How To Not Send Spammy Emails

A well-meaning, driven, open-minded salesperson was asking how to fill up his pipeline, and he shared his email in a subreddit.

It was bad.

No.

It was terrible.

No.

It was the exact same garbage we all get 5-10x a day here on LinkedIn and in our inboxes, and I came down hard on him last night as I read it while waiting for a table, and I only had a few minutes to dissuade him in no uncertain terms from ever sending that again.

To his credit, he accepted the critique and asked for advice on how to improve it.

Here's what I told him...

*******************

Good morning. Apologies for coming down hard on you, but I do feel strongly about this, and I only had a few minutes as we were waiting for a table, and I wanted to save you from a long, painful death!

Mass email is hard.

If you're going to do it, you have to send thousands out to hopefully get a hit.

If you can't do that, you have to be "creatively personal."

I have a free program called 12 Weeks To Peak? that gives you activities to do every day, and a lot of it focuses on creating content.

A lot of people tell me, "I'm not good at creating content," or "My company won't let me create content," or "My industry is highly regulated, so I can't create content," to which I reply, "Good. This is why you need to do it" and "You can share company content on LinkedIn and put your own take on it" or "You can share articles from your industry and ask people their opinions."

Where there's a will, there's a way.

The reason you need to create short videos and longer posts is to prove you know what you're talking about.

Then, when you're engaging a prospect, you can share that post as an ice breaker or direct prospects to the post when they have questions to prove your knowledge and professionalism.

Start with your FAQs, which are not a differentiator but must be addressed.

Then write out your SAQs—Should Ask Questions.

These are the questions the prospects don't know they don't know.

THIS is where the money is.

For example: I represent several CRM/marketing automation companies as either a certified partner or affiliate/referral partner.

If someone comes to me, their FAQs might be:

• How many contacts?
• How many users?
• How many emails are included?
• Does it have a mobile app?
• Does it have scheduling links for meetings?
• Does it have e-commerce?
• Can I send newsletters?
• What's the price?
• Is there a setup cost?
• Is there a long-term contract?
• Etc.

All of those can be found on the company website in 30 seconds.

But prospects need those answers as the foundation of their decision-making.

The SAQs might be:

• How important is multi-media follow-up to you, i.e., combining phone calls, SMS, email, direct mail, and social media and tracking all of it for every rep?
• What is your proposal creation and tracking process? How do you create and track proposals currently?
• If you sell a product, do you have a handle on accurately collecting state, county, and city taxes?
• Etc.

(It's 8 am on a Sunday, and I'm going quickly, but I hope you get the point.)

Pour yourself some coffee or your favorite adult beverage, get into a zen mode, and write down 10-20-50 questions that come up that are both FAQ and SAQ.

Write down those that stump you or that you hate to get, then write those out in depth.

Solve those tough ones once and for all.

Then create short videos, Twitter threads, short reports/cheat sheets, etc., on those.

Now you have a series of emails you can send to your cold prospects.

Let's say you're a chiropractor, and you know that statistically, 80% of people experience back problems at least once or more times per year. (That's a true statistic!!)

So you get a list of 1,000 men and 1,000 women between the ages of 35 to 65 who are homeowners within 10 miles of your office, and you send an email, postcard, phone blast, etc., that says,

"Does it hurt to stand up or sit down? Do you or a loved one moan and groan when you stand up or sit down? Do you find yourself arching your back and needing to walk around after sitting at your desk for more than a few minutes? Are you wanting some relief without risky surgeries or addictive main medications? Would you like to find a potential solution for less than you spend on coffee each week? Click here to schedule your free visit to the Best Crack In Town...

You get the point.

You have to make an educated guess as to the issues people have and offer insights into those.

After you run the "back to health" campaign, target the same list with,

"Do you find yourself needing an alarm to wake up, but you never feel rested? Do you need coffee all morning, tea/soda/Red Bulls all day, and alcohol/cannabis at night to make it through the day and then try to fall asleep at night? Do you crash after lunch? Would you like to sleep better, wake up energized and optimistic without an alarm, and have sustained energy all day long without expensive, addictive drugs and alcohol? Click here..."

Then I'd run it for headaches/migraines/eye strain.

Then I'd run it for weight loss.

Here's a foundational component of what I've taught all my clients since I learned this myself in 2006 when I hired a sales coach.

This is my phone script, but you need to fill in the blanks...

"Hi, Joe, this is a sales call. May I take 27 seconds of your time, tell you why I'm calling, then you decide if we ever speak again? Great. Thank you.

"I work with (sales managers/VPs of sale, small business owners, etc.) who are:

• FRUSTRATED with (salespeople not making enough phone calls)
• UPSET with (salespeople constantly discounting at the drop of a hat)
• CONCERNED about (hitting their numbers predictably and consistently), and some are downright...
• ANGRY that (despite giving their salespeople all the tools they ask for, hitting their numbers just seems like a crapshoot every month, every quarter, and every year.

"Joe, I don't suppose you're wrestling with any of those issues that you'd like to solve this quarter, are you?"

Once you have this, you can take those four points and turn them into individual voicemails with relevant emails tied to them that reinforce those points.

You can also expand each point into a LinkedIn post/article that you can share and link back to.

Let me know if this helps.

It may feel daunting at first, but this is the way.

I promise.

Once you get some momentum, you'll be unstoppable.

I've been in sales full-time since 1997. My wife has stayed home for 28 years, and we have seven kids, with three college graduates, a senior in college, a freshman in college, and two more coming up, all provided for by me selling and teaching selling.

This is not some 1970s polished turd put forth as "the latest and greatest."

It's just fundamental "find a need and fill it," and "you must enter the conversation going on in the mind of the prospect.

It should feel natural and easy because it's true.

HMU with any questions.

Good luck.

You got this.