What Not to Do: B2B Sales Development Cold Email Review

We haven’t done one of these in a while, but like you, we’re still getting lots of cold email outreach — some that we admire, more that make us shake our heads in disbelief.

Here’s one that fell in the latter category (scroll down for our commentary):

Subject Line: What time works for you? 

Dear {{prospect}},

No one ever said managing sales teams was easy. But what if you could take {{system}} — the tool your sales people use morning, noon and night — and turn it into a powerful sales pipeline management system? My company has a solution to do just that and I won’t need more than 10 minutes to show you how it works.

We’re called {{company}}. We make {{system}} the only solution you need to track and drive sales. Benefits include:

– No costly new CRM program for sales to learn

– Finally knowing what is really going on with your pipeline

– No fighting with people to actually input data

– No duplicate entry of information by your sales people — (If it’s in {{system}}, you’ve got it.)

– No struggling with sales to get the information needed to create and recreate reports

So the question is, {{prospect}}, how much easier would it be for you to track sales if the familiarity of {{system}} actually drove your people to use it? {{system}} is already the first app sales opens and the last app they close.

In summary, we transform your {{system}} into a world-class sales tracking and reporting solution. We serve thousands of customers. I’d like to see how we might serve you. What you’ll see is how we turn what sales already does in {{system}}, into everything you need:

– Merge inbox, contacts and calendar information—with opportunities, stages, and records

– Enables your sales teams to capture data and you to analyze it all in one place

– Track emails sent, appointments scheduled, or meeting notes entered

– Provide all the reports necessary to fully track and manage sales efforts

{{prospect}}, if you have an interest in a best-of-breed sales pipeline management solution that doesn’t break the bank and that sales will actually use, let’s chat. Just give me a date and time this week, or next when you’re free for a couple minutes and I’ll set up a quick call to discuss. Talk soon.

Sincerely,
SDR

Why It’s Bad (TL:DR)

1. Guessing you probably didn’t read the whole thing. In full disclosure, we haven’t either. (Well, we read it in pieces for the purpose of this post, but not all at once.)
2. This email didn’t even make it into an inbox — it got caught in a Spam folder, for good reason. This makes it highly unlikely that your outreach will be read in a timely fashion, or ever.
3. It’s wayyy too long (again). If you find yourself making multiple lists in an already long email, stop.
4. Nothing in this email suggests that the SDR has done any homework to narrow down their target and direct their message to anyone specific — it’s a very general, robotic explanation of more information than the prospect needs to know.

Can It Be Salvaged?

Pretty easily, actually.

The intro isn’t bad — the SDR very quickly addresses a pain and then follows up with a solution. It gets a little salesy past that point, so we would cut out most of the length and save the excess info for a phone call or demo.

Here’s how we would shave it down, with minimal other edits:

Dear {{prospect}},

No one ever said managing sales teams was easy. But what if you could take {{system}} — the tool your sales people use morning, noon and night — and turn it into a powerful sales pipeline management system?

We’re called {{company}} and we make {{system}} the only solution you need to track and drive sales. Your team is already doing the work, we just make it easier to manage everything by:

– Merging inbox, contacts and calendar information with opportunities, stages, and records

– Tracking emails sent, appointments scheduled, or meeting notes entered

– Providing all the reports necessary to fully track and manage sales efforts

Would love to see how we can help you — can you let me know if you’re free for a quick chat next week?

Thanks,

SDR