This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
A listener needs a sales script for cold emailing potential clients. What if you want to reach a particular audience, you want to reach potential clients, and maybe you're reaching out to them on LinkedIn, which we've talked about before. Maybe it is just by direct email. It could also be through Instagram direct message or another social network direct message or through any number of platforms. What is your script?
What do you say? Do you just be like, "Hey, what's up? You want to buy this thing?" Probably not. But you also don't want to send them a super long thing. You don't want to give them a huge pitch.
So what is the right way to do it? How do you give them the right amount of information and the right information to get them to want to know more? We're going to hear from Jay in Brooklyn. He is trying to develop a script that will work for his particular niche or topic, but I think there's a way we can give some advice that will help anybody out there who wants to use a tool like chat GPT or another language model, perhaps to create a script, or even if you just want to do it from scratch yourself, what's the best way to do it? And what are effective sales scripts to deliver by cold email?
That's the question, detailed version, and my answer coming in just 30 seconds. Hi, Chris. This is Jay from Brooklyn. I'm working on Side Hustle selling client services, and I'm trying to reach out to potential clients through cold emails. I know that having the right approach can make all the difference in these emails, but I'm not sure where to start.
I tried using chat GPT and it sounded fake. I love some tips on how to craft a real message that gets replies and leads to conversions. So this is something that has changed a good bit in recent years because largely because of AI and just the sheer volume of pitches that people get these days. And so a couple years ago, I would have said, you know, personalization is really important and it still is important, but there's so much fake personalization now that I think the value has kind of eroded a bit. What I mean is, you know, I get pitches every single day that are like, "Hey, Chris, I'm your best friend.
I know everything about you." And insert fact number one, insert fact number two, "I really like this episode of your podcast." Insert link, you can just tell that it is all automated and fake and everybody's getting so many of these things. So I think it's important when you're creating a script. The first script is very short, like the first outreach to anybody is mostly just like asking for permission to go to the next level, which could be a conversation or it might be a pitch or something. So I think your first script is like, rather than like, "Hey, I offer social media management or I offer video editing," maybe it's just like, "Hey, I have helped a lot of businesses like yours, you know, increase engagement rates by over 30%. We'd love to share how we could do the same for you." Maybe even that sounds too pitchy.
I don't know. I just think being really specific, you know, with a sentence or two, "Can I share more?" And have the expectation that a lot of these pitches will not land. Whatever you do, keep the message concise under 150 words. Have a clear call to action. Make it as easy as possible for someone to talk to you or whatever action you want them to take.
And then follow up. But don't follow up too many times. If you follow up once or twice and nothing happens, we'll just kind of move on. And maybe something will happen later with that person, but if you just keep banging the door too many times, I think that actually creates a negative impression. And then last, you mentioned using chat GPT and not being impressed with the response.
Well, sometimes it takes some massaging with these language tools, these AI language tools. You often have to give multiple prompts. And if you're not satisfied with what you're getting, if it sounds too robotic or if it sounds too salesy, then just tell it exactly that, just say, "Hey, this doesn't work because of this reason," try again. And you can get iterative approaches and you'll get multiple scripts. You can tell it how many words.
You can tell it what tone to use. So I think basically just getting better at your prompts is going to help you have a better response with something like chat GPT or Claude or Gemini or another tool like that. Last but not least, cold emailing is all about testing and tweaking. Don't be afraid to experiment with different subject lines, opening statements, calls to action. Every time you get to see which elements get the best response rates, focus on creating genuine connections.
Good luck. Everybody else out there, good luck. I'm cheering you on. Wow. What a year it's been.
We are in the middle of December, episode 2,906. I'm so grateful to be able to make the show for you every day. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
From the Onward Project.
