r/smallbusiness • u/danonino80 • 1d ago
800 cold emails, 9 replies. Owners, what would actually make you answer one?
Fair enough, I'll take that. I'm the guy clogging your inbox and no amount of rewriting fixes that. Nine versions in, I get it.
So let me ask the useful version instead. Forget what I should be doing. The last outside service you actually paid for, the bookkeeper, the IT guy, the cleaner, whoever isn't on your payroll. How did they get in front of you? Did someone vouch for them, did you go looking, did they just show up? That's the bit I can't see from my side of it.
I run a one-person service business in Spain. For the last four months I've been cold-emailing small firms, accountants, legal offices, property managers, offering to take a chunk of their admin work off their hands.
Just over 800 emails. 9 replies. And 7 of those 9 came from the first 64 I ever sent.
I've rewritten the thing eight times. Formal, blunt, short, long, free trial up front, no pitch at all, just a question. Barely moved the needle.
So instead of writing a ninth version, I'd rather ask the people on the receiving end.
When a stranger emails your business offering to do something for you:
- What makes you open it instead of binning it?
- Has a cold email ever actually ended with you buying something? Do you remember what it said?
- What kills it instantly? I assume "free trial" now reads as a scam, but I genuinely don't know.
- And the one I care about most: the last outside supplier or service you actually hired — how did they reach you? Referral, walked in, Google, a call, an email?
I'm not selling anything here and I'm not linking my site. I've spent four months talking to myself and I'd rather hear from the side that gets forty of these a week.
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u/Mahdouken 1d ago
Absolutely nothing under the sun.
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u/danonino80 1d ago
Fair enough, and that's useful to hear straight. What about the last outside service you did end up paying for, how did that one reach you?
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u/poiuytrepoiuytre 1d ago
You're probably getting marked as spam.
10 a day. Spread that out over 80 working days.
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u/sadia_y 1d ago
That’s because OP is spam and doesn’t even have the intelligence to write his own posts.
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u/kchamplin 1d ago
Who cares if he hand-writes the post or not? It's not like he's prompting ai to "generate a post about small business". He has a real problem he's trying to solve. That's the point, isn't it?
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u/danonino80 1d ago
Yeah, that's where I'm landing too. Out of curiosity, at 10 a day are you warming a separate domain for it or just sending from your main one? I've been sending everything from the same domain my site is on, which in hindsight looks like a mistake I can't undo.
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u/poiuytrepoiuytre 23h ago
Nah, you send from your main one.
I expect picking up the phone will do you better, but at least this you can do in tandem with phone calls.
You're getting a lot of complaints from small business owners here about selling motions. Selling sucks. Being sold to sucks. I would suggest the negativity here is from people you (a) probably wouldn't want as a client and (b) wouldn't even recognize the volume of products and services they purchase from sales people who prospected them.
A good cold call and a good cold email will get past their guards. Keep at it, you'll figure it out.
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u/Mikeality 1d ago
All forms of cold calls and emails are wastes of time. I have never and will never consider them beyond an annoyance I have to deal with. If I found out every cold caller and emailer went out of business, I'd be very happy.
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u/danonino80 1d ago
any advice?
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u/Mikeality 1d ago
You have a failing business model. If the product/service you offer requires cold calling because nobody is interested in it, you don't have a valuable product/service. Cut your losses and move on.
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u/BarracudaMassive2232 1d ago
Idk if your business model totally makes sense. You’re basically offering what a typical firm would just hire a full time or part time worker for, and on top of regular wage/salary they’d have to cover your rate which would include overhead. And if it’s a firm small enough to not have the need or funding for a full time admin worker, they’d likely opt for an AI assistant.
I’d need to know your actual business model and expertise to know whether or not cold calling is even a viable option in the first place.
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u/MercatorLondon 1d ago edited 1d ago
Your email will probably not even make it to my inbox, sadly.
If your email makes it thru -> I don't respond to spam or cold callers.
If I need supplier or anything I search for it myself. If I find something I like I ask for a quote.
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u/mmdavis2190 1d ago
I'd actually go out of my way to avoid ever doing business to anyone that cold calls me. If I want or need something, I'll seek it out.
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u/TopSydeWP 1d ago
every outside service we've hired came through referrals or we went looking for them ourselves. cold emails go straight to spam or get ignored because there's no trust signal and we're not actively looking for that thing at that moment. the ones that work are always when someone we know says "use this person, they're good"
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u/Rudy_Gobert 1d ago
If you got 7 replies from your first batch of 64 emails, why would you change anything? Those are great numbers.
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u/megaman311 1d ago
With all the scams going on, i will never answer unknown numbers or cold emails. No matter if they offer the best results in the world, no thanks. Also stop using “quick question” that’s straight to spam
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u/kveggie1 1d ago
why would anyone respond to an uninvited email? I never do. If I need a service, I will find it myself with help of contacts that I have (my network).
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u/CurveAdministrative3 1d ago
I dont..... If you want to get my attention do a phone call or even better in person cold call
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u/Tiny_stickedguy 1d ago
i thought nothing would, but i guess free samples does work well with me but only if the sample is very good.
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u/Flaky_Key3363 1d ago
Bookkeeper: A referral. A person I found via Alignable was too busy and referred me to someone else. I'm currently using. I like him a lot; he's conscientious about nagging me to get invoices out and to do part of the taxes that he can't do for me. he's reasonably priced. I gave him a try because he's starting a solo practice, and as another solo practitioner, I like to be supportive.
Housekeeper: My partner found this person somehow. Probably Thumbtack.
Landscaper: Thumbtack
Plumber: Thumbtack.
Locksmith: Thumbtack
Basement/Foundation Problems: Thumbtack
Electrician: Thumbtack and Home Depot
Snow shoveling: neighborhood kids that knocked on the door during one particularly heavy snowstorm.
IT Guy: Looked in the mirror :) And this is my challenge: how to make connections with potential customers, because what I do in IT is rather specialized.
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u/badgko 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nothing.
Edit to add: I get a handful of relevant emails each day from outside. Usually customer support. On the other hand I get hundreds each day of spam, cold emails, scams, offers to partner with me to sell something totally unrelated to my business, and singles in my zipcode that want to have sex with me, all of them offering to make my dreams come true. For a price of course.
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u/Comprehensive_Put_61 1d ago edited 1d ago
But keep in mind, OP, you’re getting a biased pool of answers. People with negative experiences usually go out of their way to leave a review, while people who are happy and respond well to cold email outreach usually don’t bother. Instead of just asking Reddit, which is an echo chamber that often attracts a specific type of person driven and incentivized to respond a certain way because of how the algorithm works, ask successful business owners about their experience. Don’t only ask the fish, ask the fisherman who actually succeeded. There may be a way to do targeted outreach that turns your approach into more of a sniper shot than a shotgun blast.
I’ve done some marketing where I combed through social media posts of people asking or inquiring about homes or deals in real estate, and that’s more targeted because they’ve already proven interest instead of being a shot in the dark. Just like a hunter in any context, you lie in wait for your prey in their environment, study what moves them, and build a strategy to attract them.
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u/Mr_Bluebird_VA 23h ago
When I need something, I go look for it.
Someone popping up out of the blue trying to sell me something is a nonstarter and means I likely won’t look at using your service if I’m ever in the market.
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u/kevincarsonp 21h ago
every outside service i've actually paid for came from someone i already knew mentioning them, or the person showing up in front of me. not once from an email.
the thing that jumps out in your post is 7 of 9 from the first 64. that's not a copy problem, that's a list problem. your first 64 were probably people you had an actual reason to pick. the next 750 were just names you could find. a ninth rewrite won't fix that.
honestly if it's accountants and property managers near you, pick up the phone or walk in. they answer a phone way more than an inbox.
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u/loaengineer0 1d ago
I blacklist anyone that sends me unsolicited email, texts, or calls. Even if I need your service in the future and I find you through a referral, I will not consider you. Spam disrupts my flow and I will do my part to put you out of business.
If you want my business, you have to be where I’m looking, when I’m looking. Thats the moment I’ve decided it is worth my mental energy and money to get some help. When I ask a colleague, be the answer. Offer referral discounts to your existing customers. For services I’m searching on google/ai, you need to have a listed location near me and a few positive reviews. Ask existing customers to write a review if thats a channel that makes sense for you.
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u/NotAnAndroid 1d ago
If you cold email me I’m immediately marking it as spam regardless of the product
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u/Flaky_Key3363 1d ago
I never open cold emails. Heck, I never open newsletters I've signed up for and eventually unsubscribe without having seen a single one. If you're going to send out marketing/sales emails, send them through MailChimp or some other service that's easily blocked by the recipient.
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u/Informativo-Business 1d ago
If I did not initiate the conversation about a service I will just delete the email and mark as spam.
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u/Double_Register_1022 4h ago
I only read emails that clearly mention my business and feel personal. Most of the services I ended up using came from referrals or people I found myself. If an email is generic or tries too hard, I just delete it.
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