The Cold Email Guide

Curiosity Chronicle - A podcast by Sahil Bloom

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Welcome to the 521 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 51,175 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.And if you haven’t already done so, check out the Where It Happens podcast! Follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, plus subscribe on YouTube so you never miss a beat.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Lemon.io!I was recently working on a project and needed a developer, but I knew the process of finding, vetting, and hiring one was going to be an expensive headache.Lemon.io fixes this—it makes hiring remote developer talent as easy as ordering a meal on UberEats. Tell them about your project and they match you with an affordable, vetted developer in Eastern Europe within 48 hours. It’s as simple as that.Lemon.io is offering a special 15% discount for the first 4 weeks of work for all Curiosity Chronicle subscribers. Sign up at the link below to take advantage of the offer!Today at a Glance:One cold email can literally change your life. But a cold email success is never an accident. You need a framework for writing and executing highly-effective cold outreach.The principles of a great cold email: Short & Sweet, Personalized, Credentials or Social Proof, Create Value, and a Clear Call-to-Action.Importantly, these principles apply to any form of cold outreach (Twitter DM, etc.), so can be leveraged broadly for a variety of use cases and needs.The Cold Email GuideOne cold email can change your life. It can open doors to a new job, secure a new mentor, or unlock new opportunities.A cold email—as an investment—has the ultimate asymmetric return profile: Huge upside, limited downside.In this piece, I will attempt to deconstruct a framework for optimizing your cold outreach in order to further accentuate that beautiful return profile…BackgroundI’ve sent (and received) a lot of cold emails—some great, some not.What I've learned: a cold email success is never an accident. There are very specific principles of great cold emails that you can apply to enhance your cold outreach efforts today.The best part? The results are instantaneous.So let’s just dive right in…the core principles of a great cold email:Short & SweetPersonalizedCredentials or Social ProofCreate ValueClear Call-to-ActionI’ll cover each principle and then workshop a few examples:Short & SweetIf you're sending a cold email to someone, remember that the person receiving it probably gets a lot of these. They don't have time—or energy—to read through long and winding notes.Keep it short and sweet!Space out the text to make it optically inviting. To bring this point to life, here are two emails—identical content, different spacing.Option A:Option B:Same exact email—one a block of text, one spaced out. Option B (the spaced out version) is so much more digestible and optically inviting for a reader. As such, Option B is much more likely to elicit a response.PersonalizedNo one likes a generic email—it's going to get auto-deleted 99% of the time.Personal touches can make all the difference in the effectiveness of a cold email. They require a bit more upfront time investment—for background research, diligence, and execution—but have the potential to create a 10x+ impact.Do your research on the person you are emailing. A simple search across Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn will probably take you 15 minutes and is definitely worth it.Then include some of these findings in your note.A few to consider:Reference a book they loveMention a podcast they were on (with a specific insight you gleaned from listening to it)Compliment their workThe goal: Make it clear you didn't send out hundreds of the note (even if you did).Credentials or Social ProofThe infusion of credentials or social proof is an important—yet often overlooked—element of successful cold outreach. Credentials and social proof are, in effect, the reasons the person should take you seriously.Credentials are just the outward markers of your success to date—degrees, accolades, awards, etc.Social Proof is formally defined as a psychological phenomenon where people imitate the actions of others in an attempt to behave appropriately for a specific situation.In the context of cold emails, this means that the receiver should be given examples of others—hopefully impressive others—who have responded in the way that you want this receiver to respond.“In recent weeks, I’ve interviewed Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and the Pope.”The receiver immediately sees (a) big names and (b) the action—it sparks their intrinsic psychological desire to follow suit.In infusing these credentials and social proof, don't be humble—let it shine.What have you done or created that is interesting or notable? Who has engaged? Show the receiver that they would be crazy to ignore your email!Create ValueMy foundational rule (in business & life): create value, receive value.If you create value for the person you’re emailing, they are much more likely to engage....

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