In this Q&A video, sales trainer Ryan Dohrn answers a listener’s question about low response rates in sales outreach. He emphasizes the importance of being highly specific and concise when contacting prospects. Dohrn introduces the “Rule of 3”: use a three‑word subject line and limit the email body to three sentences. He advises tailoring messages to a clear, relevant benefit—saving the prospect time, money, or effort—rather than sending broad, generic requests. He also critiques traditional customer‑needs assessments as often being more about the salesperson’s learning than the prospect’s value. Throughout, he encourages listeners to keep emails short, focus on relevance, and reach out with specific, value‑driven proposals. The video ends with a call for more questions via email and a plug for his website.
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Hey friends, Ryan Dohrn here answering your listener questions. Keep them coming to ryan@ryandohrn.com. We got a bunch of good ones that arrived this month and we'll go through them one by one with all of you. All right, first question comes in from Lenny from Calgary. What's going on, Lenny, up north? Ryan, I'm struggling to get through to people. I mean, 1 in 50. Please help. Uh, Lenny, you're not alone, man. In the sales world out there, especially as we're starting to come hopefully to an end of COVID-19, uh, people People are overwhelmed being at home. They're overwhelmed with personal issues, overwhelmed with work, trying to keep their families, themselves healthy. So you've got to be really specific if you're going to get through to somebody. Now, Eleni, we haven't worked together, but I'm going to guess that probably you might be sending emails that are way too long. Make sure you follow the rule of 3 and 3. 3 words in the subject line, 3 sentences in your email. I talk about that a lot of times when I'm coaching people. The other is you've got to get really, really specific. So if you're reaching out to me and you say, hey Ryan, love to sit down and talk with you about something that's broad, I'm just really not going to be interested. I'm getting hit up by people all the time. Instead, I want you to be really specific. If you said, hey Ryan, I saw on your website you guys are doing this, I've got a great way to help you with that. Focus on saving people money, focus on saving people time, focus on making people's lives easier, focus on them. Remember, a lot of the times as a salesperson, when you reach out to somebody, you're reaching out asking them for time so that you What you want to do is make sure you're helping them realize that when they give their valuable time to you, you're going to help them. And that's why these customer needs assessments— I talked about it on my podcast this month— there are a lot of times they're a waste of time because it's more about you as a sales rep learning and discovering than it is about you helping the customer. So, Lenny, get specific. Keep your emails really, really short. Look for points of relevance and always be looking to help somebody. Remembering their time is really valuable. Side note, you don't have to tell them their time is valuable. We all know that our time is valuable. Cut to the chase. 3 words in the subject line, 3 sentences in the email. Good question, Lenny. Hey friends, keep your questions coming to ryan@ryandohrn.com. Always happy to answer them. I'm not always right, but it's always fun to answer your questions. For more about me and what I can do to help your team, check out ryandohrn.com. My last name is D-O-H-R-N. All right, friends, we'll see you next time.
