How I Built My First Business Through Email Marketing

What a great read; thanks for sharing, kind sir!

Is it still considered spam if you cold email people to buy instead of sell?

Interesting read. But I wonder how many who read it truly understood what he did? It wasn't about the email. Email was merely the medium he choose to use and for what he was selling and how he was selling it was the perfect medium.

So for fun let's break down the stuff he didn't tell us.

Personalize The Message: The reason his emails were getting read was they were 100% original and personalized. Yes using a form letter and personalizing it is easier. But he wasn't looking for easy. He used email since it was the right contact method not because it was easier and he could send more. A "cold" email like this could be very powerful if read. Of course the reason it got read is only hinted to.

Use Your Network To Get Contact Info: I would bet $100 that the email address he sent to is not publicly known. He got it from his network. Thus the receiver was more likely to read any email that came to it because it was not full of spam. He may use the fact that the contact form is why he didn't contact the company directly but that isn't the real reason.

Namedrop: You will notice he named dropped people he worked with. People the recipient would respect. You can do this in any market. It is a bit of Social Proof. So rather you drop the name of a person or company it is important that it is someone they will know and someone who they believe will hire the best people.

Aim High: You don't aim high to sell you aim high to get them to send you to the person to sell. He even set this up by pretending he couldn't contact the other people because their contact form sucked. Oh yeah that little line had multiple meanings and uses.

So why do you aim high? The easiest people to contact are often the ones others think are hardest. Other people don't try which leaves you as one of the few who do. He targeted millionaires as he said but he never explained this reason for it. The 4 Hour Work Week touches on this idea in more detail.

I Don't Care: Average Sales People care rather they sell. The best Sales People out their know what they are selling is the best and if you don't buy that is your problem. They still want and expect to sell of course. The difference is in their attitude. Read his email again and think about it. It is written as if he doesn't care if anyone will contact him back and it's the reason he did get contacted back.

So when you email, cold call, or cold walk are you coming off as valuable? Or are you coming off as desperate like most sales people? Are you busy and just happened to have taken a moment to point something out? Or are you desperate to get someone to spend an hour talking to you?

People can read this from the way you type, talk, and move. And it hurts your chances of getting a conversation going. People want to work with winners. So be a winner even if you haven't made your first sale.

Provide Value: This is especially true in email. Is there a reason to read the email and forward it to the right person? If all the email said was your site needs work or you are not showing up high on google it would have been ignored. Instead he gave real feedback. They could have taken that to anyone to fix and since they didn't hire him they likely did. But he was seen as an authority from the start.

Be The Authority: He does a great job of this as I have mentioned above. The Value and Social Proof he gave showed he was the authority. His attitude showed his authority. And hell the fact he had the balls to email a millionaire like that showed he was the authority.

Stroke Their Ego: You have to of course provide value and tell them what they could be doing better. But the guy you are emailing you need to stroke his ego. Remember these problems you are pointing out are not his fault but he will want them fixed.

How did he stroke the ego? He called him a Big Shot and mentioned he knew he was a millionaire. He also later put himself down by saying "I know I'm only a kid". Some may have taken that to be losing authority but in fact it was designed to show that even this "authority" knew that the recipient was more important. It was about stroking the recipient's ego.