How to Use Customer-Centric Language in Cold Emails

Here are 3 phrases I avoid using in cold outbound to Enterprise CXOs. 1. "CXOs like you often struggle with..." Using a generic "like you" with someone we've never met unintentionally reads a bit like: "I couldn't be bothered to look up your unique situation, so I'll just throw out these 3 broad statements and hope one sticks." Ex: "driving revenue growth" or "increasing efficiency". There's too much publicly available info about ENT accounts and what they're trying to achieve. Instead, I prompt ChatGPT with "What are ACME CEO's most recent interviews about the company's growth strategy?". Helps me find a specific observation about the account + tie it back to a specific problem hypothesis (with unsure tonality). Ex: "Mark spoke about X (objective). Seems like you might be doing Y (current state). Not sure if you're seeing Z (related problem), but Acme tested a few different options to fix it. Open to hearing what they learned?" Also - I prefer to kill "struggling". Not sure many people like to be told it seems like we're struggling to do their job by a stranger. 2. "Do you have a quick 15 mins?" Suggesting that 15 mins of an Enterprise exec's time is "quick" makes us sound naive. It unintentionally diminishes the value of their time. Instead, remove 'quick' + A/B test a call to learn instead. (Ex: "Open to seeing how?") 3. "I just wanted to" / "I'd love to" / "I'd like to" Prospects don't care what we want. I used to think this language showed execs how much I cared about booking a meeting. Until I saw how much it's used in cold emails. It's white noise to buyers & unintentionally selfish. Instead, kill as many "I", "we", "our", "Company Name" statements as possible. *As always, nothing never works and nothing always works. You could write a cold email with all 3 of these and probably still book a meeting. But, once I stopped using these phrases, my cold emails felt less sales-y and I was more confident hitting send.

Stop writing cold emails that sound like your website. “Real-time analytics to help you move faster.” “Seamless integrations to streamline your workflow.” Buyers don’t hate cold email because it’s cold. They hate it because it’s boring and meaningless. They hate it because the copy is full of generic features and promises of saving time and money. Especially when 100% of your competitors are making the same promises. So how do you stand out? Write your sales copy like a top-performing seller, not a marketer. Skip past features and advantages to BENEFITS. Tell the reader why it matters TO THEM. When writing sales copy, I use the FABs Framework to keep asking why the reader should GAF until I find something to talk about that is problem, not product-centric. It's a very easy 3-step process that you can start using today: Feature → What the product is Advantage → Why that’s useful Benefit → What outcomes it helps the buyer achieve Buyers don’t care about features until they believe those features solve a problem that matters. 📌 How do you pivot from product to problem-centric language? ✨ Enjoyed this post? Make sure to hit FOLLOW for daily posts about B2B sales, leadership, entrepreneurship and mindset.

Most cold emails don’t fail because of bad writing. They fail because they talk too much about the product… …and not enough about the problem. Here’s the cold email formula I’ve used in over 100,000 sends - including while helping scale Gong from $200K to $200M in ARR. It’s simple. It works. And it doesn’t require a single bullet point about features. The 4-part cold email formula: 1. Relevant intro Personalized and specific - not robotic. “Looks like you're hiring across your revenue org — congrats.” 2. Agitate the pain Make your prospect feel like you’ve read their internal Slack threads. “You either hit your headcount targets and sacrifice quality… Or you hire strong reps but miss your number.” 3. Paint the future state Share what you help others accomplish - not how your product works. “We’ve helped 100+ VPs reduce their miss-hire rate to single digits.” 4. The ‘Solve’ CTA End with a yes/no question - not a time request. “Is reducing sales mis-hires this quarter worth a quick chat?” You don’t need long emails. You need relevance, resonance, and a reason to reply. That’s how you build pipeline. P.S. Want to have actionable techniques, strategies, cheat sheets, & case studies to help you master your SaaS sales skills? Join 100,000+ other sellers who receive our newsletter every Tuesday: https://lnkd.in/egVNiFce