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1. Short: Self-explanatory. Anything over a couple of paras and it gets sorted into the "later" bucket. The receiver isn't rude, they just don't have time for it when checking their email on the way to work. And "later" may never happen.
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2. Who are you? This is the critical part. Why are you worth paying attention to? There are two approaches to this 2a.Demonstrate credibility through your past institutions/roles. If someone gets a cold email from an exec at a large company, they'll immediately pay attention.
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2b. Show off a body of work. Link to your Twitter/a paper you wrote/a Github repo/your blog which is interesting and shows why you're worth paying attention to. I used to do 2b for years until I could start doing 2a.
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3. Value prop for the receiver. What's in it for them? Everyone wants to help with general advice but it's hard to respond to everyone. Easy ways - ideas for their companies, a thoughtful response to something they wrote or said. Or just "my work might be fun for you to read"
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4. CTA: What should the receiver do? Generic "help me with advice" is really hard unless you really stand out with #2. Same with "Would love your thoughts on my post". It gets filed into a "todo" bucket. ...
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Have a specific ask which is low friction. Examples - "follow me on Twitter" - "here's a live demo account you can click into to see what I've built" - "a PDF of screenshots" (no Docsend!) Key is - it's low work!
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