Hi (Prospect),
Congratulations on your recent promotion to Director of Recruiting!
Given that (company) just received $30 Million in Series B funding and you expanding your workforce, we thought it would be valuable to connect. We are helping similar companies to hire more effectively using AI, machine learning, continuous monitoring, and real-time updates.
Would Wednesday or Thursday work best for a quick call?
Thanks,
(senders name)
We’ve all seen this email before and we all know it’s tired.
The question is, how can we leverage tidbits of info on accounts like funding, promotions, acquisitions, new personnel, etc. to create effective messaging, stand-out from the crowd and avoid sounding like a robot? In this article, we will explore some techniques that are proven to work.
Rule #1: Research and make insightful connections
If you are going to mention funding and not come across as thirsty, you are going to have to draw some meaningful connections. Here’s an example:
Hi (Prospect),
It’s amazing the way (Company) is growing, and no surprise that you just received Series C Funding! You guys were rated the #1 Sales Tool on SalesEnablement.com and are 8 spots ahead of your closest competitor. You’re also growing at a rate that is 70% faster, which speaks to how impactful (Company) truly is for your customers.
Given your rate of growth, I thought you would value a conversation around your hiring strategy. We are helping companies in similar growth situations to hire the best candidates faster and save the headache of manually sorting through the hiring pipeline by using automation.
Let me know if you have time next week for a 30-minute call.
Thanks!
(Sender’s Name)
In this case, mentioning the funding is compelling because the message is specific enough, shows some research beyond a glance at Crunchbase, and relates the funding event to real pains that the sender can offer a solution for.
Rule #2: Give specific compliments
Everyone likes to feel important. Think of how you feel when a recruiter reaches out and says, “we were impressed with your background and wanted to connect!” vs. when they make a reference to something specific you did, a real achievement that you are proud of. So, the first thing to remember is: make them feel important and give them a genuine compliment that is specific.
I’ll give you an example:
Hi (Prospect),
(Company) is very lucky to have you, and smart for promoting you to Director of Recruiting and putting you in charge of hiring processes! After you successfully scaled out (Past Company) and helped lead them to an acquisition by (Other Past Company), it’s no wonder they trust you with the fate of their workforce.
We are helping similar companies to scale their workforce by allowing them to get to the quality candidates sooner and eliminate unqualified candidates automatically. I’d love to show you how (Sender’s Company) can help you continue to succeed at your job and save you time. Does Wednesday or Thursday work for a quick call?
Thanks,
(Sender’s Name)
Do you see the difference? Specific compliments will always give you an edge over generic ones.
Rule #3: Connect with your prospect personally/emotionally
People buy emotionally, and a lot of times prospects simply don’t know what they don’t know. And most of the time, people don’t like to be told that they don’t know something, especially when they consider themselves an expert in their field. That’s why it’s your job to connect with your prospects on a deep enough level that they are willing to give you their time and put their guard down a little, so you can educate them.
For example, let’s say you go on their Facebook or Twitter and find out that the like Seinfeld. You may craft something like this:
Subject: Hire Jerry, George or Elaine?
Hi (Prospect),
There’s an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry starts dating a girl named Janeanne Steinberg who is exactly like him in every way, except she’s a girl. At first, he thinks Janeanne is a perfect fit!… until he realizes that they are too much alike.
Similarly, when hiring new members for your team, it is important to include diversity, which brings with it new ideas, fresh perspectives, and complementary skills.
We are helping similar companies to diversify their workforce more easily, hire and retain the best candidates, and save time doing this by automating processes. I’d love to show you how (Sender’s Company) may help make your job easier, what day works best for a 30-minute call?
Thanks,
(Sender Name)
Do you see what we did here? Since the prospect, in this case, loves Seinfeld, an email like this will resonate with them on a personal level. They will also know that you did some research before reaching out and took the time to learn a little bit about who they are.
A side note I’d like to add: if you’re going to use Facebook, make sure that you are not using any information that may be too personal. Twitter is public, LinkedIn is public, so check there first. If you find your prospect is a Giant’s fan or a saxophone player or a Game of Throne junkie, those are all great things to bite off of! Just make sure you aren’t saying anything about their family or favorite weekend hangout spot. Don’t be creepy!
The Success Recipe:
This is how you can put all three of the rules discussed above together, get more responses, and book more meetings:
Look on the web for some content your prospect has published. If you’re reaching out to someone C level or someone with any type of clout, chances are they have published articles, done speeches at conferences that you can find on YouTube, been quoted in other people’s articles, done TED talks or even published books, etc.
I once watched a 30-minute video of a high-value prospect’s presentation at a conference in order to write him this email:
Subject: “Smarter, Stronger, Kinder”
Hi Shadrach,
I enjoyed listening to your talk from Rackspace: Solved SFO last summer, and hearing about your successful journey to the cloud. It is inspiring to see that you are leveraging AWS with a mission to genuinely help the world become a better place by enabling kids to grow, “smarter, stronger and kinder.”
I’m with a company called Evident.io and we are helping companies with a similar cloud story to scale safely in the cloud by automating security best practices and allowing them to maintain a state of “continuous compliance” in AWS.
I’d love to connect with you to learn about your cloud security goals and see if anything we are doing may potentially help improve your strategy.
Thanks,
Kate
Did I get a meeting here? You better believe I did.
Let’s dissect what’s working here:
- I made a meaningful connection between his use of technology and his personal mission.
- I gave him specific compliments.
- I connected with him emotionally by saying I was inspired by his speech and gave a specific reason why.
There we have it, the three golden rules to successful sales email writing:
- Do research and make insightful connections
- Give specific compliments
- Connect with your prospect personally/emotionally
If you put these practices to work I guarantee that you will increase your conversions, book more meetings and make more money.
-Kate Turchin-
Kate Turchin is an inside sales professional at Palo Alto Networks. She is known for her songs about inside sales, tech and cloud security and is known in the cybersecurity space as “The Cloud Security Singer.” She is also an AA-ISP Silicon Valley Chapter Officer and Resident Rockstar. Her mission is to empower other salespeople to bring more joy and excitement into their day to day functions, and also have more success reaching prospects, by being creative and thinking outside of the box. Check out her YouTube channel to see her songs: https://www.youtube.com/c/KeynoteSinger
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