essential. After you have identified the pain points as well as the role/seniority of the email recipient, you can start writing out your email templates. These are the emails you are going to use to get someone hooked and ready to talk to you about your product.
Of course, email isn’t the only option for outreach. The more transactional the nature of your sale, the more likely you will need to establish a similar cadence for outreach via phone. Much like building out templates for your emails, you’ll want to draft your notes for what you will say during a “cold call” to make sure you get associated with something/someone who can relieve the pain point your product solves. We suggest you make an outline of your main value props but don’t write a script. Scripts often sound like scripts rather than explaining why you are calling and what value you are trying to bring.
Common Mistakes Founders Make
Most of the time when founders start to write out their cold outreach templates they get tempted to speak to all of the pain points, or give too much information, TMI! In the email. The more succinct you are the more likely your message will be received. Just as important as being strategically brief is making sure that every communication you have gives value. You might provide value by sending an email about the 2-3 issues other customers have had at that prospect’s size, etc. But all emails must provide value not just repeat what they know from your last email or request a follow up.
Related Keywords
Sales Email Templates, Best Cold Sales Emails, Setting Up an email Sequence, Cold Calling, Sales Outreach.
Related Links
We find that it’s helpful to read through a few styles of cold emails to see what you like, but chances are you won’t find something that you’re truly comfortable with until after you have done this for a while. The main reason being that email outreach is about testing and trying different templates and cadences. For now keep it simple, then diagnose. Also, here are 9 different styles of cold email from our friends at Yesware
Other issues, founders often think about sending one perfect email, and sometimes that’s the winner. But research says that about 1/3rd of positive replies come in after the first email having an established cadence will help make sure you don’t miss the prospects due to timing.
Here’s a helpful video from 500 Startups mentor, Cart Kelly on building email cadence
If you’re finishing this section and thinking, that’s great, but how do I find someone’s email address, then have a look at this guide from Propeller CRM. Many of these strategies will work for finding phone numbers as well.