5 minutes today?

I’ll admit, the subject line “5 minutes today?” worked – I opened the email.

THEN I felt annoyed that I had and here is why:
> All three sentences in the first paragraph start with I.
> To ensure that all of the sentences didn’t start with I they just took it off the last two sentences.
> “I’ve tried to reach you a couple of times unsuccessfully.” my thought EVERY time as I read this = so what? I don’t remember ever bothering to open any other emails.
> Then wants to discuss my needs without telling me what I’ll get from the conversation.
> Plus the resource is a link to a story about how awesome they are? (no I didn’t click).

Are you sending prospecting emails? Good, I think it is a great idea. I even like the “5 minutes today?” subject line. If you use it please make sure:
1. After reading the first two sentences your prospect knows what THEY will get out of those 5 minutes.
2. Make it easy to say yes to your request or click on the link you give them.
3. Any resource you give them will help them in their job (although I guess that is my definition of a resource…). You can of course give them a link to something else and call it what it is.

Of course I’d also recommend you read Kendra Lee’s book The Sales Magnet, How to get more customers without cold calling.

My last thought is – how about a well scripted short voicemail to go with that email? Oh but I’m an inside, telesales, salesperson so I always think picking up the phone is a grand idea! They might even answer *gasp* then the beginning of your well scripted short voicemail becomes your intro statement.

Wondering what it might look like?

Hi Lynn,

I’m curious if you have 5 minutes today, to see if the greater productivity and flexibility our customers gain working with us would dramatically drive down your costs too? Your business phone system needs might not seem like the most exciting topic, but in 5 minutes we can figure if there are efficiency gains that can be made to your existing system.

Don’t take two sentence my word for it, take a look at this article in _________ about one of our customers and how working together has helped them. Perhaps we can do the same for you.

Best Regards,

psst: I don’t sell & have never sold a “business phone system”all I did was use their words and move them around! Yes it could be better, but that was done in 4 minutes to prove my point.