Why You Shouldn't Sell in the First Email

I just deleted 147 cold emails without reading them. Here’s what they all got wrong: Every morning, my inbox looks the same. A flood of pitches from people trying to sell me something. Most days, I just mass delete them. But this morning, I decided to actually read through them first. Within 5 minutes, I spotted a pattern. Everyone was making the exact same mistake. They were all trying to close the deal. ALL IN THE FIRST MESSAGE 🥵 Let me show you what I mean (with two small examples): APPROACH A: "The Wall of Text" Send 100 cold emails with full pitch, calendar link, and case studies. • 3 people open • 0 responses • 0 intros This looks exactly like the 147 emails I just deleted "Hi [Name], I noticed your company is scaling fast! We help companies like yours optimize their marketing stack through our proprietary AI technology. Our clients see 300% ROI within 90 days. Here's my Calendly link to book a 15-min chat: [LINK]. Looking forward to connecting! Best, [Name]" BORING!!! APPROACH B: "Micro Conversations" Same 100 prospects, broken down into micro-convo's. Email 1: "Do you know [mutual connection]?" • Send 100 • ~40 open • ~20 respond Email 2: "They mentioned you're scaling your marketing team. I'd love to connect about [specific thing]." • Send to 20 who responded • ~15 continue engaging Email 3: "Would you mind if they made an intro?" • Ask 15 engaged prospects • ~10 intros Final score: • Approach A: No intros • Approach B: 10 intros How to Apply These Lessons (Tactical Summary): 1. Focus on Micro-Conversations: Break your cold outreach into smaller, manageable steps. Build rapport before making any asks. 2. Personalize Everything: Reference mutual connections, specific company milestones, or shared interests in every message. 3. Play the Long Game: Aim for replies in the first message.. not conversions. If you’ve been struggling with cold outreach, you might just need a new approach. Give this one a try and lmk how it goes.

🚫 Stop Selling Before Saying Hello One of my biggest frustrations with LinkedIn (and networking in general) is when the very first message from someone is a sales pitch ore even offer. Yes, I’m a sales coach and I'm telling you not to start with sales messaging. Selling without building a relationship first is the fastest way to lose trust. Sales isn’t about pushing offers. It’s about understanding people, discovering what matters to them, and building a foundation of trust. A first message that jumps straight to, “Here’s what I sell.... Want to buy?” skips over the very step that makes sales work: human connection. When you approach someone as a person first and not just as a prospect, you open the door to real conversations, opportunities, and long-term partnerships. 💡 My advice: - Lead with curiosity, not a pitch. - Build a relationship before making an offer. - Earn the right to sell by showing you care. Because sales done with integrity isn’t about skipping steps, it’s about building trust, one conversation at a time.

Stop trying to sell your offer in the email. Your ONLY goal should be booking a call. That's it. Most people try to explain their entire service, their pricing, their process... ... all in the first email. No one's reading that. The problem is most people treat cold email like direct response marketing. They write it like a Facebook ad or sales page. This is a massive mistake. Cold email is about starting a conversation. People want to be talked with, not talked to. If your prospect can't read your entire email and understand exactly what you're asking for in 10 seconds or less, they're not going to respond. Our best-performing cold email of all time? One sentence: "Are you looking to scale your agency this year?" Simple. Direct. Focused on THEM. Just one clear question that speaks directly to their needs. When someone shows interest, that's when you can dive deeper. That's when you can explain your process, share your success stories, and discuss your offer. But you have to earn that right first. Keep your cold emails short. Avoid clunky paragraphs. Focus on getting the call. That's how you win with cold email.

Rookie sellers do this all the time & have crappy meetings or get ghosted. They talk WAY TOO MUCH ABOUT their company, their product and service. They don’t talk enough about the customer. Their goals, their challenges & the state of their business. Whether I’m drafting a prospecting email or prepping for an initial meeting, 95% of the discussion is centered on: 1. The state of the prospects business 2. The outcomes they want to achieve 3. The challenges I believe they’re facing AND ONLY AT THE VERY END… Will i bring up my company and what we sell. The problem is… Most reps are trained to jump on a call and immediately pitch & educate the prospect on their solution. WRONG APPROACH. How do you like it when you meet anyone in any setting and they just talk about themselves? Sucks doesn’t it? Wish you could just leave the convo. Don’t you? Never wanna talk to them again 😂 That’s how your prospect feels too. So, moving forward, in your emails… don’t even mention your company name or your service (they’ll see your company name in your signature). Instead make the email about their problems you think they face and the outcomes you think they’re interested in generating. In your meetings… Also don’t mention your company, services, or go into detail about how your technology works. Why? Because all of that pitching & education is USELESS without a specific problem to solve or goal to achieve. Think about it. You wouldn’t get in the car, if you didn’t have a destination to go to. But so many sellers immediately jump in the car (pitch) without having a destination (outcome or challenge to focus on). Find the destination… then jump in the car. Final lesson here- STOP TALKING SO MUCH ABOUT YOU AND CENTER THE CONVO ON YOUR CUSTOMERS. If you struggle with this, shoot me a DM 🤝

EMAIL MARKETING - PROVIDE VALUE When consulting with clients about their email program or when Clandestine Media Group provides email services to our clients, we have a hard and fast rule for email marketing.... always provide value to the recipient. We've all see the spammy emails in our inbox. It's an email that talks about a product or service, it's given little thought or effort and the idea is it will hopefully convert some money so why not send it. The problem is a poorly constructed email will often cause more damage than good. While you may get a few conversions, inevitably you bbq your email list and valuable customers unsubscribe due to the annoyance of another email in their inbox. If you want a successful email campaign, always provide value to the recipient. This can be in the form of a discount, information on a new product drop, information about the industry you support and more. Before you send the email, ask yourself.... Does this provide value? Would I want to open this email? If the answer is no, change the email or just don't sent it. If you ever find yourself just getting an email out so you can meet sales goals, stop. This is not a sustainable marketing or sales strategy and will always cause more long-term damage than it's worth.