How to write an exceptional cold email. Michelle Khare

Listen to my full conversation with Michelle Khare:

@MichelleKhare IMO, the first sentence being about you (the sender) is not ideal or effective. You should lead with relevant/valuable info regarding the prospect you’re reaching out to.

@MichelleKhare @grok summarize this into a AI prompt

@MichelleKhare Subject line doesn't need to have value per se, It just needs to get them to click on the email. That's the entire goal of the subject line, just get them to open it.

@MichelleKhare Always go with subject line "Is that you in these photos?" works every time.

The secret nobody talks about: before you write a single word of a cold email, spend 30 minutes picturing what the recipient's Tuesday morning looks like. What fires are they putting out. What their boss is asking about. The copy writes itself once you actually understand the person.

@MichelleKhare Tried it, no luck. Moving on to cold calls.

@MichelleKhare I don’t know. I think this is too much about the sender and not enough about the recipient. To much “I/we”.

@MichelleKhare i thought this was ai we're cooked lol

@MichelleKhare Crazy people think this is still a good idea.

@MichelleKhare love this take

@MichelleKhare thx, this is helpful show value on subject line✅

@MichelleKhare Except the call to action should be something that is not associated with something people already have an aversion to. A pattern interrupt.

@MichelleKhare how about just not doing cold email?

@MichelleKhare the me me me approach doesnt work btw

@MichelleKhare Too many sentences lol

@MichelleKhare I'm read to pick up the phone.

@MichelleKhare This is some of the worst advice ever

@MichelleKhare Not sure how well her emails perform but after 14 years of cold emailing and seeing literally billion of emails on our platform, I would do this instead:

@MichelleKhare When it comes to emails I put the ask/offer in the title and in the beginning of the message.

This is so far off-base from what actually works that I suspect she has never launched a successful cold email campaign in her life. Lets just start with this: Everyone reading this gets those cold emails. We all hate them. After you realize that the email is some cold pitch from someone you don't know, how quickly do you typically archive/spam report/unsub? 1-2 sentences. That is it. That's the window. She said 2-3 paragraphs. WHAT?! Don't trust me. Run an A/B test. You will see. 2-4 sentences MAX, ideally 2-3 cause the 4th won't get read 99% of the time. That first sentence needs to spark curiosity and the 2nd-3rd is the knockout punch. End with a question -- not your name, not your company. A yes/no question is good. But doesn't have to be.

Having analyzed billions of cold emails at @lavenderhq across 50k+ active inboxes, I want to provide some *warnings* and call out a few great things she's hitting on and why: 1) Subject lines - telling people "show value" is dangerous advice. You're gonna see folks product marketing headlines off of this logic. "2x your __" this is counter productive. I immediately know its a sales email. The reader views your email through a mental spam filter first. It's categorized, then an action is taken. You're better off with a framework called "internal camo" this is where you write a subject line for your email that is written as if you're emailing someone internally. You'd never 2x your __ internally. You'd say "Cold Email Question". 2) 3 Very Short Paragraphs - HELL YES. The average reading time per email is 9 seconds. That's ~37 words. Most reply rates come from emails written between 25-75 words. 3 Short Paragraphs also makes it easier to read on a phone. Where the first impression is 8x more likely to happen. 3) Logic Flow - starting with who you are = bad advice. I get why folks think this, but it isn't a phone call. They're wondering why you're reaching out... not who you are. A cold email is better off starting from *their* context. What do you see that told you now was a good time to reach out? Credibility comes from your grasp of their world. You can talk about yourself later. Having a clear ask is great. Obviously this is a given, but putting it early in the message can hurt response rates. Why? You tend to add a second question at the end We see a 26% reply rate fall off when you do this. Her advice sets you up to fall into seeing 26% fewer replies. This cold email advice is ME ME ME... reaching a person who is in their inbox aka a "to do list" that others can add to. Showing up and shouting about yourself says I don't value your time, good luck translating this message to your world view and problems. I've written loads of blogs on this ( but if you're reading this and you're new to writing cold emails, I put out a free video course where you can learn how to do it based on actual data (2+ hours of videos) While I'm sure she's a lovely person... I doubt she's writing many cold emails... so please take this regurgitated advice from 100k other creators (that is now just patterned noise) with a grain of salt.

@MichelleKhare the best cold email I ever got was 4 sentences and clearly written for only me. you can feel the difference immediately

@MichelleKhare @grok turn this into a Claude Code skill

@MichelleKhare Very Bad Stragy TBH

@MichelleKhare If I received that email It would be an automatic delete. Same crap that's been sent for years.

So if Tim would to cold email me he would need to follow those rules? :D solid set of rules but i would add that its best to make something exceptional so you dont need to make that kind of a formulaic introduction. im sure Tim would just be like. Hey Urban, love what you are doing with VFX explosions and your online school is great, would you be on the Pod? and i would say, Heck yeah dude.

@MichelleKhare horrible advice holy crap

@MichelleKhare lmao ok lady. NOT the sauce

@MichelleKhare “Claude turn this into a skill”

@MichelleKhare But a woman said this so it can’t be that exceptional

@MichelleKhare lovely

@MichelleKhare Can she prove this?

@MichelleKhare Unless I’ve been mislead the length of this email is getting flagged by spam fillers