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Around 6 minutes to read
I get a lot of messages, asking me for various things: work, a referral, portfolio review, product feedback, etc.
99% of them don’t work.
Why? A whole host of reasons.
Some are too long. Some are too generic. Some ask too much from me before giving me a reason to care.
For example, here’s a message I received recently:
Hey Dan,
I wanted to reach out to see how things are going on your end.
If you ever find yourself turning down work, needing an extra pair of hands for QA, or looking for a reliable part-time developer, I’d love to help lighten the load.
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, let’s chat!
P.S. Even if you don’t need help right now, feel free to keep me in mind for future projects.
Let’s do a line-by-line breakdown of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The first thing this message has going for it has nothing to do with the message itself.
It’s from someone I know personally.
We’ve met before in person. We’ve hung out together.
(I’m sharing this message with their permission.)
In other words, it’s warm outreach, not cold outreach.
That it’s from someone I know is why I’ve even considered a reply. If it was from someone I didn’t know, I’d archive it immediately.
That’s the first lesson: reaching out to people you know is likely to get better engagement than reaching out to people you don’t. (Cold emails typically have an average open rate of 15-24%, compared to 21-34% for warm emails.)
But that’s also why this message flops right from the opening line.
I see their name as the sender, someone I know. I’m pleased to get a message from them. Then the first line sounds like something they could write to anyone.
It’s cold, devoid of any personality or acknowledgement of our relationship.
Tip: don’t write cold lines in warm outreach.
In fact, this whole message feels to me like a template that wasn’t customized at all.
As a recipient, that doesn’t make me feel good. It makes me feel like a number, just one of a thousand people you’re sending this email to. And when you’re asking for something, it helps to create a positive experience for the other person.
I’ve long believed that whoever wants it more should do the work. This person wants something from me: work, or a referral for it. You want me to do something for you—even if it’s as simple as writing an intro email—but you can’t even do something as simple as sending me a personalized message? I tend to match others’ effort, and I happily match a throwaway message by throwing it away myself.
Instead of:
I wanted to reach out to see how things are going on your end.
I would have responded better to:
I wanted to reach out to see how things are going on your end. Those new custom Jordans you posted a few days ago look sick! I just picked up the grey-on-black mids at the factory store since they were half off.
That you took the time—even a few seconds—to browse through my stuff and find something that connects us makes me more likely to want to do something for you.
It’s called the reciprocity principle in social psychology: individuals are inclined to respond to positive actions with similar positive actions and to negative actions with similar negative actions. Even something as small as showing you’ve done the work to find something unique about me makes me subconsciously more willing to do something for you.
The next line really loses me.
If you ever find yourself turning down work, needing an extra pair of hands for QA, or looking for a reliable part-time developer, I’d love to help lighten the load.
There are three separate inquiries here:
That there are so many different options makes me worried. It feels desperate. And desperation in business is risky.
Think about it this way. Say you’re hungry, and you walk by two restaurants. One restaurant has a line out the door and a 30 minute wait; the other restaurant is empty and the maître d’ is outside soliciting you by offering you a 30% discount on your bill if you eat there. Which restaurant would you be more inclined to eat at?
I’m sympathetic to the desperation. If you’re desperate for work, there’s nothing wrong with asking for a favor. In fact, a lot of social psychology suggests that you’re better off going that direction:
But this message isn’t asking for a favor; it’s pretending this is somehow in my best interest by suggestion it could “lighten the load” for me.
How can I trust that this person knows what’ll lighten my load if nothing else in this message indicates that they know what my load is right now?
(Yet another reason a custom opening line that shows you’re paying attention to your recipient’s current situation can help.)
The next line furthers the confusion:
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, let’s chat!
The truth of this message is that they need work. But they’re trying to frame it as an offer for me. I appreciate the attempt to orient it against what’s in it for me, but it’s not honest. Humans chafe against this kind of insincerity that we often see in car or timeshare salespeople and telemarketers, people we see as generally trying to get ahead personally under the guise of doing something beneficial for us.
The last line is polite but problematic:
P.S. Even if you don’t need help right now, feel free to keep me in mind for future projects.
This is basically a nice way of saying, “Put me on your mental list for later.” But here’s the problem: that list doesn’t exist.
People who have lots of opportunities get too many of these messages to track them all. And people who don’t have many opportunities don’t maintain a list like this at all.
Either way, this doesn’t do the sender any favors.
Overall, not much of this message has its intended effect.
Here’s a before and after with my suggestions:
Before:
Hey Dan,
I wanted to reach out to see how things are going on your end.
If you ever find yourself turning down work, needing an extra pair of hands for QA, or looking for a reliable part-time developer, I’d love to help lighten the load.
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, let’s chat!
P.S. Even if you don’t need help right now, feel free to keep me in mind for future projects.
After:
Hey Dan,
I wanted to reach out to see how things are going on your end. Those new custom Jordans you posted a few days ago look sick! I just picked up the grey-on-black mids at the factory store since they were half off.
I have a favor to ask.
I’m light on work lately and could use some help filling my plate with Framer builds.
- I saw that you’re wrapping up your new website build in Framer; can I pitch in on QA? I can QA a 100-page site in 2 days, and I charge $500 for that.
- Could you refer me to anyone you know in higher ed that needs Framer sites built? Here are links to 3 Framer sites I built recently: LINK 1, LINK 2, LINK 3. I’m happy to send over an intro template too if that makes things easier for you.
In any case, thanks for even considering this!
If I had to sum it up as advice for anyone in this situation, I’d say:
I know there are some people that don’t send this kind of email because it doesn’t occur to them to do that. I get that; that’s why I share the specific language to show the possibility of it.
In reality, I think far more people are too scared to send an email like this. When you ask for something specific, it’s easier to get a clear “yes” for an answer, but it’s also easier to get a clear “no” too. And that’s scary. So they’d rather live in the ambiguity of “maybe” or “I never heard back from them.”
If you’re hesitant to send a direct ask like this, here’s a challenge: send a real, specific request to someone right now. See what happens. Worst case, you hear “no.” Best case, you get exactly what you wanted.
Either way, you’re better off than you were before.
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