Why do they delete your emails?

I love to sell. There is no better way to help companies endure. They buy to improve the outcome of something or avoid the evils of other "somethings"... right?

So, let's face it, the best way to get in touch with someone you know you can help is to call them on the phone. The problem is that sometimes you don't have the number... very basic, isn't it? And that's when we try to contact by email and spend (like me) a long time failing without knowing why... until we discover something that works. Discovering can be by banging our heads against the wall, or for the more intrepid, by reading people who know: reading Combo Prospecting or Tech Powered Sales and Predictable Revenue (Google it and you'll win) is a must.

So, half head-butting myself, half learning from those who know, here are the top 3 reasons that, in my experience, conspire against your email prospecting results.

1. The title has more than ONE or TWO words (if it's two, you join them with a "+"). Yes, I'm not exaggerating. When I send out ONE or TWO word emails in the headline, I'd say I get 90% response. The secret is that you have to be a little more creative than just saying "Hello", "Urgent" or "Offer"... the conditions that this single concept must fulfill are:

• It must be related to a topic that you must know is a priority and a concern for your client (and I don't say prospect... it's your client because you are already helping him from that first message even if he doesn't know you at all!) And when I say that you should know, even if you don't know the company or your contact at all, it's because you MUST know. If you don't know anything useful, essential, what are you selling for? Google Search is to a salesperson what a welding robot is to an industrial worker. Wake up! Really important is to focus on THEM, not YOU!
• That single concept should trigger curiosity and interest, it should facilitate synapses in the overcrowded brain of your stressed-out buyer (you see there are things common to EVERYONE?) for something that is bothering them today! And you MUST know that, because you are the expert in something you live shoulder-deep in every day, when your customer analyzes or solves it once every 4 years. For example, I sell 2 or 3 things, and one of them is data backup. What I do is look for a word that is immediately associated with what I do, anchored on some thing that is most likely going through the customer's head as unresolved. If I'm trying to get into accounts that use a product from my competitor I might say "Networker + uncontrollable" (that's an example, any similarity to reality is purely coincidental).

That concept must provide value to the customer. On the contrary, "Appointment request"... what value does it bring???? Or worst "looking for a hole in your calendar"... Oh my God!

Are you your client's trusted hairdresser?

2. In the first line of your message you should get to the point (IMHO not even saying hello in an e-mail is an act of courtesy, you save time and make life easier for the reader). And in that first line, as you know, you should explain why you already know a lot about something that will help your client big way, without even expecting him to agree with you! You are the expert. You are your client's trusted hairdresser! (For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I recommend looking around and finding a hairdresser you can go to, ask them to change the style of the cut a bit, but be so confident that you will look good in their hands that you can say "do whatever you want to me, I trust you". Are you that for your clients? If you're not, find out why and try to improve. I remember over 20 years ago when I had a marketing expert working with me for my small business. We would have meetings and I would say to her, "Let's meet at the meeting where I say yes to everything you want to do." Are you at that level? If not, find out why and get better! Following with my example, I could continue to build my message as follows:

Header: Networker + uncontrollable.

First line: Hi, I'm seeing lately that in Networker installations my customers have the feeling that they are losing control. There are new SaaS loads and modern environments that are difficult to protect, and they are getting more and more complicated, and the vendor roadmap is too confusing, almost designed to keep them on hook with a single path (again, any resemblance to reality is pure coincidence).

It's a very generalist example, what you have to look for is something along the lines of describing a problem that you KNOW your customer has. Even if HE doesn't know it (management teams in many companies don't always go around explaining to bosses what are the things that are going wrong... this generates more work or pink slips!).

This second part should end there. Don't bring up any more topics. Your reader is thinking about the 3 meetings he has ahead of him, the 4 things he was asked to do yesterday that he hasn't even been able to assimilate, the things he has been dragging around for a month and is still trying to mentally fit into his agenda what you are saying to him. Stop there!

3. And finally you must ask him for something that complies with the following:

• it is simple
• it is low risk
• takes little time
• in case it goes wrong... they have nothing to lose, and if it goes right, they get value

And you have to ask for it and describe it implicitly! You don't have time to describe in 10 lines everything you can do for them. You don't have time. They've come this far and you're going to ruin everything to get them to hit "delete"? A phrase you can use, for example, is:

When is it good for you to talk about this for 10 minutes?

It meets all the conditions and is supported by the fact that the you have explained the value, BEFORE. Back in 1964 Marshall McLuhan wrote The medium is the message explaining that the way something is said ads a lot of meaning above, below and to the sides of the message itself. In this situation, if you go to the point, speak about something that adds lots of value to the customer, demonstrate you have the experience and the insights... you don't need to be saying that you work for a good company that has lots of customers and brilliant service and a fleet of new trucks: you are supposed to have that!

Try it and let me know!