You wrote the email in four minutes. It reads like it took forty seconds and a template. The person on the other end can tell, and they stop reading at the first line.
The good news: robot emails are not random. They use the same handful of lines, in the same order, at the same length. That makes them easy to spot and easy to fix.
The robot sound has a pattern
Read ten cold emails from your own inbox. Most of them open with a pleasantry, say something nice about your company, then ask for a call. None of it is about the reader. That is the sound.
A person writing to one person does the opposite. They start with the reason they are writing, say one specific thing, and ask for one small thing.
- I hope this finds you well
- Just circling back
- Quick question
- Let's hop on a call
Write rules, not templates
A template tells you what to say. A rule tells you what never to say. Templates make every email sound the same. Rules leave room for you.
- Open with the reason you are writing to this person.
- Say one specific thing about them. Not their company in general.
- Ask for one small thing. A reply, not a meeting.
- Keep it under 50 words.
Write your rules down once. Then check every draft against them before it goes out. It takes a minute, and it is the minute that decides whether anyone replies.
Before and after
I hope this finds you well! I came across your amazing company and would love to hop on a quick call to explore synergies.
Sara, your pricing page says you onboard by hand. I built a checklist that cut that from two days to one. Want it?
Keep the rules where you write
Rules in a doc get forgotten. The fix is to keep them next to the draft, so every email is checked the same way, every time, without you remembering to look.
That is the first thing Nive does. You save how you write once, and each draft shows which rules it followed and which it broke. You still read it and you still send it.