Sovereign #9: The 10 Habits Of Highly Effective Cold Emailing Part 1 of 2

Welcome to Issue #9 of The Sovereign Seller. Each week, I share practical strategies for using inbound and outbound marketing to generate leads and book meetings with your industry's most in-demand prospects

Sunday, November 2nd, 2025

7:11 AM

Indianapolis, IN

This week (and next) is a deep dive into using email more effectively in the prospecting process.

I want you to think about email in a different way. Not just as tool to communicate, but as a marketing tactic, if harnessed correctly, that can set you apart from your competition.

Email is important because it’s the gateway for securing appointments via a calendar invite.

But because it’s free, and easy to use, it is the most abused tactic by sellers today.

Most sales organizations have no email strategy. They hire salespeople and give zero training on how to properly harness this powerful tool.

I was no different for most of my sales career. I would haphazardly email whoever I was chasing … repeatedly … whenever it was convenient for me ... writing things "I thought" were compelling to my prospect.

But this is no strategy.

It works occasionally, but not reliably.

Realize this, in-demand buyers get HUNDREDS of emails per day from salespeople just like you.

So here's my question, how much longer can you go using no strategy? How much longer can you keep telling yourself what you're doing is effective? How confident your current approach will earn you that bonus?

Some companies automate this effort, using AI to write their emails, and software to blast out thousands of emails to unsuspecting prospects daily.

This is also bad strategy, because spam filters are better than ever at blocking impersonal “bulk spam”. And what doesn't get blocked then gets deleted, because prospects know what bulk spam looks like. There's always a "click here to unsubscribe" link.

For the past 5 years I’ve done a deep dive in B2B cold emailing strategies. I’ve invested thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours reading books, attending seminars, and on coaching.

Most of this is pretty basic, think of yourself as an athlete needing to master the fundamentals of your chosen sport.

Here’s all I can promise, if you adopt the 10 Habits of Highly Effective Emailing, more of your emails will get opened, and read, and you will get more appointments.

Habit #1: It All Starts With A List

This should be elementary, yet I get emails every day from people who don’t know my name.

Worse ... the people sending these emails haven’t done any research.

Most have mistaken me as a potential buyer of their product or services.

Here’s an example: A company selling training aids for baseball players emailed me daily when I was working for Ball State Athletics.

• I don’t coach a baseball team.
• I don’t buy training equipment.
• But I’m on their list - one of 90,000 addresses I learned.

Compiling a list of qualified prospects is the most important thing you can do, without it, you have no map.

Problem is ... there's NO way to 100% automate this task.

Software and AI can get you started, but a human (ideally you) must verify and qualify every name on that list OR you will be wasting time and money on the wrong people.

Don’t waste time on a massive list of “maybe” targets pulled from a source you can't verify. Build a curated list of 20 - 100 dream prospects, and invest time learning more about the people who have the power to say YES.

Once you have this list you have your map.

Here’s my go-to process:

1. I manually generate a list using Data Axle (formerly Reference USA) free with my library membership. I like Data Axle because you can sort by business expenditures. For example, I can sort businesses based on how much they spend on advertising, or how much they spend on telecom services.
2. I take that list and upload into Apollo AI who cleans it up and finds me more email addresses. This gets me about 80% of the way there. There are other ai/software options, use the one you like.
3. And finally, before we spend time, effort and money “marketing” to this list, I have a human verify everything. That means calling every prospect on that list to verify you have the correct decision maker, spelling of their name, mailing address, and email address.

People change jobs frequently, software can't keep up, it's worth the effort to call every business, scrape their corporate website, and check LinkedIn to verify your list.

Habit #2: Upgrade Your Subject Line

Your subject line is the #1 reason a prospect will open your email.

Headlines determine what articles or stories you read.

Getting someone to read your email is no different, and the subject line is the headline for your email.

When your email hits a prospect’s inbox, they see:

1. Your name
2. The subject line
3. And maybe a few words of preview text

And most of the time… They’re scanning from their smart phone.

So, your subject line must do the heavy lifting.

The best subject lines will include 1 or more of these 5 traits:

1. Offer newsworthy info
2. Arouse curiosity
3. Appeal to self-interest
4. Offer a clear benefit
5. Feel personal — like it’s from a friend or referral.

Here are some idea starters:

Have fun and use your own combination of these time-tested headline traits and more people will open your emails.

Habit #3: You Must Have a HOOK or OFFER

After you get your email opened (because of a great list + killer subject line) the next challenge is getting people to read, and respond to your email.

To do this you need a “hook” or an “offer.”

Most sales people offer this:

These old-school “needs-analysis” offers worked two decades ago.

But today very few (about 1-3%) will respond to those offers.

Why? Because they only appeal to the few ... who are ready to buy - today.

Here’s the secret sauce to getting more appointments: You need a “Lead Magnet”.

(I dive into greater detail about lead magnets in Sovereign #3)

It all boils down to this … You want to appeal to a larger group of prospects who are interested ... but not ready to buy - yet.

The strongest offer you can make?

Education — especially cutting-edge trends in their industry.

Do the research yourself, adopt an existing piece of company research, or hire a free-lancer and create something educationally compelling about your industry. This information becomes your lead magnet.

Give it a title: “The 6 Most Important Insights Shaping [Your Industry] in 2026”

Hire a designer to make it look impressive.

Then in you email you can say something like:

“Hi Geoff, have you seen this report?

Don’t you want to be the kind of exec who’s always ahead of the curve?”

(Geoff hasn’t. And yes, he does.)

Offer a truly helpful piece of education (like this) and you’ll triple your response.

Other appointment-generating angles to consider:

1. A referral
2. A testimonial from a peer (not a competitor)
3. An invite to a compelling business event as your guest
4. An invite to your podcast

Offers helping your buyer on their journey to making a smart decision are the best in B2B sales. Make them and get more appointments.

Habit #4: Brevity + Size Matters

Many of your prospects are reading emails on their phones.

So your email should be as brief and to the point as possible.

Here is a template influenced by the world’s most advanced copywriters.

• Hey first name,
• You seem like the kind of executive who wants to be up to date on the latest trends
• Offer to educate (lead magnet)
• Here are 3 windows of time/date I can share in person or via Zoom, I’ll send you an invite
• Thank you,
• Geoff
• P.S. More about our company: We help (people like you) (do/get) (better/cheaper/faster/easier) even if (worst-case scenario).

In addition to being brief, you need to increase the size of your text.

Most email programs (Outlook and Gmail) have a default font size of 10-12 point type.

That’s too small.

People who control large amounts of money are older.

They probably have glasses, or readers, and don’t forget - are reading email on their phones.

So increase the size of your type.

Go into your email software under “systems” and change the default fonts size to 14 pt.

Your prospects will thank you, and respond more often.

Habit #5: Don’t use 3rd Party Software Use Mail Merge

I see a lot of sales influencers on LinkedIn brag about using AI to send thousand of emails.

I don’t believe in this strategy, as I pointed out in Habit #1 - using a smaller list of curated “dream” prospects is more effective.

And here’s another reason: You can only send thousands of emails if you use software, something like MailChimp.

Because …

Corporate security is a big deal — and it’s only growing.

That means the future of email = more spam filters.

The original intent for email software was to communicate with people who “opted-in” or agreed to receive email from you. Not to blast thousands of unsuspecting prospects with unwanted inquiries.

If you see emails with the following phrase:

You are dealing with a company who’s email strategy is to send as many cold emails as possible using some type of software.

Guess what, nobody subscribed in the first place!

My advice, based on what I’ve practiced, learned and observed from the most effective sales organizations - send cold emails directly from your corporate email account.

If your emails come from a verified corporate domain they will swim through more spam filters, AND more people will read your message, leading to more appointments.

And isn’t that the point?

When you need to send personalized emails to a list, use E-Mail Merge in Microsoft Word connected to Outlook. You can send a few hundred personalized “cold” emails from your corporate inbox with a few clicks + excel spreadsheet.

Using this method will greatly reduce the risk of your email getting caught in spam filters.

Next week I'll share habits 5-10. Thank you for reading Sovereign #9.

To your success,

Shane

P.S. I created an online email video course teaching these 10 habits - if you would like to check it out (for free) email me: Shane@WhiteCollarProspecting.com