Cold e-mails I received in September

There were many bad ones but also a few good ones. Enjoy!

Being active on a few professional social media sites, (sales)people can find me easily. With a little bit effort they also find my work e-mail address. So I am neither surprised nor particularly bothered by the cold e-mails I receive from different companies, trying to sell me or my company something.

I won't go into the quality of the offered services. What I want to get into here, is how much or little effort is being put in these cold e-mails. One thing up-front: I have a lot of respect for people on the top of the funnel. I have been there myself and I am there myself again and again. Therefore I feel strongly about delivering a good, thoughtful pitch. After all: Everything is downstream from lead generation!

Sales Enablement (6/10)

I have not yet checked, but I assume this is an American company. Starting an e-mail with "first name," without any greeting is something I just do not like. Not something the sender can know but a simple "hi" or "dear" wouldn't hurt either.

The topic and his first question are relevant to me. The second sentence actually really caught my attention: He is stating the mission of my company! Excellent!

Next he's mentioning some statistics, which is fantastic since these are concrete and would deliver strong reasons to believe. However he misses out on mentioning any sources which would provide credibility.

He loses me at "cutting-edge platform" - nothing of what he describes is really cutting-edge, I have seen at least 5 other tools which can also do what he is describing. Really bad: The promise of propelling revenue growth. A bit too much for me.

The last sentence could be a game-changer, if he would mention any other medical device start-ups or companies from the same industry as references. He fails to do so unfortunately.

Nonetheless, one of the better cold e-mails in from September! I give it 6/10 on my completely subjective rating.

Recruiting (2/10)

This person greets me, definitely a plus :) The first sentence makes wonder if talent can be locked in a market?! I understand he wants to make me think about if I get the right quality of candidates for job openings though.

Everything from the second sentence onwards is not at all tailored towards me or my my company. Amazon may be a household name, but I'm not in the consumer or digital business and technology is a very broad term.

I also do not feel it is confidence-inspiring if someone asks me in September about my hiring plans for the year (you can't see it, but even the subject said "talent acquisition strategy 2023". In S E P T E M B E R.

Asset Management (4/10)

The topic is relevant to me and this person's opening question may be a bit broad, but I definitely have to think "yes!". He then goes on to share the product's description (what it does), followed by how the product does it. There is also a link to schedule a demo with him, which I find useful. Unfortunately he misses to individualize the message in any way (other than my first name), he does not mention any references and (I promise I checked twice) he does not provide any link to learn more about the product on the company's website! These shortcomings aside, it is a decent cold e-mail.

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I hope you enjoyed this selection of cold e-mails which made it to my inbox (or spam folder) in September. I'd be keen to hear about your experiences with cold e-mails!