A Template For Cold Emails - TDBS 25 April 2017

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to day 84 of the Daniel Bourke Show. 84 is 12 divided by 7. I like multiplication. But whatever you're up to, hope you're having an awesome day as usual. Hopefully, I can make it a little bit better. Thank you for tuning in on YouTube and thank you for tuning in on the podcast if you're listening to it. But what have I been up to? Oh, what is today actually? 25th of April. It is Anzac Day where I live and the Anzacs, I believe, did some really good things for us in the past. From an Australian point of view, it was involved with a war. I don't know too much about the history. I probably should really, but that's— in Australia, that's what we pay tribute to today. So to the ANZACs, shout out to everything that you did. I'm incredibly grateful to live the life that I live now, and I know you guys had some sort of contribution to it, even though it was in times of war. And I don't think— well, in my opinion, war is not great, but if you have to, I guess if you have to do it, then you have to do it. So what I've been up to today— this morning I got up, my little brother actually came to me yesterday and said that he was keen to lose some weight, and he's been watching me. Of course, I'm into the gym, I'm into fitness, I'm into nutrition, whatnot, and he's been watching me and He came to me after some kids called him fat at high school, which is not on, not ever the right thing to do for those kids, but in one sense you could look at it in a good way, and he's taken it the right way. He's gone, "Oh, okay, I've been called fat by them. It's time for me to lose weight." And, but it's easy to take it the wrong way. It's easy to go, "Oh, they've called me fat, so I'm going to be depressed. And that's what happens to people. Like, it happens a lot. Bullying is a real issue in high school. I remember I used to be called fat sometimes in high school by people. I never took it as a bad thing. Well, because it was always as a joke. I was lucky to not have too many aggressive bullies at my high school. But certainly, if I look back now, I do still remember those times. It's funny how you hold on to those sort of negative memories in the past. And it can be incredibly hard to get rid of those. I know if I look back in high school, some of those memories where people like would refer to me as fat and whatnot would— are more vivid than I bet some of the good memories. It's funny how memory works like that. It's when we will remember that one person like 7 years ago who called us a bad name, but we won't remember that time 5 and a half years ago when we had a great time with some of our friends. It's funny how memory works like that. Probably something to do with survival techniques. Remember the bad stuff so you don't do it again. So, what's this email— uh, email. What's this episode about? It actually is about emails and about specifically cold emails or how to get someone's attention. So, I've been reading a fair bit lately about how to do a cold email and how to reach out to someone, how to get I was looking to, say for example, get them on the show or get them on the podcast. I know in a couple of days— when is it? Yeah, April 27th. So, 2 more days, episode 86. I'll have someone on the podcast who reached out to me. And so, they reached out to me with this email because of the show that I've been putting out there. And I figured, why not? I'm almost at the 100 days of doing it every day. After the 100 days, I want to make it more of a weekly thing. I'm going to start practicing my skills and start reaching out to people to see if I can line them up to get them on my show and talk to them. And who knows who I'll get? I'm just going to reach out to people who influence me, who I think can bring value, certainly a lot more value than I can, to these episodes. But so, that's one of the reasons why I've been looking up, okay, if I want to get their attention and I want to get them on my show, what's the best way for it to go about? If my show obviously hasn't grown enough, I'm not going to have many more people asking to come back on. So it's up to me to put in the work to ask. And of course, I'm going to try this exact layout. So I've got this template, this 5-point template that I'll show to you today, and I'll read it out and we'll talk through it. But I'm going to— I'm actually going to be implementing this to try and get more guests on the show in the future. So I'll let you know how it goes. Just be— being honest, I haven't tried it as of yet. I've just sort of collated some of the resources I've checked out, and this, this 5-point seems to be the most— the easiest one. So, or one of— not the easiest, but the most common, the most common trend. If you're looking to get someone of influence, of course they don't have much time, so shorter and better. So what is, what are the 5 points to start off with? Flattery, benefit, credibility, call to action, and read it out loud. Okay, so what's the first, what's the first point? Flattery. So flattery, what are you complimenting the person that you're reaching out to? Are you stroking their ego a bit, right? Because we're human beings. Everyone is a human being. No one, even people in top top positions, like CEOs, millionaires, businessmen, founders, whatever they do, they're still human beings. And whatever there is, you'd have to be a different kind of person to not enjoy someone complimenting you, right? So, for the majority of people, they will enjoy being complimented. And so, that's why number 1 is flattery. So, are you reaching out to just I don't know, say, come on my show, or are you reaching out in a way that sort of flatters them, thanks them for the value they've put out? Or be specific. Talk about if you're reaching out to someone, maybe they've written a book or maybe they've done some sort of video that you really enjoyed or a podcast you really enjoy and say, hey, I really enjoyed XYZ on XYZ. Be specific on this. I really enjoyed this on this show at this time and it made me do this. Alright, so I'll go through an example at the end, but for— actually, let's do an example of flattery now. So if I was to reach out to Gary Vaynerchuk, which I'm actually planning to do, I might do that for episode 100 and try and get him on for episode 100, or see, see what happens. Why not ask the universe, right? So I might write up the email tomorrow and then I'll, I'll talk about how it goes. So if I was to reach out to Gary, I'd be like, hey Gary, I really enjoy watching your stuff every day, listen to your podcast. I actually listened to this specific episode. I can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but, and it made me want to start my own podcast. And so I'm 84 days into it now, and I've also turned it into a YouTube series, and the majority of this motivation has come from watching your content. So that's, that's something I would, I would probably start off the email with. And if you've never seen Gary Vee, make sure you check him out. Just Google him, Gary Vee. You'll find it. YouTube, podcast, Facebook, everywhere. Check him out. I feel like he's bringing an incredible amount of value to the world right now, and it's— he's doing something similar to— well, doing something inspiring for me. This is partly the reason why I'm making this content right now. And number 2, what's the benefit? So how will this benefit them? Not just you, because that's, that's a trade-off, right? If you're asking for someone else's time, How can you benefit them? Of course, they're going to benefit you because if they give you some of their time, that's already benefiting you. So, if I'm reaching out to someone and I'm just asking them for something, it's— you're less inclined, really, unless they're a close friend. Like, close friends, it's okay. You just, I don't know, you always help out your friends, right? But if it's someone random, the first person you've— first time you're talking to them, and you're asking them for, I don't know, to do something and you have no benefit to give them back, well, think about it. How would you feel if someone, someone did that? And look, of course there are people out there who might just spontaneously do it, but in my eyes, you got to bring some sort of value to the table. And so do you spell this benefit out? And is it, is it actually a real benefit? So this is one I got to work on. For me, if I was to reach out, let's just use the Gary Vee example. I've got to think about what benefit I could bring him. My audience isn't that large at the moment, but it's an Australian predominantly audience, and I don't know how big he is in Australia at the moment. I'm in the age bracket that most of his videos appeal to. I'm doing everything that he says. Maybe that's a benefit. So, I can— I've got the 80 or 100+ episodes behind me now and almost 30 or so videos. By the time it's 100 days behind me, and I could use that as some credibility to show that his message is actually getting out there, and I'm one of those people who are actually help— doing. I'm not entirely sure. Maybe he could use that in one of his videos to give some evidence or something like that of how his stuff's working, but I'm not entirely sure. That's one you gotta, you gotta really think about. Reaching out to someone is not just a a 5-minute type up an email if you really want to get their attention. You've got to put some effort into this, and I haven't thought of the benefit off the top of my head, but some of those things I just mentioned, maybe I could work those into a benefit, and I'd have to find out, are they actually a real benefit? I have to do some more thinking about that. Number 3, credibility. So how can you be the person the other person would enjoy meeting? Right, so if you're meeting them in person or via Skype or something like that, how can you be that person? How can you be that exciting personality? You know when you have that person, that friend who you're always excited to catch up with? How can you portray yourself as being that person that they want to catch up? So you got to make them— figure out how you can make them be excited to come and meet you or spend some time with you or respond to your email or answer your question. A lot of people these days, like top, top level people, will reply to you out of the blue. But if you're making them want to reply to you, then because you're just an exciting personality, well, that's a bonus, right? So think about the type of people they usually would hang out with or the type of people they usually spend time with. If you're— if you've been influenced by this person in the past, this may be something you're aware of. And so, how can you portray yourself as being that type of exciting person that they'd want to meet? And that's not, that's not being a fake version of yourself. The reason why you want to reach out with this person is because you have similar interests to them, right? You— there's no faking it there. You're going to ask for their time because you either want their advice or what they're doing brings value to you. So you've actually— there's an interest there. So that's your credibility. Use that to your advantage and work it in a way that it's exciting for them to meet you. And how could I do this? Well, as I said before, maybe I could work the benefit and the credibility into one piece and say that your message is working. It's getting— I'm proof that your message is getting out to someone. I've, over the past 6 months, this is what I've done. I've executed like this, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. Like this, this video series The 100 series I've just started is literally that, I've just started. It's going to— I plan on doing it a lot longer, as long as I can, of course. And the podcast is the same thing. I don't plan on stopping after 100. I know in the day 1 episode I said that it's a 100-day experiment. And the beautiful thing about the experiment is that you find out what works and what doesn't. And so, I found out a few things. I've been writing them down of what I value in the podcast and what I can improve on. What I can change and what not. And so I plan on taking it forward in the future. So my credibility piece is that I'm the audience that you're reaching out to, and here's what I've done in the past. So who knows? I still, as I said, I have to think about it a lot more. You got to put a lot of effort into this. It might take an hour for me to write this actual email. And number 4, the call to action, the ask. What is the ask? So if you're writing this beautifully crafted email, you got to inc— or Whatever it is, this framework can be applied to anything. Like, you want to ask a girl out on a date? You don't just ask straight away, right? You got to do the jab, jab, jab, right hook, which is a quote from Gary Vee, by the way. You got to give, give, give, and then ask. Bring value to the other person. That's a major key right there, is like, bring value to them. You want to ask a girl out on a date? You want to ask a boy out on a date? You want to, I don't know, ask someone for a job or something like that? Bring them value first. And then deliver the ask. So, how can I bring value? I haven't thought about it enough yet, but I'm going to be working on it. And so the fourth step is the call to action, the ask. So what are you actually asking for? Instead of a big request, can you ask for an easy, like, smaller request that fits into their schedule? So asking for a small, small but significant request to you, you got to think about in terms of value. If they give you a small bit of their time, it's incredibly high value to them. But if you ask them for a big piece of their time— sorry, incredibly high value to you, but a big piece and a small, maybe a small value to them. But if you ask for a big piece of their time, that's a massive value to them as well as you. So you got to be ready to trade off. So what can you be— what's an effective call to action? I think specificity here is also a major key. What would specificity look like for me in my example. So, I know Gary's on New York time, and so I could figure out what his day-to-day schedule may look like. And I know he starts his mornings relatively early, so I could be like, okay, I'm ready to talk for 5 minutes at 7 AM New York time, which would be like 4 AM here, but that's okay. I'd be willing to put it out there for 5 minutes about XYZ at this time. Do you accept? And the specificity is what counts because then they— you're not sort of going, are you free over the next week? And this is something I've got to work on. I've done that in the past, is if I've wanted to meet up with a friend or get someone else on the podcast, is, are you free over the next 6 days? That's incredibly vague for both parties. It's just like, I might as well just go, I'm free Thursday afternoon, 4:15 PM. We can talk for 30 minutes. Much more specific. And then it's like, no, no, no, I'm not free. Maybe, maybe 5. I can do 5. Okay, 5 works. So, be specific. And that's, I think that's something I need to work on myself is being more specific with the things that I'm asking for, or actually even asking in the first place is a big step, right? Like just to ask for something when, how often do you miss out on something because you don't ask for it? So, maybe that could be the challenge today. I just thought of that. The challenge is ask for something. Go, like, ask for anything. If you're thinking in your head of like, I should ask them a question, do it. That's the challenge, daily challenge. You, if whatever situation you're in, if you're at a coffee shop and you, you see that there's candies on the bench, ask them if you can have a candy if you, if you're feeling like candy. It's just an example. It can be anywhere, like, ask that girl out on a date, ask that boy out on a date. So whatever, I know I keep coming back to dating, but that's, that's just an easy example to use. So just ask. That's the daily challenge. So 4 was call to action. Make sure the ask is specific and succinct and maybe easy to fit in their schedule. And number 5, read it out loud. So if you've wrote the email or wrote the question or wrote the request to someone to, to give you some of their time, read it out loud to yourself. So, oh, and actually make sure you time yourself. If it's an email specifically or a LinkedIn message or something like that, if it's, if it's a message, maybe 30 seconds or less. If it's an email, 60 seconds or less. Anything more than that, like, and if you see someone, and bullet points are fine as well. If you see, if you see a long email in your email, how do you feel about it? You're like, oh, disregard, see you later. But keep it 60 seconds or less. Most of the time, if you're reaching out to an influential person, they're not going to have time to read an essay of an email of you asking out. Maybe they will, I don't know. This one is a bit on the edge. If you take the time to put into an essay, you never know, it may come off. But I think you have more of a chance with a succinct email. I know for my example, reaching out to Gary Vee, who's a very busy CEO, CEO of a company in New York, 60 seconds absolute maximum, probably 45 seconds if I can make it down there. So, and also reading it out loud makes it sound more human. Read it— when you read it, when you type something, you, you write in a different language than what you speak. So how does it read off the page? Is it specific enough? Does your, does your ask come out well enough? Does your flattery appear too, too much? Does your benefit, is it actually a benefit? Are you— is your credibility actually legit? Are you credible in any way, shape, or form? So, I believe reading out loud is a massive piece and that's— it's a reflection, right? And that's something I've missed out on in the past as well, as well as asking and reflecting. So, for ask, I've missed out on opportunities because I haven't asked for them and I've missed out on improving myself because of a lack of reflection. So, over— I've just been continuing on to the new next thing. So, over the past few weeks, I've been learning programming and I've noticed that I haven't done much reflection of what I've learned. And so, every time I go to use something that I've already learned, I have to go, "Oh, what was that again?" I have to think, I have to use a lot of brainpower to get that memory back in my mind. So, Maybe I could do with some more reflection in my life. So who knows? Who knows? It's all a journey. It's all about learning. So the 5 points: flattery, benefit, credibility, call to action, aka the ask, and read it out loud, right? And this is a lot of credit of this. These points has to go to my boy Noah Kagan. You don't know him, check him out as well. His podcast, his email list. A lot of value comes from that. A lot of these points actually came from his email as well as various other sources online and just my general experience. So, if you want to check him out, @noahkagan, N-O-A-H-K-A-G-A-N. Awesome dude. Check out all his stuff. But nonetheless, I'm going to go have some dinner. I did this podcast a bit earlier than I have been in the past couple of days because I noticed yesterday I was way too tired. Today, I'm still a bit tired. I crashed before. I had a nap. I've been using so much brain power and I did a hard workout today. Nonetheless, I'm loving it. It's the only way for me to be at the moment. I'm having a good time. I hope I brought some value to you with this podcast. If not, shoot me an email. Let me know if you— if I could improve in any way. I'd love to hear your advice. If you want to come on the show, also let me know. Daniel@mrdbourke.com. Thank you all so much for listening. Thank you all so much for watching. And don't forget the challenge: ask for something. That's it. That's the challenge. But call someone, tell them you love them, and I'll catch you tomorrow. I believe it is day 85. Catch you later.