You're 1 cold email away from a life changing deal, customer or partnership
My cold emails have generated millions & gotten me meetings and/or responses from Cuban, McAfee & CEOs
Below is every cold emailing lesson & tactic I've learned over 16 years, for free:

All of the tools I mention here are linked in the 1st comment below.
If you find any value here, please share with a friend or let me know below. Let's get into it:
COLD EMAILING:
We love it and we hate it. We love it because...

...it's our free foot in the door with anyone on the planet.
We hate it because we get dozens per day & 99.99% of them suck.
But I’ll help you with that. By the end of this email you’ll know ~80% of what I’ve learned about cold emailing over the last 16 years, including:

‣ When to use cold email vs not
‣ Where to get valid emails
‣ How to stand out from the crowd
‣ Which software options to choose
‣ How to set the tech up on the backend so you don’t get sent to spam
When to use cold email:

I can’t think of any situation where it wouldn’t hurt to know how to cold email. And when I say cold email, I mean all of the following situations:
‣ Reaching out to someone much more important or influential than you
‣ Reaching out for your dream job

‣ Mass emailing potential customers
Cold email is most effective when you’re selling either a high-ticket or recurring product or service.
Cold emailing is best when you’re selling something that requires someone to book a call to close a deal.

Maybe you’re a fractional CFO and you charge $5k/month. Cold emailing is perfect for you. Email > open > interested reply > book a call > close the sale.
If you only close .5% of your emails then you only need 2,000 relevant emails to build a $50k/month business.

So where to get valid emails?
Ah, so many places. My favorite is a bit under the radar, however, and very, very cheap.
Upwork or Fiverr
Now I’m not talking about hiring a Filipino VA on Upwork to scrape emails, although that works too.

It just takes too long and I’m impatient. This is an actual post of mine on Upwork from last year.
You’re looking for something that is already found. You just need to find the Upwork VA that already did this job for someone else so you can buy their CSV for $20.

I’ve done this about a dozen times & it almost always works. Your job post might say,
“I need names & emails of vet clinic owners in Ohio.”
Then buy the CSV for $20 instead of waiting 2 months & paying $500.
You can message relevant freelancers on Fiverr w/ the same request.

If this doesn’t work then use Apollo or Kaspr (tkopod.co) to scrape them from LI, such as Hunter.
Once you have the emails DO NOT EMAIL THEM until you've validated them. You have no clue how old they are, & ~5% of emails go bad every year, so please validate!

I have been using BEC (tkopod.co) for years & it’s the best & cheapest I’ve found.
Get as much info on these emails as possible. At least 1st name, because you’ll use that in the email & it makes a BIG diff on response rates.
How to stand out from the crowd:

I almost never see a good cold email. Literally, maybe I see one per year. I’ll help you fix that.
Here’s the whole purpose of any cold email:
Start a conversation, don’t try to sell.
You won’t sell from the first cold email, you just won’t.

You have to build a relationship first, so seek to start a convo. And yes, this is true whether your product is $100 or $100,000.
Let’s say I sell websites to home service biz owners
I’d start with landscaping owner emails & email #1 would look something like this
First name,

Do you still own (landscaping business name)?
Chris Koerner
That’s it. That’s the whole first email. No link! Wow. Brilliant, right? Hah, just kidding. This would be my first email, that’s it, really! Why?

Because I’m starting a conversation and qualifying the lead at the same time!
If they say yes, I respond. If they say no, I don’t. If they don’t respond, I’ll send automated follow ups (more on this later.)

When they say yes, my next email would be,
Awesome. Did you know that a good website can bring 3x more landscaping leads than an old, outdated one?
Mind if I build you one for free?
Ok, so here’s my thinking here.

I'm working my way up to the grand slam offer.
They'd be dumb to not respond to this. I'd have a template I show all biz owners and swap out the name.
Start to hit them with a pitch in email #2 so it doesn't become a bait and switch. Get them on the phone ASAP.

If they respond once their chance of responding twice is much, much higher.
Most cold emails lead with the pitch. STOP DOING THAT! The sunk cost fallacy is real. They’ve already spent the time responding to you once, might as well see this through.

They need to know what’s in it for them. In this case, MORE MONEY.
Emails # 3+ would be to get them on the phone to close the sale, since it’s high ticket you won’t really close it online very effectively.
What about the subject line? Keep it short, stupid.
"Quick question" used to rule them all, but it’s played out now.
3 words or less is my rule. Seek to pique their curiosity, not to convince them to open directly.
Which software options to choose?

I used to love Lemlist, but now I only use tkopod.co or tkopod.co or tkopod.co
Why? Instantly creates multiple inboxes at once, w/ better reply automations. Saves time!
Mixmax has amazing UI
Gmass works directly within Gmail
Pros and cons to all.
What’s freaking cool with any of these is that you can spend an hour setting up a campaign & then get leads in your inbox on autopilot for months

Warm up your inbox by ensuring that you’ve been sending and receiving emails successfully for a month or so.
You can use Warmbox (tkopod.co) to warm your addresses if Instantly is taking too long, if you don't use Instantly.
Don’t use a gmail account, use a custom domain. I use Namecheap (tkopod.co) to buy a $10 domain and then Google Workspace for a $7/month email.
Use this checklist to ensure you don't get sent to spam: lemlist.com
Don't use links in your 1st email. More downside than upside. They won't book a call with you or buy your product cold, but the link may be the reason the email goes to spam.
Again, ALWAYS validate emails before sending. If the result is unknown or catchall, just skip.
Add at least one custom variable per email, preferable first and business name. This will show Gmail that not all of your emails are the same.
Add in automated follow-ups that are 1 sentence or less "Just checking in." This will show Gmail that you aren't a one and done kinda guy.
Conclusion:
Whew, ok, that’s about it. I feel like there’s many thousands more words I could put in this, but there’s only so much time.
Cold emailing is awesome because it’s scalable and on autopilot. Once you figure out what the formula is for your offer, it’s just simple math.
Send 1,000 emails, get 200 replies, get 20 calls, get 2 sales, etc. Then it’s just a matter of finding enough solid emails.
PS: Below is the 4th or 5th response I got from the late John McAfee back in 2018 when I was pitching a product to him.
I ended up spending the day at his house and partnered with him, but that's a story for another day...
Oh, and this might be helpful...

The smartest cold email guy I know is @ImSamThompson
He came on my pod today to discuss all kinds of agency ideas you can launch with cold email.
Give me (@mhp_guy) and him a follow and a watch/subscribe below! Enjoy!
tkopod.co