Cold email secrets of a sloppy drunk ad agency man

After hearing the “banshee-like” moans & cries in the wilderness from my Horde, I’ve decided to teach cold emails this week. But, it’s not me teaching. Frankly, I neither use cold emails or know anything about them. Instead, it’s “Email Players” subscriber Jon Buchan from across the pond, who I kept hearing about all over the place as the man to learn from, from multiple people a few years ago. So a while back, I asked if he’d be willing to do a Q&A/training for you. And, he graciously said yes. Below is the first part... which admittedly isn't so much "training" than it is an interesting peek into this guy's gin-soaked brain using cold emails: elBENBO: Who are you, and why should we listen to you about cold emails? JON BUCHAN: My name is Jon Buchan. I discovered it through desperation and completely by accident. I had set up my own digital marketing agency and all was going well. For a year, word of mouth referrals sustained us. Then they dried up. I didn’t know how to open new leads cold. I’d previously worked at digital agencies where they had salespeople to open, and I’d go along as the geeky consultant and help them close. So with nobody to open leads for me… When my word of mouth stuff dried up... I got desperate. I dealt with this the only way I knew how which is to say… I got blind drunk. That’s when I wrote the most absurd cold email I could, and in the morning, I was still tipsy enough to think it was a good idea to send it on to pretty senior marketing director types at some of the world’s largest brands. To my amazement, it worked and my inbox was filled with the most gushing compliments and requests for calls or meetings. One of my favourite responses simply read: “My colleague forwarded me your spam email and we would like to meet you to discuss opportunities”. I was able to book meetings with Symantec, RedBull, Pepsico, Hewlett Packard, Cisco, HSBC and countless other global brands, plucky startups and regular old SMEs. I kept sending the email out. Every time I did, I’d be rewarded with gushing praise and offers of sales calls. The next step was to close the deals which I already knew how to do. Our first big was Symantec. They were unhappy with their social media agency. They were not responsive enough. They didn’t have ‘big enough’ ideas. We did. About a month in, we had a project where we needed to get some of the content we’d made for Symantec published on authoritative technology sites. Their PR agency didn't appear able to. I went into the office on a Saturday morning and sent a ‘charm’ style email to some journalists and editors at the sites where we wanted coverage. Boom. Within 15 minutes or so, the editor in chief at VentureBeat replied, and we obtained our first piece of authoritative PR coverage. It was at this point, I began to suspect the approach I was using would work universally. Indeed, I started using it to get people to events, to get my friends as many job interviews as they wanted, to organise interviews with industry experts and a whole bunch of other stuff. About 5 years in, I decided to tell the world about my ‘weird’ way booking b2b sales meetings. I had been debating this for a few months. I won’t go into detail but I’d just gotten myself out of a bad situation and was in the mood to experiment. I started my Facebook Group, Charm Offensive and started inviting some friends and peers. People were curious at my screenshots. Cold emails are not meant to get responses like that, with most people happy for lukewarm, responses. When the people I helped achieved success, they would post their own response screenshots onto the group. This is a behaviour that remains today. I have created an ‘engine’ of social proof that helps me commercially, just as it motivates the more conservative people in my group to take a chance on my unorthodox methods. I’ve since been invited onto podcasts, had stories written about me in the press and have carved out a nice, weird little niche for myself. I am enjoying it more than any other job I’ve had. elBENBO: Why should people learn this skill? JON BUCHAN: The ability to get people to agree to your reasonable requests is a powerful one. The most rewarding part is hearing people say “I’m always able to open opportunities for myself”. This is a powerful feeling. The system is simple in construction and easy in execution while the benefits are near limitless. I was able to book meetings with some of the largest brands in the world. I’ve been able to get my clients content published in Inc, Entrepreneur, Hubspot, Alltop, Venturebeat, The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, BBC, Time and many other authoritative publications. I’ve been able to successfully invite myself onto Kevin Rogers’ “The Truth About Marketing” podcast and be interviewed for Michael Senoff’s “Money Shot” newsletter, and other podcasts. This helped me grow the Charm Offensive group without spending money on ads. I’ve been able to help good friends of mine stuck in dead-end jobs to book as many informal job ‘interviews’ as possible, even in sectors where they had no experience. I’ve been able to get important people to events. This included an event for Hewlett Packard. The goal was to successfully invite Chief Technology Officers and IT Directors at national and international corporations to their all day event. I also used this same style to help a good friend book himself a gig at a venue in London he loved. If you can learn how to write disarming copy, you’ll have a skill that is beneficial, no matter what ‘ask’ you need to make. This is incredibly powerful in business, but you can also make use of it in other areas of your life too. For instance, getting your estate agent to fix things in your house more expediently than they would otherwise. elBENBO: This ends part one of the cold email training. Yes, I know, it wasn’t much “training”, more of an intro. But, this is already an over 1,000 word email, so relax, Spanky. Tomorrow Jon will get into the nitty gritty of how to write cold emails for: 1. Making sales for products 2. Putting together profitable joint ventures 3. Getting new business on LinkedIn While you’re waiting? You can warm up that cold bank account of yours by checking out Jon’s popular cold email templates at half off what everyone else pays via my affiliate link until Friday, 11/10 at midnight EST here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/cold]( Ben Settle P.S. If you get his cold email templates before the deadline, you also get a bonus video: "A Crafty LinkedIn List Building Hack" According to Jon: "It's a tactic that is repeatable and reliable. You can do it several times per month (or more, depending on how hard you want to push it), allowing you to add countless new, relevant, interested subscribers to your email list without having to spend money on Facebook ads. And because of how LinkedIn works, it is highly unlikely that this tactic will cease to work." Plus, in addition to the Linkedin Bonus, you also get these bonuses too: * Charming DMs — for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and anywhere else you can send direct messages to help you get sales calls booked… show free samples of work (e.g. If you’re a copywriter)… Get the attention from highly influential people you admire… Nab response from “dream clients” with the aim of working with them… Invite yourself onto relevant podcasts… Grab the attention of journalists to write a story about you or publish your content… Follow up messages to send if you don’t get a reply from your initial message, and more. * Magic Cold Email Training — which runs through one of Jon’s most successful cold email templates line by line. * Jon’s personal swipe file of website copy, emails, guerrilla marketing, direct mail campaigns, pr campaigns and content marketing * Content Marketing Strategy Guide — about creating content that thinks and plays big to get featured by huge publications such as Entrepreneur.com, Inc.com, Yahoo Business, Time Magazine, The Independent and many more. * How To Be Somewhat Funny — 51-page guide shows you how to write more entertaining copy, providing you with joke formulas, rhetorical devices, and writing exercises. * Promote Yourself Playbook mini training session — video that runs through 10 quick and easy tactics to generate leads immediately. * Jon’s new "Agency Sales" eBook and Cheat Sheet — where he provides prescriptive recommendations on exactly what activity you should be pursuing every day to generate leads. You can grab it all today right here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/cold]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2023 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA