Notes · Note 08

Cold email that still sounds like you

Forty prospects with a real reason, one email written by hand, and the line on personalization we don’t cross.

AI made it possible to send ten thousand emails that all sound the same, and everyone did, which is most of why cold email stopped working. The version that still works uses the same tools in the opposite direction: a much smaller list, with something true in every message.

Forty prospects, each with a reason

Not four thousand. Forty, where you can finish the sentence “I am writing to you specifically because…” with something real — they opened a second location, they are hiring for a role your work touches, you met their operations lead in the spring.

If you cannot finish that sentence, they do not belong on the list. That one rule moves reply rates more than any subject-line trick.

Write the first one by hand

One complete email, to one real person, properly written. This is the pattern the whole batch gets cut from, so it is worth twenty minutes. Short, specific, one ask, no preamble about hoping they are doing well.

Let it draft the other thirty-nine

That last sentence is not optional. Without it you will get flattering details about companies that do not have them, and the first person who notices will tell other people.

Then edit one sentence in each

At minimum, rewrite the opening line in your own words. You can feel which ones are generic when you read them back — and those are precisely the ones that get deleted.

When to send

Midweek mornings, in their time zone. Follow up once, about a week later, adding something rather than asking again. Then stop.