PI in the Sky – Paul Irvine

We all get emails from vendors wanting to introduce themselves, understand our pain, demonstrate their value, buy lunch and be a trusted partner, but the truth is, you can never get that from an introduction email and score big. You sometimes get a bulls-eye throwing the darts blindfold, but not often!

So if you want to be certain that your ‘first contact intro’ email pitch to me just joins the mountains of stale emails that I have on the very very low “to do” list, format your emails as follows:-

In the subject line put “Re my voicemail” because that will help me quickly locate your email a few days later.

In the body text, put something like…

“Attached is the brochure I spoke about in my voicemail. Please review and let me know how we can be a fit for your organization.”

because this one line in your email gives me absolutely no clue what you or your company offers, I will be so intrigued about it that I will drop all other burning issues of the day to open up your 2MB PDF. I’ll just have to work out what you do for myself, but I will feel such a sense of accomplishment once I’ve done it, I will call and thank you.

Just to ensure I dont miss anything, sign off with a big signature block, a corporate logo and a big legal disclaimer. I might be able to construe from those bits of information what you do, and of course, if I am still puzzled you’ve thoughtfully left me enough ways to contact you that I am bound to do so.

I know. It’s almost too funny for words, and you are thinking I made this one up. Nope. I won’t reveal the source, but it’s real. The only reason I know now what he is selling is that I thought his email was so ridiculous and I’d use it as an example for this blog, so I had to open it up. the amazing thing is it could have been so easily fixed by including something as simple as…

“Hi Paul, my name is blah, and I’m the Area Pooh Bah for Foo Corp. We are the industry leaders in widgitators. Our widgets consistently outperform all others, and have unbeatable value…” [replace with your own positioning and value prop and it better be short and differentiate].

Cold calling can work. Patience and not wasting opportunities with dumb moves is essential.