In this instructional conversation, Steven Bartlett and Speaker A dissect cold‑email tactics using a real‑world success story and a student‑website pitch. The dialogue begins with Speaker A recounting how a cold email to Panasonic resulted in a rapid shipment of cameras, illustrating the power of clear value propositions. They then walk through a mock pitch to VeHo for an HD camera, highlighting how to weave reward (university backing, media exposure), ideology (youth empowerment, competition with big brands), and ego considerations into the narrative. The conversation pivots to the RICE framework—Reward, Ideology, Coercion, Ego—exploring when, if ever, coercion is appropriate. Bartlett emphasizes that competition and mentioning alternative opportunities build trust rather than shame, and that coercion should be used sparingly because it can erode credibility. Throughout, the tone is coaching, conversational, and enthusiastic, offering concrete examples, persuasive language patterns, and actionable advice for entrepreneurs seeking sponsorship or investment via cold email.
Chapters
I sent 10 of these emails out to every camera company I could, Samsung, Panasonic, et cetera. And within 48 hours of Panasonic receiving that email, a guy called Lee at Panasonic, I literally just, because you were coming, I went on his LinkedIn to see where he now works. So thank you, by the way, Lee, that used to work at Panasonic, for giving me a shot. Lee from Panasonic responded to that email that you have in front of you and said, what kind of cameras do you want? We've got some returns. I'll send them to your doorstep. Wow. within 48 hours of that email, a big box of cameras, brand, like they were brand new to me, brand new spanking cameras came to my doorstep, multiple of them. And that allowed me to do the marketing for my business at the very early stage. Again, it was just a cold email.
That's amazing, man. All right. Hello there. My name is Stephen Bartlett. I'm a 19-year-old student, and I'm part of an upcoming exciting student website. So in March last year, I began developing an idea I had that focused on bringing together the student community. Several months later, I have the backing and support of all the universities in the Northwest who are working with us every step of the way. We are now a few months from launching the website. We have received so much support from companies such as Domino's and Subway that we are now hoping you guys at VeHo will be kind enough to help us out. I'm going to circle that for sure because you're triggering a little bit of competition.
You wait till the end.
Which is really smart. And you're showing credibility with the backing of multiple universities. All right. Our team includes media journalism students who have media and journalism students who have a passion for producing media content. It also includes our web developer who loves building cool websites. It includes the universities and the university unions who are supporting us constantly, and it includes our mentors who are social media and web experts. You are really hitting reward high here, 'cause you're basically saying all of these people are gonna know that you're helping.
Mm-hmm.
Like all these universities, all these students, Media and journalism, guess what they both need? Cameras.
Yeah.
So you're really leaning hard into the reward here, and it's pretty awesome. You are also hitting on ideology because if it is a competitive business, it wants to compete. It doesn't wanna be second to Subway or Domino's. It wants to be side by side with Subway and Domino's, especially in 2012 when both of those companies were pretty strong leaders in their industry. This is going to be a national student website, and one feature of our website involves us producing our own video content from the student community. This can range from students interviewing famous people, students reviewing student events, to student reporters covering news events. In order for this to be the case, we are in need of an HD video camera and wanted to know if Veeho would be kind enough to donate one. In return, we would feature Veeho on our website as a sponsor. We would also promote the camera and Veeho at the end of all videos that we make. As a young group of students, this would really mean a lot to us, and we would be sure to show our appreciation in every opportunity. Ideology, again, talking about students and talking about the youth. There's no real coercion in this for sure. And I would also say that ego was not really— you focused on reward rather than ego because you didn't know who Lee was.
So there was a bit of coercion in the one that I sent to the investor, wasn't there? Because I said we've had some offers from venture capitalists, which is kind of saying that I have other offers.
Kind of. But that's not coercive. Coercion means that you are leaning into the shame, the guilt, some sort of negative feeling. Competition is not a negative feeling.
Oh, really?
Competition is how we build trust.
Okay, so me mentioning that I have other opportunities isn't coercion?
You should always mention that you have other opportunities, even if you don't.
Okay.
Always. It's one of those areas where you always have other opportunities. You could always take the opportunity of stop trying. So there's other opportunities always.
Is there ever a place for coercion, which is the C in the RICE framework, in emails like this?
Yes, there's a place for it, but you have to use it gingerly because the problem with coercion is once you use it, you violate the trust that you've built.
So you can basically use it once?
Or if you, once you employ it, you essentially have to continually use it Because once it's no longer useful to you, the person that you're coercing is free again. Coercion, if you think of coercion, it's like a cage. So you get somebody into the cage, and then you have control over them in the cage. But once you open them, open the door of the cage, they're going to run out and never get back in the cage.
