Cold outreach ·Agency ·Spartan
Get a reply, not a meeting. The meeting is the second email.
Write a cold email from [WHO YOU ARE] to [WHO THEY ARE]. They have never heard of me. Plain text only — no formatting, no bullet lists, no HTML.
The email is built on one thing: [THE OBSERVATION]. Everything else exists to hold it up.
The single action this email drives: [THE ASK].
Rules:
- 90 to 130 words. Four short paragraphs at most. No paragraph longer than two sentences.
- Open on the observation. Not on my name, not on my company, not on how I found them.
- Say who I am in one clause, buried mid-email where it belongs. Nobody opens a cold email to learn about the sender.
- Make the ask small enough to answer in one line. Ask for a reply, not for thirty minutes. Do not include a booking link.
- No compliments that could be pasted into any other email. If the praise would fit a hundred businesses, cut it.
- No questions that answer themselves. Skip "are you looking to grow" and anything shaped like it.
- Never invent a number, statistic, result or client name. If a figure would help, leave [XX] and I will fill it in or cut it.
- No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case. Write a subject line of five words or fewer that reads like a human wrote it to one person.
Return the subject line, then the body, then a sign-off.
Follow-up ·Agency ·Professional
Get agreement on the record and the next step owned by someone.
Write a plain-text follow-up after a meeting with [WHO WAS THERE], covering [WHAT WAS AGREED]. Words only — no HTML, no layout notes.
This email becomes the record. Write it so that if someone reads it in six weeks, they know what was decided.
Rules:
- 90 to 130 words.
- Open with one sentence naming what was agreed at the highest level. Not "thanks for your time" — that can go at the end in four words or not at all.
- Then [WHO DOES WHAT], as a short list. Each line is an action, an owner and a date. Put my own actions first; leading with theirs reads as an invoice.
- Include [THE OPEN QUESTION] explicitly, with who is expected to resolve it. Unwritten open questions are the ones that surface as a disagreement two months later.
- Do not summarise the discussion. Nobody rereads a recap of a conversation they were in.
- Do not pitch, do not attach a proposal unless one was asked for, and do not suggest a next meeting unless one was agreed.
- Never invent a number, date, figure or commitment that was not in my notes. If something is unclear, write it as an open question rather than resolving it in the email.
- No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case.
Write a subject line under 45 characters naming the project. Return subject, body, sign-off.
Re-engagement ·Agency ·Professional
Restart the conversation. The work, if any, is two emails away.
Write a plain-text email to [CLIENT], a past client we have not worked with in [HOW LONG]. Words only — no HTML, no layout notes.
I am writing because of [THE PROMPT], not because the pipeline is thin.
Rules:
- 90 to 130 words. Three short paragraphs.
- Open on [THE PROMPT]. A reason to write that is external to my needing work is the only thing that separates this from a pipeline email, and clients can tell instantly.
- Reference the work we did in half a sentence, specifically enough that it is clearly them and not a template.
- Do not ask how they have been. Do not say "I hope this finds you well". Do not say "I was just thinking about you", which is almost always untrue.
- No proposal, no availability, no attachment, no rate card. If they want to work together they will say so, and if they do not, mentioning it makes the email awkward to answer.
- End with a question they can answer in one line, about their work rather than about a project.
- Never invent a number, statistic or result from the previous engagement. Where a figure belongs and I have not supplied it, leave [XX].
- No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case.
Write a subject line of five words or fewer that references the prompt, not the relationship. Return subject, body, sign-off.
Review request ·Agency ·Professional
Get three usable sentences without making the client write an essay.
Write a plain-text testimonial request from [SENDER] to [CLIENT], whose project is finished. Words only — no HTML, no layout notes.
Rules:
- 100 to 140 words.
- Do not ask for a testimonial. Ask three specific questions and say you will assemble their answers into something they can approve. A blank-page request is why most of these go unanswered — the client wants to help and does not want to write copy.
- The three questions should cover the situation before, what changed, and what they would say to someone considering it. Adapt the wording to [THE RESULT], and keep each answerable in a sentence or two.
- Say [WHERE IT GOES] plainly, and ask explicitly whether their name and company can appear. Consent asked afterwards is consent asked too late.
- Offer to draft it from their answers and send it back for approval or editing. That single offer is what moves the response rate.
- Do not suggest what the answers should be, and do not attach an example testimonial for them to copy. What comes back will be your own words in their mouth, and it will read that way.
- Never invent a number, statistic, result or quote. If [THE RESULT] needs a figure I have not supplied, leave a bracketed placeholder.
- No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case.
Write a subject line under 45 characters. Return subject, body, sign-off.
Cold outreach ·Agency ·Spartan
Get a reply either way. A no closes the loop and frees the slot.
Write a second cold email to [WHO THEY ARE]. The first one, about [THE ORIGINAL POINT], got no reply. Plain text only.
This email is allowed to exist because of [THE NEW THING]. Without that it is a nudge, and nudges do not deserve inbox space.
Rules:
- 60 to 90 words. Shorter than the first email. Always shorter.
- Never write "just following up", "bumping this", "did you see my last email", or "circling back". Every one of those says the email has nothing new in it.
- Lead with [THE NEW THING]. Reference the original point in half a sentence at most, as context rather than as a recap.
- Close by making a no easy and specific. Something like "if this is not a thing you are thinking about, say so and I will leave it" — one line, no self-deprecation, no apology for emailing.
- Do not add a second ask, a calendar link or an attachment.
- Never invent a number, statistic, result or client name. Where a figure belongs and I have not supplied it, leave [XX].
- No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case.
Write a subject line of four words or fewer. Do not reuse the first email's subject and do not prefix it with "Re:". Return subject, body, sign-off.