My son Julian turns two next month. He has very strong opinions already and does not like being told what to do (he gets this from his Dad). As you might imagine, this makes for some interesting battles about bath time, nap time, bedtime, etc. You see, the trick is that he has to think he came up with the idea to go to bed himself, not that he’s being told to go to bed. Yes, hard.
One trick I’ve learned is that I give him a very long sentence (i.e. a longer email) such as “Hey Julian, we can shoot the basketballs into the hoop for one more minute, but then we need to go upstairs and have a bath, ok?” He rarely ever replies to this long statement.
But, what I’ve found interesting is that I reply to my previous statement with a shorter one (i.e. a shorter email), “Julian, one more minute.” Then, what happens is amazing. He replies to me with:
“One more minute shooting the basketballs, then I have a bath Daddy.”
“Um, ok. If you want to have a bath that sounds fine to me.”
Side Note: He has no idea what one minute means. It’s merely an irrelevant placeholder. Also, he is very verbally and intellectually advanced for his age (does not get from his Dad).
You see, replying to my previous statement with a shorter one works best. We can do the same in our B2B sales prospecting emails.
Sales Hack: Reply to Your Previous Prospecting Email with a Shorter Version
As you already know, it takes a mixture of touches in an outreach cadence to gain a prospect’s attention, and we even like sending a FedEx letter as a unique prospecting variation.
But of course, the majority of your prospecting touches will be emails. You should never Forward (FW:) an email that didn’t receive a response. Always reply to that email, and the subject line will appear as “RE: Email Subject Line.” Forwarding is off-putting and suggests the prospect should read the original email. It also has a higher chance of getting filtered as spam. Replying to your own email suggests that this is a conversation and that in email #2 we are going to shorten the original email.
I always find the reply email is best with a one or two-sentence email that includes a question. No need to point to the previous email – they know how to scroll. Take your unsuccessfully long email (that they didn’t reply to), and shorten it into a question.
It has been longer than one minute, and Julian is still shooting the basketballs.
