How to Write Emails Important People Actually Respond To

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• February 6, 2014
• By Team Brazen
• 2 Comments

If you’ve ever found yourself writing an email (or contemplating writing an email) to a Very Important Person, you know how intimidating it can be. Industry leaders, top bloggers and other experts are crazy busy and have tons of demands on their time. Figuring out how to reach out to them in a way that will actually get their attention — and make them want to respond to you — can seem so difficult it’s pointless.

Fortunately, some of those Very Important People — like Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich — are willing to share with us the secrets they’ve used to make their own high-powered connections.

In a recent post on his blog, Sethi shared some great strategies he himself has used to reach out to the likes of New York Times bestselling authors and entrepreneurial guru Tim Ferriss. His tips include great pointers like:

• Be brief. VIPs are busy and do not want to read your tortured expository essay on your life history, food allergies, and the mole on your back
• Focus on what’s in it for THEM. Benefit-driven, focused on benefit to THEM (“putting the full IWT muscle behind it”)
• Offer a clear CTA (call to action). You wouldn’t believe how many people end their emails to me with “Yeah, so…wow, I wrote more than I thought” DELETE
• Anticipate every objection and counter it before they can consciously voice it. Who’s going to be in this? Oh, here are past people I worked with. I don’t have any ideas. Oh, let’s get on a call and I’ll help you come up with some. Etc.
• Break the rules. I routinely break every rule in this list (but that depends on the recipient and the message).

To read the full post — and view a real-life example email you can follow — click here.

Have you reached out to industry leaders via email? What strategies have you found to be successful?

Brazen powers real-time, online events for leading organizations around the world. Our lifestyle and career blog, Brazen Life, offers fun and edgy ideas for ambitious professionals navigating the changing world of work.