Sure, we know that inbound leads are better. But sometimes – especially at startup stage – you just need to gain some traction. Outreach is the fastest (and often cheapest) way to get more market share... if you know how to generate results.
Plus: If you're product-led, your cold prospect can explore and purchase without needing to 1. carve out time for a demo; 2. trust that the demo will be instructive, not sales-y; and/or 3. emotionally commit to a solution they're not sure they need. Knock out those 3 friction points and your "ask" is so much easier to consider... and say yes to.
In this lesson, you'll learn:
Nikki Elbaz:
Hello and welcome to Yes, cold emails still work at scale. I am Nikki Elbaz, and I have written successful cold outreach emails at scale for brands like Sprout Social, and I have consulted with dozens of startup founders on their outreach efforts. But that is not why I think that you should listen to me. I think that I have a very unique perspective on outreach. So if you've been trying typical outreach methods and you're not seeing success, I think you will find this way very intriguing.
Nikki Elbaz:
I am not an outreach specialist. I am first and foremost, an email specialist. I plot and write emails for brands like Prezi and Doodle and Shopify Plus. I'm first and foremost, an email marketer, and that directly informs the way I work with outreach at scale.
Nikki Elbaz:
See, the cool thing is that email marketing is always at scale. Anytime you opt in for a list, anytime you send emails to your list, it's always at scale. So outreach at scale is actually closer to your typical email marketing best practices than it is to your typical outreach best practices. Outreach best practices, the things you see all over again and again, blog posts you read, our specialists that you talk to, the practices that they're telling you to do work really, really well one-to-one. But when they're applied at scale, that's when you should be using best practices that are typically successful at scale.
Nikki Elbaz:
So let's take a look at your typical outreach sequence. Okay? We have reach out number one. It's an intro. How can I help? And then there's that second reach out. It's usually through a different channel, like LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever. And it's again, it's that intro plus how can I help? Then ... Oh, I forgot to move me. We have a follow up. Did you see my message? And a reminder of here's how I can help. Then we got another follow up that is again, a reminder of how I can help. And then finally a follow up that is, are you interested, kind of like a last chance thing kind of is this something that you're interested in because I'm going to stop contacting you about it? That's your typical cold outreach sequence that you will see people talking about seeing success with. Right?
Nikki Elbaz:
And that is a more typical style of cadence that you would be doing one-to-one. Let's say you are emailing your friend. And you're saying like, "Hey, I think we should go out on Sunday." Okay, not right now. "I think we should do a virtual Zoom on Sunday." And then, they don't answer you. So you send them a text. You do a different channel. Then you do a follow up. "Did you see my message?" Then you do another follow up. "Hello. Zooming is really fun. We should do a Zoom on Sunday." And then finally, that final, like, "It's Saturday. Are we doing this on Sunday?" That's a much more typical one-to-one style cadence.
Nikki Elbaz:
But that's not at all how standard email sequences work. If you look at a welcome flow, if you look at an abandoned cart flow, if you look at onboarding flows, if you look activation flows, canceling, any flow is going to have a totally different style than this kind of repetitive sort of introductory and then like reminder type sequence. That's not at all how standard automation email sequences work. So when you're working at scale, when you're sending cold email at scale, you need to do things differently than the way typical outreach, which is usually one-to-one, works. Okay? Cool.
Nikki Elbaz:
So basically what I want you to do is I want you to treat your emails, your cold emails, like any other cold email sequence. Just treat them like a cold email sequence because that's what they are. If you are doing, if you are sending cold emails at scale, you need to first set them up like they are a cold email sequence ... a typical regular email sequence. It's kind of distracting to move yourself around a lot.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. So what are some best practices for email at scale? When you send emails, when you send automation segment like flows, anything, what are some best practices? So number one, you need to map out the journey. You are taking account your customer journey, and you're trying to move them from one place to another place. You also want to include persuasion triggers. You're not just telling them about something. You're trying to convince them and move them towards action. And finally, you also want to follow the rule of one, which is a copywriting tactic. So let's dig into each of these best practices.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. So, what we have here ... Uh-oh, where am I supposed to put myself? What we have here is a map of your stages of awareness at the top. That's what these circles are. And then we have an arrow going from low sophistication and intent to high sophistication and intent. This is your typical customer journey. People move from unaware to pain aware to solution aware to product aware to most aware at the same time as they're moving in sophistication and intent along that spectrum as well.
Nikki Elbaz:
So basically anytime you send an email, anytime you set up an email flow, you want to take into account where are they on the spectrum. If you're not familiar with stages of awareness, google stages of awareness, Eugene Schwartz. It's a really powerful way of looking at what each email that you're sending is supposed to accomplish. The whole point of stages of awareness and low sophistication and high intent and all this kind of stuff is to understand where your prospect is and how to move them along until they feel comfortable enough to buy. People don't just buy when they're in pain. They buy when they know that there's a solution to their pain, when they know that your product is an amazing solution to their pain, and when they know it's really the best solution to their pain.
Nikki Elbaz:
So every email that you send out is supposed to move them from along the spectrum of the stages of awareness and along the spectrum of low sophistication and intent to high sophistication and intent. So that's what you first have to set up before you even get into anything of what you're trying to say. Anything like that, you need to identify, do your customer research, identify where your people are sitting. Are they pain aware? Are they solution aware? Are they product aware? Where are they sitting and where do you have to move them to get them to say yes to you?
Nikki Elbaz:
Another reason that one-to-one style emails, like typical outreach sequences work is because you will target the people that are very intensely pain aware, or maybe even most aware. And it's so much easier to sell people that are in intense pain or are already most aware. They don't need a lot of education. They don't need a lot of persuasion. So the style of email that you'll write, the information that you'll including your emails, it's going to be very different depending on where they are in their customer journey.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. Let's move on to persuasion triggers. So when you are writing your emails, you need to make sure that you're not just giving them information. "Hi, I am the founder of X company. We do X. Do you want to hop on a call with me?" You want to make sure that you are moving them towards action. And you do this with all sorts of persuasion triggers, use social proof, use urgency, use likeability, loss aversion, anchoring, future pacing, voice of customer, the list goes on and on and on. There are so many triggers that you can include. And they really help move the prospect along those stages of awareness that we just mentioned previously.
Nikki Elbaz:
And finally, you need to follow the rule of one. Basically the rule of one is actually a whole bunch of rules. You want to write to one reader. You want to have one goal for each email. You want to promise one thing in each email. But the one that I want you to focus on, that's really important for cold outreach is one idea, because we're educating for intent and for sophistication and for awareness. You need to break down the ideas that you are selling. So if your product is fast and easy and cheaper, then putting that all, shoving that all into one email is so much less effective than breaking it down into fewer emails, into separate, distinct emails. One idea from one email, and that helps each email, moves them along that journey of intent and sophistication and awareness.
Nikki Elbaz:
So really important, is not just to give an overview of what you do, and then a reminder and then a reminder and then a reminder, but instead to break down and for each email to have a different idea in it, to sell them on whatever it is that you are selling.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. So once you do those three things, once you set up your email sequence like a typical email sequence, you map out where your customer is sitting, what persuasion and triggers you need, the ideas you're going to put into each email, then, only then can you consider that is a cold sequence, because it is different than when they opt in, right? There is still this element of they're not asking you for this information. They're not asking you to solve their problems, right? So there is this element that you do need to consider. And because of that, we need to put in, layer in some best practices for cold emails.
Nikki Elbaz:
So number one, pattern interrupts are really important. Trust is going to be your biggest friction point. You should know that you need to really, really play up the trust factor majorly with cold sequences. And finally, you need to make the ask super easy, because they're not asking for your help, right? So they need to know that it's going to be easy for them to trust you, try you, and potentially solve this problem. So let's dig into each of these.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. So pattern interrupts are really important. Again, they're not asking for your help. They're not expecting you. They're not looking for you. They're not looking forward to you. So you need to capture attention, right? And this is where you'll see all these click me subject lines, which open rates are important. You need to get people to open in order to get people to read your emails. But essentially it is a vanity metric. And what we were talking about before about trust, you don't want to be using clickbait because that distracts from the trust. I'm getting way ahead of my bullet points.
Nikki Elbaz:
Subject lines, likeability. Whoops. We didn't talk about this yet. I'm out of order. Okay. Basically pattern interrupts are important. So you want to make sure that your subject lines are interesting and compelling and engaging and curiosity driving. Like what is this? Should I open it? What's inside? I want to see this. You want to test incentives because people like incentives. So that's always an option as well. And you want to use likeability and creativity, and just bump up the likeability factor so that people feel comfortable and excited to open emails from you. Same thing, creativity. You should be pushing these levers hard so that people pay attention.
Nikki Elbaz:
Now, we're going to talk about trust. When you see people talking about clickbait subject lines and their open rates for cold email, that's a vanity metric. Trust is really, really important. So you want to make sure that, yes, you are being creative with your subject lines, you're being interesting with your subject lines, but you're not distracting from the actual point of what you're trying to do to help this prospect.
Nikki Elbaz:
So using videos is a great way to get trust. It's person to person. You're seeing them. Don't have blue fingers when you are using video, but it just breaks down the barrier. It creates that human connection. You want you to try A/B testing and incentives. Sometimes incentives actually detract from the trust because it feels a little bit like desperate. And sometimes it creates great trust because it just makes it no risk. It's like, "Yeah, sure." Like, "You're willing to put your skin in the game and give me this incentive." Like, "Okay, I'll go with it and try this."
Nikki Elbaz:
And then what we were talking about twice, you don't want to use clickbait. You want to make sure that you can use creativity, but you want to make sure that you are still keeping the trust, building the trust, and letting the person say yes to this semi risky thing of a stranger, getting in touch and asking them for their time and energy and money.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. Finally, you want to make the ask easy. So ProductLed actually makes this easy, right? If you have a free trial, that's a lot easier for someone to say, "Hey, I have this cool product. I think it's going to be awesome for you. Check out the free trial." All that cost them is a few minutes and an email address. I mean, it's more than that, right? You're not just going to get that off the bat. It is also their time and energy trying out a new solution. So obviously there is an ask around a free trial, but it's a lot easier than hopping on a demo where they might be sold to, where they might be kept on for 20 minutes, three hours, who knows. It's a lot harder to carve out time in your calendar than it is to check out a free trial. And finally, again, a test using incentives. That also makes the ask really easy. It lowers the risk for them. So that's another option. Cool?
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. So basically we have this formula. We have, you want to create this regular email sequence using all the different things that I told you typically go into a regular email flow. But then you want to layer on the cold levers, and that's how you get an effective cold email campaign at scale. Cool? Okay.
Nikki Elbaz:
Let's see what that looks like in action in real life, because it's just easier to see things in real life, right? Like examples. Yay. Awesome. Okay. So let's get into it. So this is a sequence that I wrote for lemon.io. They are a matchmaking service for devs, engineers, CTOs for startups. This is the outreach sequence that we wrote for them. Now, a disclaimer. It actually wasn't successful. It needed iteration. And eventually they just actually ended up just doing one-to-one outreach instead of iterating on this sequence. However, it is a great teaching sequence because it was all research-based and it had all the levers at play.
Nikki Elbaz:
The point being that you should not disregard the sequence and say like, "Forget it." What are you trying to teach me? This is obviously not like proven or effective or anything like that. But cold email at scale takes testing. You start at one point. You use your research. You make your hypothesis. You set up your sequence. And it's going to need some iteration. There's just a lot of moving parts with cold email, especially at scale. So part of your strategy should be that you will be iterating and testing different things. Cool? Okay. Let's get into it.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. So using research, we identified that the proper prospect for lemon.io was solution aware. They knew about Upwork. They knew about Fiverr. They weren't happy with the work in Fiverr because it created so much work and stress. Am I hiring the right person? How can I find the right person? And they also knew about Toptal, which has great vetted devs, but was very, very expensive. So they were kind of hovering in between the solutions, still kind of feeling some pain because they're just not sure, like, should they be spending the money, should they be spending the time? No solution was a good solution, right?
Nikki Elbaz:
They were solution aware. We need to tell them about Lemon to get them product aware to know that there's this great service that is not too expensive for you, not untrustworthy like the huge marketplaces that you don't know about, and then to get them to most aware to say yes. So we mapped out this journey and we were ready to start. Right.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. So email number one, we saw that they were solution aware and low sophistication and intent, right? We had to move them from low sophistication to high sophistication. They knew ... I guess they weren't really low truthfully. They were like middle because they knew about Toptal and they knew about the industry. They didn't know about ... Yeah, so they were solution aware, but mid sophistication.
Nikki Elbaz:
So the idea of this email needed to be this differentiation, like how is Lemon different than Toptal and Fiverr and Upwork? And the cold levers that we wanted to pull in, pattern interrupt and trust. Okay, for the first email, it's really important that you get that pattern interrupt and it's really important that you get that trust.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay, so let's start reading the emails. Okay. Subject line A, subject line B. So always test your subject lines with cold email. It's just a good way to get more data and to understand what your audience wants.
Nikki Elbaz:
Subject line A: I set your fee for $82 an hour. Subject line B: Your new Upwork profile. Wes: I made an Upwork profile for you. I set you up as a WordPress dev, but I also gave you some other languages like Ruby on Rails and Python, because you can charge more for those. I set your fee for $82 an hour. That way you can find a fresh coding bootcamp grad, offload the work, and make a cool $70 an hour. Kidding Wes, and sorry for the wha thoughts. I didn't really make you a profile, but I could have. Anyone can. Anyone can list whatever type of programming that sells, take in hard earned startup money, and outsource it anywhere they want. And if the quality of the code isn't stellar, whatever happens happens.
Nikki Elbaz:
Hi, by the way. I'm Aleksandr, CEO of Lemon and sender of risky cold emails. Don't hate. That semi-evil exercise above is exactly what I created Lemon to do away with. Instead of wasting time sifting through the jungle of freelancer sites, with a bunch of unknown developers on them, you can use Lemon to get personally matched with the startup savvy, part-time or full-time engineers you need to launch your MVP or iterate on it.
Nikki Elbaz:
We've provided devs for 500 plus US-based startups who trust our devs' skill, communicability, and speed. Only 400 applicants have passed our four-level vetting process. Love our startup-friendly rates, which are 41% cheaper than Toptal, ranging from $35 to $65 an hour thanks to our low overhead costs.
Nikki Elbaz:
Get a miraculous match engineer within 24 hours guaranteed. Don't pay a cent until it's time to start working with talent. How's three o'clock on Wednesday or two o'clock on Thursday? Again, these times don't make sense. For a nine-minute call where you tell me about your coding needs. Let's get ProductLed Academy its next perfect dev too. Just hit reply and we'll set a time.
Nikki Elbaz:
I've worked with hundreds of developers across many stages and sizes of companies from startup to Fortune 500. Lemon provides reliable developers across any stage, able to do the work in a timely fashion that is up to quality.
Nikki Elbaz:
P.S., we run applicants through a four-level vetting process that tests their reputation, coding abilities, English level communication skills, and hustle. And then we personally meet every dev who survives in real life.
Nikki Elbaz:
This was pre COVID.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. Well, let's dig into what is going on here in this email. So broken up into different pieces. The first section, this I made you an Upwork profile. That is like what? You did what? So that is obviously the pattern interrupt. And it is a tiny bit risky in terms of like, can I trust you? Who are you? Why are you doing this obnoxious thing to me, setting up an Upwork profile without my permission?
Nikki Elbaz:
But we throw in likability with number two. We tell them we're kidding. We apologize. So we are kind of saving that risk over there, right? And then we tie that into their pain, right? We are being trustworthy and not making Upwork profiles. But you don't know about all the other people in the world, all the other people that are taking advantage of all these startups and taking that hard earned startup money and just outsourcing it anywhere they want. You can't trust the people at Upwork and this really nicely illustrates that idea.
Nikki Elbaz:
Then we get into some more trusted likeability. We say sender of risky cold emails. We call out the fact that it's a little bit risky. We call it semi-evil, just to kind of ramp up that likeability.
Nikki Elbaz:
And then we dig into the solution, right? We give some bandwagon with the 500 plus, and we talk about how it's no risk. With the 24 hours guarantee, don't pay a cent. So just moving them in terms of awareness and just educating them on what it is that Lemon offers.
Nikki Elbaz:
And finally, it's an easy ask. So obviously you're going to get an easier ask with a free trial. In this case, they don't have that sort of model. Like they need to talk to you to know what you need, but it's a nine minute call and it tells them, "We're not going to be selling you." It's like, "Well, you tell me about your coding needs." That's it, right? And there's that whole don't pay a cent until it's time to start working. There's no risk. So that again makes it an easy ask.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. After this email ... Oh. Nevermind. We also have seven-ish trust with this new social proof idea. And eight is the solution. Just again, giving them a little more education on what it is that Lemon does.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. After they've received that email, they have moved from pain aware to product aware. Sorry, solution aware to product aware, right? So they knew about these other solutions. Now they know about Lemon. And they've also moved in terms of sophistication and intent a little bit higher as well.
Nikki Elbaz:
So the idea that we have to put here now is that it's no risk, right? So we are moving them from product aware to most aware and from mid intent to high intent, by telling them there is no risk.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. If we could just afford a Toptal dev or you get what you pay for, right? If you find yourself on Toptal's site every other day, cursor hovering over that big, green, expensive hire top talent button, you get what you pay for battling it out with, "We just can't afford it" in your head. I want to make you a $100 offer. Get on a call with me. See for yourself the top tier pre-vetted and 41% cheaper than Toptal engineer that I want to match you with. Then get on an interview with him or her. And if you still think Toptal is better devs, I'll give you $100 to spend there.
Nikki Elbaz:
Toptal feel safer. I get it. You've heard lots about them. Even if they're not perfect, well, better the devil you know, no? No. I guarantee that Lemon devs are better. Yes, we put them through a four-level ringer just like Toptal does. But we also meet every last one of them personally. So I know they have the communication skills, the coding abilities, and the startup savviness your project needs.
Nikki Elbaz:
Whoops. You don't have to believe me Wes. You can see for yourself at no risk. And if you disagree, you'll have an extra $100, enough for an entire hour at Toptal or three hours with Lemon. Let's talk at two o'clock. That work for you?
Nikki Elbaz:
I found a very good candidate with Lemon. The other candidates from Toptal or Upwork were decent, but not as good as Dimitri who had really pragmatic advice as how to set things up in the beginning. And that was really comforting to have someone come back and say, "If you want to do it this way, it will be more robust. If you want it this way, it will be less. If you give me expectations, I can also give you a better understanding of what you should go with."
Nikki Elbaz:
So let's break this down. Okay. So first we opened up the pain, right? They really, really, really want to hire Toptal devs. Like they're in the throes of this indecision. Should they spend more and deal with less headaches or not? They're like struggling, right? And then there's this no risk, right? Like if it doesn't work, I give you $100 to use there, right? Like win-win. Then we have this likeability and trust where it's language like feel safer, I get it. You know? And then again, like telling them about how they are trustworthy. We meet every one of them personally. Again, we talked about the no risk and the trust and finally the social proof and the trust.
Nikki Elbaz:
So at this point, they're actually still in the same place because either they responded to that email. They are sold. They're done. But if they haven't, then they're still in the same place because they have this huge objection that has not been answered yet. So now it's time to meet that objection and to talk them through it. It's really powerful when you talk people through objections. They feel trusted. They feel understood. And they're more willing to trust you and work with you.
Nikki Elbaz:
So time to meet the objection. If your devs really are Toptal quality, why are they 41% cheaper? We are not beating around the bush here. We are asking the question because that's what's going to get their attention. Too good to be true? What you're thinking. There's an elephant in the room Wes. If Lemon engineers really are Toptal quality, why are they 41% cheaper? Bye-bye elephant.
Nikki Elbaz:
Here are the two reasons Lemon devs are so cheap. When you hire through Toptal, you're funding a mega corp with 500 plus employees. When you hire through Lemon, a crazy 80% go straight to your developer with only 20% set aside for overhead costs.
Nikki Elbaz:
Number two, Lemon engineers are all based in Eastern Europe, which has a 40.5 lower cost of living than the United States. Your lower hourly rates still pays your devs handsomely. I know what you're thinking. And it's another elephant. Offshore devs? That's way too risky. But here's the thing. US-based devs are more familiar to you, but that familiarity comes at a premium. A stranger based in Wisconsin costs you 41% more than a stranger based in Croatia. They're both developers. They're both vetted. They both come with guarantees, but one costs you more. As if feet on North American soil magically bestows the dev with the competence, responsibility, and communication you need. Also FYI, most Toptal devs aren't US-based. And if you want to get in the local talent bidding wars, well, yikes.
Nikki Elbaz:
Meanwhile, every last Lemon engineer has been through a four-level testing ringer, one that only 400 applicants have passed to date so you know your match has the hard and soft skills you need. Lemon devs have the talent, the communication skills, the work ethic, the trustworthiness, and they've got startup hustle. Take a peak at one of our 400 vetted devs.
Nikki Elbaz:
Anatolly, software dev, experience 15 years, skills ...
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. That was me totally showing off. Anatolly is a bit of a genius and he's great for super complicated projects. Here's another favorite dev who does stellar work for more typical projects. Roman, full stack dev, experience eight years.
Nikki Elbaz:
That's just two profiles from 400 pre-vetted, full stack front-end, back-end, WordPress, JavaScript, Drupal, HubSpot, systems, Flutter, HTML5 developers, all available for full-time or part-time work from $35 to $65 an hour with a friendly project manager to oversee it all. And if you got a project on the horizon right now, we'll find the perfect candidate within 24 hours guaranteed because hiring a dev needs to move as fast as shipping that code. But first, let's talk about what makes up your perfect candidate. How's three o'clock on Wednesday for a quick nine minute chat?
Nikki Elbaz:
We have tried them all from Upwork to Toptal and Lemon is by far the most balanced offering available. The developers are very well versed in different frameworks, very good with communication at a very competitive rate. P.S., Don't forget, if you don't like the Lemon dev that you interview, we'll give you $100 to use towards a Toptal dev, so either find a Lemon dev you love or you get a free hour from your Toptal pick.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. So what are we doing here in the beginning? We are meeting that objection, which creates really amazing trust. When we talk like with the whole, it's another elephant, and that's way too risky using their language, that creates likeability and trust. Then we get into their pain. Like, yes, you have this objection, but it's costing you. It's really hard to work through this objection. Here we have this solution that can solve things instead.
Nikki Elbaz:
So we get into the trust and the solution. We show some proof. We have that likeability again of the showing off. And we have some more proof and the solution again. And finally again, solution, the risk 24 hours guaranteed. We have that easy ask, a nine minute ask, social proof and trust with the testimonial. And again, no risk, $100. All it's cost you nine minute chat costs you $100. Or not cost you. Gives you $100. Right? So that is that.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. Next email. So at this point, they are most aware, they have high intent or they're not interested at all, which obviously we're just not going to talk to those people. But the problem is, is that one really important thing to know with any kind of marketing is that the most nos that you will get from your prospects are actually not nos at all. They're just people that never make the move. Inaction is the highest, the conversion killer. It just is.
Nikki Elbaz:
So what you need to do when they're at this point, when you've walked them through all the different stages of awareness, but they still aren't making the move, you need to future pace that and show them how beautiful their life will be if they just make this move. You're trying to get them to move and get this to happen. So the idea of this email is telling them how fast this is and showing them what their life can look like in just a few hours if they say yes to this.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay, delete that hire dev Trello cart. Before you run to CrossFit. That dev hire you've been procrastinating? I can find him or her for you today. Hit reply to this email now with a prove it. Then after you've done your morning stuff, workout, shower, coffee, et cetera, let's hop on a quick call to knock through your must-have list. And tomorrow morning, a miraculous match resume will hit your inbox, ready for scanning while you sip your morning pour-over.
Nikki Elbaz:
It gets better. After you hop on an interview with your perfect dev and hit go, she can log into GitHub this Wednesday. So that overstuffed launch schedule that's been weighing down your Trello board? You can offload half of it before the week is up. We were able to launch our product ahead of schedule thanks to our dev's work.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. So we have that pain. They've been procrastinating it. This is hard for them, right? Pattern interrupt, hit reply to this email with prove it? Like what? That's kind of interesting. And then we future pace them, and we show them how life can be better in just 48 hours. Right? It's really amazing. And finally, we have that social proof and trust.
Nikki Elbaz:
Okay. At this point they are kind of on the fence. Like they've actually ... These are the people that if they weren't sold by that last email, then we're still talking to a few people that are not at high intent yet, they're at mid intent. So we kind of have to pull a few more levers and work them through another objection that we may not be aware.
Nikki Elbaz:
So quick question or a question mark. Quick question Wes. What's stopping you from hopping on a call with me to find the perfect dev, because when other startup founders hop on a call with us, nine out of 10 look at one resume we send them, hop on an interview and then a brand new dev gets cracking on the code, all within 72 hours. And then, then those same founders say things like, "If everything goes to plan with fundraising, I will probably make my dev a full-time offer," which makes sense given that 98.6% of projects by Lemon devs are delivered on time and according to initial requirements, and 97% of our first-year clients still work with us after more than three years.
Nikki Elbaz:
But forget those other founders. What if you're different? What if you look at five resumes and you just don't like what we have to offer? Well, then, then we give you $100 to use at Toptal. Seriously, if you chat with me and get matched, interview the dev and you don't want to work with him or her, I'll send you $100 to use it with a Toptal dev you choose. So really, what's stopping you? Hit reply and let me know.
Nikki Elbaz:
I didn't interview that many devs, but the one I did, exceeded my expectation. P.S., Decided you do want to give us a spin? Just hit reply and we'll schedule a chat. And then we'll match you with your favorite dev within 24 hours.
Nikki Elbaz:
So what's going on here? First we have that likeability. Just like quick question, what's stopping you? Like very likable tone, but it's hitting those objections. I don't know what's stopping you. Could you tell me what's stopping you? But then it leads really nicely into the social proof and the future pacing. This is what happens to nine out of 10 people. This can happen to you too. Right?
Nikki Elbaz:
And then there's like this other objection, but like, what if I'm different, right? Okay. So then there's no risk, right? And then we have that easy ask. You just hit reply and the social proof from the testimonial. And then another easy ask. If you do want it, then just hit reply. We'll schedule a chat and it's going to be within 24 hours. That is a sequence.
Nikki Elbaz:
So let's recap. Excuse me. Again, when you are setting up cold emails at scale, you want it to be like any other sequence, right? You want to set it up just like any other email sequence that you are putting out.
Nikki Elbaz:
You want to map out the journey. You want to include persuasion triggers, and you want to follow the rule of one. So you're really just writing any other kind of sequence.
Nikki Elbaz:
But then, after that, then you can say, it's unlike any other sequence. It's a cold email sequence. I mean, pattern interrupts. I need to make sure that I'm meeting objections with trust and I need to make the ask super, duper easy.
Nikki Elbaz:
So I hope this was helpful. I would love to answer any questions that you have in terms of your outreach efforts, how to apply all this stuff that I taught. So #productledsummit, LinkedIn, Twitter. I would be happy to help and thank you for your time and effort and energy, and I hope your outreach efforts go super smooth.
