‪How To Write An Email To A Prospect That Doesn’t Know You‬

The biggest problem when writing an email is your ‘state of mind’. This is the MOST IMPORTANT THING to consider as you craft emails.

One of the frustrating scenarios is introducing yourself to a person you’d like to meet with. In this tutorial, Bill Caskey, Author of Email It — A Seller’s Guide to Emails That Work with 20 Pre-Written, Ready-to-Use Emails, walks you thorough a very tactical framework to craft this important email.

*You can learn more tips on how to write emails to a prospect or your client at: ‪http://emailitsellersguide.com/‬

*VIDEO TRANSCRIPT*

Hi. Bill Caskey back at Caskey One. We’ve talked about this concept of emailing and to me, one of the skills of the future of the sales professional or business development person is to be able to write and part of that is being able to write good copy and part of that is being able to write good copy in an email.

Since a lot of our communication today is done through emailing and documentation and writing, we need to be good writers and one of the challenges in writing an email is many times, we write it from the standpoint of, “What can I get out of this relationship?” In other words, we usually don’t just write an email to say hey to someone. We write it because there’s a problem somewhere or there’s an emotion. There’s a difficulty or I’m writing it to someone in the case today where I don’t even know them and they don’t know me.

Well that’s kind of an odd and awkward place. So you got to be really careful when you write these emails that it comes across properly and correctly. So today, we’re going to talk about, “How do you write a prospecting email?” and all these emails that we talk about on this video series are in the book Email It and you can find it there on the lower third of your screen where to go to get it. There are 20 different scenarios, everything from how do you write a connector email to how do you write an email to a potential strategic partner. How do you write an email to a long, lost client? What about a resistant client? We’ve talked about that. What about a client who just disappeared off the face of the earth?

But today we’re going to talk about how to write a prospecting email. There are a couple of things to it. Number one, I think we have to get out of this feeling that we’re honing in and we’re putting pressure on this prospect. The surest way not to get an answer from an email is when the recipient feels pressure. So I think a thing to substitute for pressure is just casualness and maybe even some humor.

So here’s an email that we came up with that we have found works very well and some of our readers of Email It have found the same thing. You’ve got to really let your personality show through. I would prefer you not take this. If you do end up buying the book and starting to use these and cutting and pasting them, I still recommend that you use your own words. If you wouldn’t say a certain thing that we say here, change it by all means. You got to have a little bit of your personality in it.

So here’s the way I would start an email to a brand new prospect. We’ll call them a cold prospect. By the way, I wouldn’t spend a lot of time counting your money on these emailing to cold prospects because it’s very difficult. But if you have to do it, “You don’t know me. Here’s who I am. Let me tell you why I’m writing. I’m using this format because I hate making cold calls probably as much as you hate getting them. So I thought I would spare us both the agony and just drop you a note.”

So that’s a way to just add some levity to the situation. Nobody has gotten that email before. Now it has got to be you. It has got to be your personality but you’re setting the stage there. You’re creating an atmosphere in this email where a person is at least interested in reading the next paragraph in which I say, “All kidding aside, I work with businesses around this area helping them with some very specific problems like A, B and C. In no way would I ever presume that you have any of these problems but I do find that half the companies that I call on have them and half don’t. If it makes sense to get a coffee sometime and discuss your issues, I would be happy to do that.”

So you’re really being very casual with it. You’re being very soft and a little elegant. You’re being very efficient. You’re not trying to hammer someone for an appointment and I think what you will find is this email will help break the ice a little bit.