The REPLY Method™ Guide
An actionable messaging framework to increase response rates, break through the clutter, and land more meetings.
The average cold email response rate is 1%. The average success rate for a cold call is 1.48%.
If you’re struggling to get prospects to respond to your cold outreach, you’re not alone.
“What should I say?”
“How long should the email be?”
“How do we make our messaging less ‘markety’ sounding?”
Sound familiar?
What most sales teams end up doing is resorting to the template that works best. Or getting on Google to search for “best cold email templates” or “what to say in a cold call.”
The problem with this approach is that it’s too prescriptive.
You never end up learning the fundamentals of effective messaging so that you can create your own email templates and talk tracks.
The goal of your cold outreach
Don’t prospect to make a sale, prospect to start a conversation.
That’s the fundamental principle behind every prospecting activity.
The goal of prospecting is not to sell your product/service. Or to land a meeting. It’s to start a conversation.
A conversation has to start in order for a meeting to take place. And a meeting has to happen in order for a sale to take place.
What is the REPLY Method™?
R.E.P.L.Y. stands for:
- Relevant Results. Prospects expect to see relevant results you’ve created for similar companies with similar challenges.
- Empathy. Prospects want to feel understood. They expect that you know about their job, their responsibilities, and the challenges they’re having.
- Personalization. Prospects are inundated with terrible outreach these days. They expect personalized communication that shows your outreach was intended for them.
- Laser-focus. Prospects deal with more distractions than ever on a daily basis. They expect brief, succinct communication.
- You-oriented. Prospects don’t care about you, your product/service, or your company. They expect you to make them the hero.
Continue reading below to learn more about the REPLY Method™.
Relevant Results
GET THE PROSPECT'S ATTENTION
Prospect needs to go from,
“What’s in it for me?”
To… “This looks interesting.”
Results are the universal language in business. Every prospect understands a tangible result related to their job. Connect your product/service to the prospect in a way that’s easy to understand. Avoid feature dumping. Or talking about your proprietary solution. Focus on how you can make the prospect’s life better.
- Focus on the results your solution creates for your customers and the problems it solves.
- Don’t talk about your solution’s features or benefits.
- Avoid sharing unrelated case studies or social proof with prospects.
What To Avoid
We run a training/consulting company with less than 10 employees. I don’t relate to companies like Google, Spotify, and Uber. The rep should have shared companies similar to Blissful Prospecting. And that at least sell B2B.
Instead of focusing on “influencer marketing” they could have talked about the results they create for their clients.
Do This Instead
This email landed a meeting because we shared our results with a similar nonprofit. The case study is with a similar organization, and we listed companies the prospect would also like to connect with.
Empathy
SHOW THE PROSPECT YOU UNDERSTAND THEIR WORLD
Prospect needs to go from,
“You’re not one of us.”
To…“You’re speaking my language.”
Feeling understood is a fundamental aspect of effective human communication. Prospects expect you to know about their job, their responsibilities, and the challenges they’re facing. You need to show them that you know what it’s like to walk in their shoes. Do that, and they’ll open up to you.
- Lead with the prospect’s pain points, frustrations, or challenges where applicable. The more specific, the better.
- If you don’t know your prospect’s challenges, do client interviews and pay close attention during discovery.
- Don’t be assumptive about your prospect’s challenges. Reference what you hear from others like them.
What To Avoid
This email has no empathy. The rep doesn’t address my content marketing challenges.
I’d be more interested if they talked about staying up on your editorial calendar when you don’t have a full-time marketing team.
Do This Instead
A financial broker sent this email to a small law firm. They highlighted specific challenges law firms have with lenders. And it worked.
Personalization
PROVIDE CONTEXT AND SHOW THAT YOUR OUTREACH WAS INTENTIONAL
Prospect needs to go from,
“[delete] clearly a mass outreach.”
To…“Okay, you did your homework.”
Mass outreach is affordable to everyone now. At the click of a button, spammers can send thousands of emails at a time for a few hundred dollars. Prospects are desensitized to our cold emails and cold calls. They get automated messages every day and can spot them from a mile away. They’re looking for reasons to ignore you.Make it obvious that you did your research.
- Personalize your outreach to provide the context and a connection to the customer’s problem and your solution.
- Two parts: what you saw + why it stuck out to you. Guidelines: relevant, specific, and conversational.
- Look to the prospect’s website, LinkedIn profile, and Google News for ideas.
What To Avoid
There’s no personalization in this email besides my name, role, and company name. I don’t know why they’re reaching out to me.
How is their solution connected to my problem? Why would a learning platform help us with our training/consulting services?
Do This Instead
This isn’t the best cold email I’ve seen, but I give the rep mad props for doing his research.
He called out specific client verticals we work with, our service offerings, and the method in which we deliver our services. He also took the time to read about me and noticed I follow UFC fights.
Laser-Focus
GET TO THE POINT
Prospect needs to go from,
“[delete] don’t have time for that.”
To…“Wait, what was that?”
Prospects are busy these days. The average person is exposed to 4,000+ ads every day. Your direct competitors aren’t your only competition. You’re also competing with all of the other distractions prospects deal with every day. Keep your outreach short and to the point—your chances of starting a conversation will dramatically increase.
- Keep messaging concise. Less than 120 words or 3-5 sentences is ideal for emails. Less than 30 seconds for voicemails. And less than 15 seconds for your cold call opening.
- Be clear with your Call-to-Action (CTA). And limit it to one.
- Does what you’re saying help the prospect see the results you can help them create, empathize with them, or provide more context through personalization? If not, get rid of it.
What To Avoid
Does this make your eyes glaze over as well? It’s too long. The first five paragraphs are unnecessary.
Do This Instead
This email landed a meeting because it’s to the point. There’s one call-to-action and one link to look at.
You-Oriented
MAKE THE PROSPECT THE HERO
Prospect needs to go from,
“I get it! You think you’re really awesome!”
To…“This could help me…”
Prospects don’t care about you, your product/service, or your company. It’s our job as salespeople to make them care. But you don’t do that by talking about yourself. Or how great your company is. Prospects want to know what’s in it for them. Share what your company does, but show them how it helps make their life better.
- Are you making the prospect the hero? Or your company (or worse...you)? Don’t make it about yourself. No one wants to be Alfred. They want to be Batman.
- Use “you” and “your” more than you use “I.”Use “you” and “your” more than you use “I.”
- Tell the prospect what’s in it for them.
What To Avoid
This email is all about what they do, instead of how I benefit. They use “I” and “we” seven times in the email. There’s very little in here about how they can help us win.
Do This Instead
This email is great because they use “you” and “your” more than they use “I.” They focus on helping the prospect reduce their time to market, as they did with another similar company.
How it all comes together
Now that you have the key fundamentals of an effective messaging, you can piece them together to create your emails and talk tracks.
Cold Emails
Cold Email Structure:
[First name],
[Personalization]
[Empathy – address challenge/frustration or an understanding of what they do]
[Results – share relevant results
[CTA]
Here are a few finished examples following the structure above:
Email example #1:
Subject: Loved your podcast on Sell or Die!
Hey Jason,
Heard you on the Sell or Die! podcast. What you said about using videos to get the attention of busy prospects really stuck out to me.
Looks like personalization is a key part to your outbound success. One way our clients uses ABC video platform is to cut the research time for personalization in half. Thought it would be helpful for those cool videos you’re sending.
Would sending your videos in half the time be worth a conversation?
John
Email example #2:
Subject: Hi Jason, I was researching Blissful Prospecting and…
Hey Jason,
Took a look at your LinkedIn post on cold calling. Loved your tip on going out to socialize at a coffee shop before making your cold calls. I’m an introvert, so found that helpful!
Not sure if you run into this, but a challenge I’ve heard sales trainers talk about is finding reliable data. Especially if your clients are prospecting within LinkedIn. One way our ABC tool helps is by getting data from LinkedIn into your CRM in half the time.
Would that be worth a few minutes of your time to chat about?
John
Email example #3:
Subject: Call coaching?
Hey Jason,
Enjoyed your article on four ways to warm up your cold calls. I really liked the tip about warming up prospects by engaging with them on LinkedIn prior to your outreach.
Looks like you offer training/coaching to your clients. One of the challenges can be the time it takes to find patterns in what the resp are doing well and what they need help with. ABC Tool helps trainers like yourself get better results in less time with their clients by analyzing the call recordings for you.
I’m curious—what kind of tools are you using to coach your clients through their cold calls?
John
Do your best to follow the recommended structure, but don’t be too rigid.
Cold Calls
The key is using a similar structure for your cold calls that’s very close to what you’re saying in the email.
Cold Call Structure
Intro: “This is [your name] with [your company]. I know I probably caught you in the middle of something. Do you have 30 seconds for me to tell you why I’m calling? And then you can decide if you want to keep chatting?”
Purpose: “I noticed [personalization]. The reason for my call is…[empathy/results].”
Call Opening Example:
Intro: “This is Jason Bay with Blissful Prospecting. Do you have 30 seconds for me to tell you why I’m calling? And then you can decide if you want to keep chatting?”
Purpose: “I noticed the last post you put up on LinkedIn about growing a sales team. Loved your insight about hiring for attitude instead of skill…
The reason for my call is that I’ve been hearing a lot from Directors of Sales that the sales floor is quieter than they’d like it to be. Prospects aren’t responding to their rep’s outreach and they’re looking for more ways fill their pipeline and scale their team’s results. We recently helped ABC Company increase their appointments per rep by 23% within a few months using our REPLY Method™ framework.
Cool if I ask you a few questions to see if this would be relevant for you?”
Want more?
We talk about the REPLY Method™ on these podcasts and webinars:
- Sales Hacker webinar on how to use the REPLY Method™ to increase response rates by 2-3x
- I talk to Scott Barker about empathy and the REPLY Method™ on the Sales Engagement Podcast
- Jeffrey Gitomer, Jennifer Gluckow, and I break down cold emails together
- Darryl Praill and I talk about how to turn up the heat on your cold emails using the REPLY Method™