This is a guest post by John Corcoran.
Let’s get one thing straight: Noah Kagan really has no business sending me cookies.
Noah is busy running AppSumo, training new entrepreneurs, and riding bikes around Austin sampling tacos. Until recently, he had no idea who I was.
And yet here I was, opening my mail to find a box of chocolate chip cookies, with a thank you note from Noah Kagan.
So why did Noah send me cookies?
Well, it all started with an email that got his attention.
Because of that one email, I interviewed him for a guest post I was writing, got him to come on my podcast, got valuable feedback from him on my blog, and now I’m writing a guest post on his personal website.
We’re even going to ride Go Carts and get snowcones the next time he’s in town. (Wait… did I say that out loud?)
It was all because of one successful email.
Seems pretty simple to get the attention of a busy entrepreneur, right?
Wrong. Getting the attention of a busy person like Noah is easier said than done.
I’ve sent plenty of emails to busy entrepreneurs like Noah that resulted in nada. Zip. Zero response.
But I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t work, and now I want to share it with you.
In fact, Noah Kagan should be the hardest of all to get a response from, because if anyone knows a good email from a bad one, it’s Noah.
He receives dozens of cold emails per month asking for something from him. AppSumo has an email list of 700,000+ a kajillion subscribers and sends millions of emails per month.
If email was a science, Noah would have a doctorate of emailology.
So he knows his stuff when it comes to email.
So how did my email get Noah’s attention?
The email I sent which managed to grab Noah’s attention was actually a perfect example of an effective email to a busy person who receives dozens or hundreds of messages and requests for their time each week.
So you probably want to see the actual email, right?
Hold your horses, chico. I’ll share that in a moment.
But first, let’s discuss why being able to craft and send effective emails that get an actual live response even matters.
Why You Need to Master Email
In To Sell Is Human, Dan Pink argues that workers spend a larger portion of their time today persuading, negotiating, and pitching, than ever before, and much of this work is done by email.
In a study Pink commissioned for the book, workers reported that they spent 40 percent of their work time trying to move someone to part with resources of some kind (what Pink calls “non-sales selling”), and much of that is accomplished using email.
At the same time, we’re all used to being bombarded with email messages aimed at convincing us to do something, which is why it is so difficult to break through.
In fact, your success at work is dependent on your ability to communicate, and your income is a reflection of that. So being able to email a busy person and get the response you desire is literally a skill you need to know to increase your income.
Now let’s take a look at my email to Noah and why it worked. Then I’m going to share five tips for how you can use email effectively to get the attention of any busy VIP, whether it’s a successful entrepreneur, a potential boss, a girl you like, or just someone you want to get to know.
The Email That Got Noah’s Attention
This actually wasn’t the first time I tried to contact Noah. I had tried to interview Noah a few years earlier.
When I first tried to contact him, I made all the wrong mistakes. He had no idea who I was. I had no insider connections. I did not clearly articulate how I could benefit Noah. I was just another no-name blogger with little to offer.
I also sent the email not to Noah, but to someone on his staff who quickly sized me up and turned down my request for an interview. Noah probably never heard about the request personally. Even if he had, he would have been right to turn me down.
So here was my most recent email which got Noah’s attention. Below, I’m going to break down why it worked so effectively.
Note: I forgot to link to the second Forbes piece but apparently that didn’t matter. The point was to demonstrate I had a connection to Noah’s friend Ramit Sethi, who, like Noah, is also a busy entrepreneur.
Now let’s take a closer look at this email and why it worked.
The Subject Line Was Relevant
The subject line I used was relevant because it reminded Noah how he knew me – I had mentioned him in an Art of Manliness guest post I wrote that had been published a week earlier.
You want the subject line to quickly tell your recipient either why they would benefit from opening your email and/or how they know you.
Another option for the subject line would have been something like “Friend of Andrew Warner” or “Hey Noah – John from Art of Manliness here.”
The Benefit Was Clearly Articulated
In this email, I clearly articulated the benefit to Noah. I wanted to interview him for Art of Manliness, which I guessed he probably already knew is a very high-traffic blog with a passionate reader base that has the potential to send OKDork and AppSumo new traffic and new readers.
It turned out Noah was very familiar with Art of Manliness. Part of the reason he was excited about being interviewed for the site was because, he later told me, “his brother reads Art of Manliness and loves it.” I didn’t know this at the time, but it helped me.
The Time Commitment Was Short
I said the interview would take only 5-7 minutes of his time. If you’re asking for something, you want to make the commitment so small and the benefit so great, they can’t possibly pass it up.
I think Noah probably realized it was likely the interview would run longer than 5-7 minutes, but it’s good to demonstrate your willingness to keep the time demand commitment short out of respect for your recipient’s time.
And in fact, when I did interview Noah, I offered multiple times to cut off the interview but he allowed it to go longer.
The Email Message Itself Answered All Questions
My email message provided all of the details Noah would need in order for him to make a decision about my interview request. In addition, my request was unusual – I specifically wanted to ask him about failure. I didn’t make a generic request for an interview about “what tips he would give entrepreneurs who are starting out” which he probably receives all the time.
I go into additional tips for what you should include in the content of your emails below.
5 Tips for Creating Successful Cold Emails
Now, I want to share five specific tips for how you can create successful cold emails that break through and get the results you want.
1. Grease the Wheels Ahead of Time
One of the best things you can do before emailing someone cold is to get them to get to know you through other channels, particularly through social media. I call this “greasing the wheels.”
When Noah received my email on January 16th, it wasn’t the first time he had seen my name. He knew my name from Art of Manliness and from Twitter. Also, a few months earlier, I had included him in a post I co-authored in Forbes, which I then sent to him via Twitter:
Then, when I mentioned him in the Art of Manliness guest post in early January, he actually tweeted me to thank me:
This was the opportunity I needed to reach out and request a one-on-one interview. However, I didn’t want to jump too quickly because that would have just seemed sad and perhaps a little desperate.
So I waited to exchange a few messages on Twitter a few days later:
(That tweet seems kind of annoying and know-it-all in retrospect.)
Then, finally, on January 17th, I sent my email to Noah requesting an interview. Because he had recently seen my name a couple of times, it was less of a cold email.
2. Be Brief
One of the best things you can do when emailing a busy person is to keep your email very short. Even though most people have heard this tip, I am still shocked at the incredibly long emails I receive, and I probably receive a small fraction of the email traffic Noah receives.
I’ll even let you in on a little secret: sometimes, I will even intentionally break up everything I want to say into multiple emails so that I don’t overwhelm in my initial email.
Here’s what the sequence might look like:
Email #1: Attention getter, i.e. a sincere compliment
The point of the first email is simply to get a response. I may use a sincere compliment or perhaps mention the person in a blog post I’ve written and then email them to tell the person about it.
Email #2: Make Personal Connection Over Something You have in Common
In your second email (or first “reply” email), you want to continue the conversation by making a personal connection.
If you mentioned in your first email that you are both from San Francisco, then in this reply email you may continue discussing common interests, such as, “too bad about the 49ers this year” or “I just can’t get a decent burrito ever since I moved from the Mission to the Haight.”
Email #3: Real Purpose for Emailing the VIP
It’s not until the third email that I actually bring up the real purpose for my email. Why? Because if you’ve already made a personal connection and deepened it, then the VIP is more primed to say “yes” to your request at this point.
3. Communicate How You Will Benefit THEM.
Noah has already written about this but it bears repeating. It doesn’t matter what you want, it only matters what you can do for the person you’re emailing.
In other words, you may soooo want Justin Bieber just to like you but if you email him to tell him that, you don’t have a chance. If you want your email to get the Biebs’ attention (or anyone else’s attention for that matter), you need to talk about what’s in it for them.
There are many ways to do this:
- ask to interview the person and publish it on a website, in a newsletter, or on a podcast.
- help spread the word about a person’s new book, new product, or new business
- offer to introduce the person to someone else who they might want to meet (such as when I introduced Noah to Brett McKay and Jon Morrow)
- give them a tip related to a personal hobby. For example, I might give Noah a recommendation of where he can get a killer taco the next time he’s in San Francisco.
- forward along the resume of a qualified candidate for a job opening with their company.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
4. Make it Fun
Another great approach is to demonstrate that you have a personality and a sense of humor in your email. While I wouldn’t recommend emailing a busy person solely with the goal of making them laugh, it is a good idea to keep things light in your email.
Noah clearly is someone who likes to have fun in life, so this was crucial.
For example, I recently introduced Maneesh Sethi to Brett McKay, founder of Art of Manliness.
Maneesh’s first email to Brett cracked me up:
(Although this was a follow up email rather than a cold email, it was like a cold email in that it was Maneesh’s first point of contact with Brett.)
When you show you have a sense of humor, you send a message: hey, this might be kinda fun.
5. Find Things You Have in Common
Finally, one of the best ways to make a connection with any busy VIP is by finding what you have in common. It is much more difficult to ignore a cold email if it’s from someone who you share something in common with, such as you’re from the same hometown or you have a friend in common, or you lived in the same city around the same time.
I actually used four out of five of these tips in an email I sent to bestselling author Dan Pink.
I had previously communicated with Dan via social media, my email was short and to the point, I communicated the benefits for Dan to connecting with me, and I mentioned what we had in common. If I had made the email a little less dry and a little more fun, then I would have hit 5 out of 5.
(BTW not long after I sent this email, I had Dan on as a guest on my podcast — twice.)
Get Started Connecting
One of the best things I’ve done in my career is spending time reaching out to interesting, successful people, and many of the people I’ve reached out to have become great friends.
Nearly every job I’ve gotten – from working on one of DreamWorks’ first projects over a summer during college to working at the White House – has come from reaching out to someone more successful than me. None of these opportunities would have come along if I hadn’t taken a chance.
So I want to encourage you to go out there and send some cold emails. Not because I want you to bug busy VIPs like Noah, but because I want you to make some genuine connections that are beneficial to all around.
Most importantly, aim for the stars – don’t settle for reaching too low because the person you really want to meet is “too successful” or “too important” to ever respond to you.
The Biebs will be waiting.
BONUS: Click to download “5 Killer Cold Email Templates” here.
John Corcoran is an attorney and former Clinton White House Writer and he really isn’t stalking Noah Kagan, promise. He does however have two free reports for you – get 5 Killer “Cold Email” Templates you can use right away, and also his 52+ page guide How to Increase Your Income Today by Building Relationships with Influencers, Even if you Hate Networking.
56 responses to “5 Cold Email Tips for VIP Replies”
very nice.
Hey, John excellent article you share here. These tips are very useful for every marketing professional. I agree to keep your cold email small but brief.
I just scheduled 3 networking lunches using an assortment of your tips! Thanks man! (Plus, I listen to your Podcast) .
great staff
It’s always interesting to read about successful ventures. Good to keep in mind: when you write about someone in your work, remember… they will probably read it!
Hi John,
Awesome post about cold emailing and prospecting! Definitely will put your words of wisdom into action!
I’m amazed by how much advice, useful tips and resources that help newbies like me. Thanks for this great post! Hope to reach out to more influencers and successful people!
Thanks for this valuable information! Social media communication is truly confusing and hard for lots of people to understand.
I love how you created an article and posted it on a popular medium. Great idea!
hi
Thanks for sharing. Nice article
Nice post, John! For what it’s worth, I thought the tweet about the doctor’s appointments was really helpful!
haha – thanks, David. Glad it didn’t seem annoying to you.
Hi John,
but Taco makes you fat?
I measure my cold approach strategies and yours seems really handy.
Thanks for sharing it.
One question — which will benefit to all readers:
How do you find common connections, introductions to someone VIP?
More specifically how do you achieve someone’s intro through Linkedin?
Do you have any strategy or script for this one?
Thanks, you’re awesome Sumo!
Hi Yogi: As far as introducing VIPs, I would just try to be attuned to what they need – find out what they are working on, creating, promoting, etc. It could be mundane like they need a new PHP coder or Ruby on Rails Developer for their company, or customer support person. Or it could be they need to promote a new book that’s coming out so you can introduce them to other podcasters. That sort of thing.
John, thanks for the great advice and free templates. Also downloaded the booklet on reaching out to and networking with successful people. Just starting the reaching out process to attract equity investors in a new home improvement product so can’t wait to read your pearls of wisdom!
Great – thanks, Rick! Good luck with building relationships with investors.
Hey John, great post! I love stories like yours. When people like you reveal what really goes into cultivating meaningful relationships with VIPs, it shows how purposeful and thoughtful you need to be. Thanks for sharing and see you on your email newsletter (I’ve signed up).
Great – thanks, Adam! You’re right – you do need to be purposeful and thoughtful. As they say “garbage in, garbage out.” That applies to building relationships as well. If you don’t put in any effort, you can’t expect to get anything of quality out of the relationship.
Great post John! Well laid out, with great examples each step along the way. I’ve personally never tried the cold email approach, but will give it a shot now that I have an easy to read map.
Thanks!
Steven
Thanks, Steven! Definitely give it a shot… glad you liked the post.
This was actually interesting as, good on you John!
Thanks for this. This blog post serves as a checklist I use before sending a cold email, and it inspired me to reach out even more.
Great – thanks, Agon. Go make some good friends. : )
Hi John,
Great post. Few of the points like ‘not talking about your intention quickly’ and ‘catching the connections before jumping to request something’ to busy entrepreneurs are really cool suggestions for bloggers!
Hey Hassaan – yes, I think a lot of this advice can apply to bloggers well (non-bloggers too).
John, what I always appreciated about your emails is that you make your request clear.
I can’t stand when people write 40 paragraphs or text because they’re too embarrassed or lazy to just say “could you intro me to…”
Awesome – thanks, papa. Hope you’re getting some sleep now. : )
Awesome post, John!
Thanks, Dean!
I am constantly anxious about my email being ignored or thrown up in trash. My take away is undoubtedly greesing the wheel ahead of time. Good one !!!
I sent Noah a cold email a few weeks ago – finger trembling as it hit the send button (I know how quick to judge email he is). Where were you then John??? hah.
Your advice has really helped me build my own network John, and I’m stoked to have some email tools to add to my arsenal now. Thanks!
Deacon – you should invite Noah on your new podcast when he had something new to promote, like KingSumo.
I love all the principles here, and think they’re definitely stuff that can benefit anyone that’s doing cold (or lukewarm) outreach. It’s a good story, too… but I also wonder whether some of the success John had here (or with Noah’s beef jerky company) benefits from the advantage you guys have in already being well known. I know it’s kind of a chicken and egg thing: you’re influencers because you do some things very well, put yourselves out there, are taco aficionados, gentlemen, scholars, etc. But–totally out of curiosity–I’d be curious to see how things went if you took tried some of these things anonymously.
I propose a “make friends in high places” challenge where you choose one of the hapless marketers who solicits you, and help them do things right. I’d say invent a new persona and do it from scratch yourself, but it’d be kind of disingenuous when you reveal yourself down the road. Helping someone makes it feel less catfishy.
Either way, keep the good stuff coming!
Hey Elliott: if you’re referring to ME being well known, well, I’m flattered, but I don’t think I’m all that well known and also I don’t think Noah had any clue who I was when I originally emailed him – or at least, beyond the Art of Manliness post and Forbes pieces where I’d mentioned him.
I think your challenge is a great idea though, and I can tell you that absolutely you could use these strategies with someone who was a total unknown and they would work, as long as they are sincere and honest, because I’ve been that unknown before and have used these techniques over and over again to build connections. Noah too – not that long ago he was a “total unknown” and even once you start making a name for yourself, there’s always a level above you that you may want to break into and it can be a challenge to break through that level.
So I hope you’ll use these ideas as well!
I definitely will, but I might have to quibble with your ideas about taquerias. Papalote’s always worthwhile for the salsa. Been a long time since I’ve been to Gordo, but I don’t recall it being all that. Might have to give it another shot…
Yeah, Gordo is not my favorite but I like their Spanish rice which is a “must” for me in my burritos. My favorite burrito place of all time is Freebirds in Santa Barbara (now with a number of locations around the country). My local place in Marin is Taqueria San Jose which is a hole in the wall that is literally underneath the freeway.
Great post John! Valuable tips I will surely use. I missed the name of the spot where I could get a great burrito in San Francisco. We are vacationing in CA right now and lunch is in 2 hours (;
I’m not John, but I’d recommend: El Farolito (several locations) if you want a super decadent, grease running down your arm burrito; Taqueria Cancun (also several locations) if you want fresher flavors; La Taqueria on 16th is another perennial favorite.
I’d recommend Papalote or Gordo Taqueria : )
Very useful tips! I definitely learned a lot. That last sentence killed me ‘The Biebs will be waiting’
He is. He’s waiting for you, Gabby. : )
Great stuff John! One of the best posts I’ve read on the subject of cold emailing. I’ve been using many of these techniques over the last year and they flat out WORK. It’s amazing how many people miss these things — especially the KEEPING IT SHORT part haha. BTW I clipped this to my Evernote (That’s a huge honor in case you were wondering 😉 )
Nice! I’m honored to be in your Evernote. : )
Great post John! Great reminder that the only limit is the one younger yourself.
*set (thank you iphone autocorrect!!!)
Hey John,
Great post. This post contains more useful info that I want. Thank you for sharing this great article buddy… 🙂
Thanks, Nikhil! Glad you liked it.
This was great John, I definitely chuckled a few times. I like the “make it fun” aspect because so many people play it too safe (read: boring). But playing it safe is risky because if it looks like all the hundreds of other cookie cutter emails, then it will likely be sent to the trash bin. Not saying you should go overboard, or course.
Glad you liked it, Ryan! Playing it too safe is a great way to sleepwalk through life, isn’t it?
thnx for this great stuff! stay wild dudes.
Thanks John for this great post. I am in the process of reaching out to other blogs and these tips will come in handy. I specially liked the part of adding humor to the email. It does demonstrate a fun personality.
Thank you Noah, I promise to try these tips on you again soon. For what it’s worth, they did work for me when mailing others 🙂
When all else fails with Noah, try tacos.
Hey, good post! Read it all at once, for some reason – usually I don’t have the time, but, Noah gave such a good intro (through email) and you John took it further very nicely.
Interesting and educating.
I like your attitude – both of you – thanks (:
Thanks, Noah! Honored to be featured here.
Wow Nice one John!
Hey John, as it seems you deserve it!
What an arcticle. You know when something works, when you are reading and none of the things seems like rocket science but something that makes all the sense in the world.
Thanks.
Jorge