The forwardable email - by Waseem Daher - Startup Real Talk

Quoted on this wiki

Every place a page here uses this source, in the order the words come in it.

1. You’d like someone to connect you with someone else. Maybe you’re asking an investor to intro you to a potential customer, or maybe you’re asking a friend to intro you to a potential candidate. “To do this most effectively, use the forwardable email: a ready-to-go email where your “intro-er” doesn’t have to do anything other than hit forward.” Why this works:

   In Forwardable introduction copy

2. By making it easy, you improve the likelihood that it actually happens—if your recipient has to do any work, they’ll “get to it later” (which means they might never get to it). “You can make this even easier by picking a subject line that will make sense to the eventual recipient.” It’s “from you”, so your introducer doesn’t need to do a bunch of wordsmithing to make it sound like them.

   In Forwardable introduction copy

3. You can make this even easier by picking a subject line that will make sense to the eventual recipient. “It’s “from you”, so your introducer doesn’t need to do a bunch of wordsmithing to make it sound like them.” You get to frame up the context to the person you’re trying to reach in exactly the way you’d like to.

   In Forwardable introduction copy

4. It’s “from you”, so your introducer doesn’t need to do a bunch of wordsmithing to make it sound like them. “You get to frame up the context to the person you’re trying to reach in exactly the way you’d like to.” If you want people to help you, make it super-easy for them to do so. If they can’t manage it in 30 seconds from their phone, you’re unnecessarily slowing things down.

   In Forwardable introduction copy

5. You get to frame up the context to the person you’re trying to reach in exactly the way you’d like to. “If you want people to help you, make it super-easy for them to do so. If they can’t manage it in 30 seconds from their phone, you’re unnecessarily slowing things down.” I’ve included two sample emails below.

   In Forwardable introduction copy

6. Why this works: “By making it easy, you improve the likelihood that it actually happens—if your recipient has to do any work, they’ll “get to it later” (which means they might never get to it).” You can make this even easier by picking a subject line that will make sense to the eventual recipient.

   In Forwardable introduction copy

7. This format doesn’t only apply for recruiting—it also works for investor intros, customer intros, etc. “Note that I didn’t say “Thanks for offering to introduce me”—Devon hasn’t yet offered to introduce me, and I don’t want to suggest to Abby that she has. (It might make Devon less likely to forward the email, especially in an investor context.)” The essential trick is you’re writing an email to Devon, but you’re really writing an email to Abby, because the only thing Devon is going to do is to hit forward.

   In Introduction request scripts