🔥Hot Take: Including A CTA Is Actually Hurting Your Email Response Rates

In today’s issue, I’m going to cover why including a CTA (call-to-action) in your cold 🥶️ emails is actually hurting your response rates.

Writing cold emails that get a response is hard. However, if you’re in sales - learning how to do so is critical to your success. 🏆

The problem is that most sellers think a CTA means “asking for a meeting” 📆 early and often.

By the end of this issue, you’ll learn:

✅ Why asking for a meeting too early is a bad idea

✅ What you should do instead - w/ templates you can use

✅ When and how to ask for the meeting in an email

“No thanks, I’m just looking”

We’ve all been there. You walk into a store...

👋 “Hi, is there anything I can help you with today?”

Instantly you blurt out: “No thanks, I’m just looking”

Why? 🤷

It’s because people hate being sold to and we instinctively put up a wall.

So it’s no surprise that asking for a meeting in your first email gets the same reaction.

Prospects are busy. They have projects, meetings, and priorities.

They get bombarded 💣 with emails each week asking:

“Open to a 15-minute meeting?”

“How does Friday at 10 am look?”

“Are you available next week?”

And to make matters worse, most salespeople cram everything they do in the first email.

“I need to make sure they know everything we do”.

❌ Instant delete.

pro-tip: 🚫 scrolls on mobile = higher chance of being read

Prospects have to be warmed up to the idea of why a meeting is a good use of their time.

So instead of “asking” for something in your first email, how about “giving” them something without asking for anything in return?

Give > Ask

Now imagine you walk into that same store and this time the clerk hands you a 10% off coupon and says:

“Here’s 10% off in case you find something you like today”

And nothing else.

You’re probably thinking 🤔, “Well that was different”

And I bet you’d end up buying something from that store.

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is a book written by Gary Vaynerchuk that taught the principle to lead with value.

Give to the point that when you finally “ask” for something, people feel bad not saying "yes" because you’ve helped them so much.

Translated it means “give, give, give, and then ask”

So let’s apply that same concept to your cold ⛄️ email outreach. How?

• Share a blog post

• Invite them to a webinar

• Share a how-to guide

• Comment on an article or podcast where they were featured

Before sending: Answer these questions.

1. Is this relevant?

2. Will this help them solve a problem?

3. Will it teach them something new?

How would this work tactically?

Here’s a dead-simple 3-step email framework you can use to get started.

You’ll notice, that I still include a CTA in every email (checking out the content), however, I don’t ask for anything until email #3.

Why?

Give, Give, Give, Ask, that’s why.

You need to earn the right to ask for the meeting.

Prove that you’re a valuable use of their time.

Also, I use an interest-based CTA as it's the highest performing CTA according to Gong's study of over 304,174 emails

Give it a try in your next outreach and watch your conversion rates skyrocket. 🚀

Be Brief, Be Gone Version

1. Don’t ask for a meeting in your first email

2. Give, Give, Give, Then Ask

3. Use an Interest-based CTA to increase response rates

4. Write for mobile - Don't make your reader scroll

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