Cold Email Response Template

“How do I respond when a prospect that matches our ideal customer profile responds to my cold email that they aren’t interested?”

Sending cold emails is part of today’s inside sales environment. IMHO, most do it wrong, and even I have looked back at an email or two that I’ve sent and said, “What was I thinking.” But, as in all things, you need to crack a few eggs if you want to make an omelet. Besides, making sales mistakes is often the best way to learn what works.

Let’s start by confirming your original cold email is packed with intrigue and helpfulness.

Here’s an occasional email template that I will send when pulling a lead list that matches my ICP, and I want to get on their radar.

Cold Email Example

Subject: Getting decision-makers on the phone

Name:

Sales teams that grapple with getting decision-makers on the phone use our online training course to fix their opening value statements.

A client of ours set 25% more appointments within the first 30-days of starting our program.

Here’s a link to a sample video on how to leave voicemails.

Feel free to share it with the entire group if you think it would be helpful.

Have a great day.

We can break down at another time all the ins-and-outs of whether or not this is an excellent first cold email template to send but for the sake of today’s question, let’s say we all agree that it is.

Stop/Remove/Take me off your list

So you send something similar to a highly targeted list, and you get a “stop/remove/take me off your list” response.

Here’s what to do:

1. Look that prospect up on LinkedIn and check their title. Does it match the top three titles that generally “buy” or are at least part of the “decision-making” process? If it does not, unsubscribe them and search LinkedIn for the person at their company that does match your top three titles, and then resend to that person.
2. If their title DOES match and by all accounts, there’s a strong possibility you can be a valuable resource for them; you may want to try the following email response:

Cold Email Response Template:

Name:

Happy to – just want you to know I’m not emailing you out of the blue – nor am I asking for a meeting. I’ve helped several companies in your industry get dramatic results.

In fact, when it comes to hitting or missing quota, I’ve been the difference-maker for 100’s of sales teams.

I thought it would be good to introduce you to our company by sharing a quick video that could help your sales team get more callbacks.

But if you’re still not interested in having me as a possible sales resource, just let me know, and you won’t hear from me again.

Conclusion

It is rare for me to get a second email response confirming they want to be removed. My response did its job – it caused them to pause and reconsider. FOMO is working for you.

FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)

By agreeing that you will comply with their request and adding a WHATS IN IT FOR THEM credibility statement, they analyze their knee jerk reaction (and hey, we all make that mistake from time to time), and you allow them to hit the pause button on the “unsubscribe” request.

And should they take a minute to review the free offer you sent them and they find value in it, you could be well on your way to earning their business.

“When Will This Approach Not Work?”

I’m sure there are several scenarios where this strategy would not be a good fit.

However, the only one I can think of right now is if you genuinely are spamming tons of people who have no use now or will ever have use for what you offer – and or if they are not involved in the decision-making role.

– Michael Pedone

Michael Pedone is the FOUNDER of SalesBuzz.com – An online sales training company that teaches B2B sales teams a proven step-by-step process for selling over the phone.

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