I received an email the other day from a sales rep that I found so annoying that I am dedicating this entire episode to the ways you can avoid making the same mistakes with your emails. This episode will give you ideas to make sure your emails grab your prospect’s attention so that he will reply instead of deleting your email. ANNOYING EMAILS The annoying email I received began, “Hello there.” Who is ‘there’? Do they not even know my name? I’ve done 1000+ episodes.  I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and my name is easy to find. The lack of effort on the part of the sender was evident from the very start. It is almost an insult. And it didn’t improve from there as the body of the email in no way addressed my type of business or my needs. It was simply an email blast. It was, quite frankly, a waste of everyone’s time. The days of sending out crappy emails are long gone. You want your emails to encourage a reply, to start the kind of engaging conversation that will lead to a sale now, or in the future. It needs to open the door for continued discussions. [01:49] ENGAGING EMAILS Using the email I received as an example, how easy would it have been for the sales rep to look me up on LinkedIn, or on my website? Or why not call and try to find out the best point of contact for the email?   Furthermore, nothing about the email had anything to do with sales. At all. It was a vague and generic email that didn’t even refer to me as a person. There was no personal connection, so why would I want to continue that conversation?   Here’s what I recommend instead: Make sure the subject line is catchy. It is the first thing they will read and frankly, it might be the last thing they bother to read, so make it good. “Donald, I saw this on your website and thought it might help” is a fine example. They know my name, they know I have a website, they looked at my website … I am going to open that email. [05:11] Next, begin your email by immediately referencing the thought contained in the subject line. Don’t tell them your name, or your company name because they don’t need it right now. It can all be found later in the signature block at the end. Don’t even worry about saying hello – just dive into the issue. BE DIRECT “Donald, I noticed on your sales page that it wasn’t loading properly at the end. This could be caused by X or Y. I would love to talk with you about how we’ve helped other podcasters fix it….” That difference makes all the difference! It is simple and easy to read. It provides insight and ideas, informs me of a potential problem and offers a clear step to solve it. Instead of the overused and generic “We can help you save money/get more leads,” the email is specific and offers value to the targeted business. [06:41] Another example of a good email: “I notice you have regular postings for new sales reps and we recently conducted a study with software companies like yours and found three critical reasons that prevent sales reps from succeeding… bullet point 1, 2, 3… Would you care to take a look at the full report?” [07:40] The goal of that email is to grab the reader’s attention, to focus on their problem of high turnover and to speak specifically to that need. Now compare that email to one that simply reads “Hey, are you hiring? Check out our new program.” One email is clearly tailored to the reader and provides relative and pertinent information, while the other certainly does not. FOCUS ON IDEAL CLIENTS To be able to personalize your emails, I recommend the age-old principle of creating a list of 50 or 100 dream clients to focus on for a week or two at a time depending on your cadence process. That focus will allow you the time to do a little research, to learn about their specific industry and to understand typical problems they might have. [09:13] You might try to connect with them on LinkedIn, engage with them there and later send an email that ties directly to that LinkedIn conversation. “It was great connecting with you on LinkedIn…