Virtual Selling

29Four-Step Email Prospecting Framework

Because I am a business owner and decision maker, I get blasted by prospecting emails and direct messages from every direction—on my work email, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. I receive dozens each week that are laughable—embarrassments to the salespeople who sent them and their companies.

The objective when crafting a prospecting email is to compel the reader to take action. You don't have to look far to see that “compelling” is rare when it comes to prospecting emails. The vast majority of prospecting emails are awful.

I'm baffled at how often salespeople who took the time to send an email to me did no research. Like the email I received from a rep at a large sales training company pitching me on buying sales training for my sales training company, or the rep asking for a meeting to discuss safety products for my engineering team, or the rep who wants to meet to discuss how his company can help me turn my books into training programs. Seriously, a 20-second review of my LinkedIn profile or website would have saved them the bother.

Bad emails destroy your brand equity, credibility, and image. It stuns me that so many companies allow their salespeople to disseminate this crap. Worse, the majority of sales organizations spend no time teaching their salespeople how to write effective prospecting emails. The worst emails are:

• Important-sounding pitches using incomprehensible jargon—a lot of words with no ...