Discussions

Hey everyone,

So I’m a third-year business student, currently interning at this scrappy little B2B startup (literally 6 people including the CEO’s dog), and part of my job is helping out with prospecting. Which sounded simple when they pitched it during the interview “just help us build some lead lists and maybe write a few follow-up emails.” Easy, right?

Wrong lol.

It turns out cold emailing is, like… a whole art form. And I don’t know if I’m just bad at it or if I’m trying too hard, but nothing I write feels good. Either it’s too robotic and formal, or it’s way too casual and comes off like I’m trying to be someone’s friend at a bar. No middle ground.

The thing is, I’ve been using Datananas (which is actually kinda sick, tbh) to set up sequences and personalize stuff, but even with all the tools, I keep second-guessing what I'm saying. I’ll write something like:

"Hi Mark, I came across your profile and thought your company might benefit from our tool."

…then I stare at it for 15 minutes like… who talks like that?

But then if I try something more conversational, like:

"Hey Mark! Your recent post on sustainable logistics was awesome curious if you’d be open to checking out a new tool we’ve been building?"

…that gets no response either.

So now I’m just confused. Do I go formal and risk sounding like ChatGPT? Or casual and risk getting ignored?

Also, how much personalization is too much? Like I literally spent 30 mins researching this one guy so I could write him a line about his podcast episode, and he never even opened the email 😭

I’m starting to think my problem is I’m writing emails the way I’d write essays way too polished, too long, too cautious. But I’ve also seen some of our SDRs write absolute garbage-looking emails that get replies in 2 minutes. Like what’s the secret sauce??

One of my friends (she’s studying nursing, completely unrelated field) told me I overthink everything. She was like, “Dude, people don’t care what you say in an email, they care about why you’re saying it.” Which is kind of profound for someone who’s been googling how to become a nurse for the last six months, not gonna lie.

And maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m focusing too much on sentence structure and not enough on just being clear and real.

So here’s what I’m asking:

What’s actually working for you all in cold outreach right now?

How much time do you spend personalizing before it becomes a total waste?

Are sequences dead? Or do people still respond to a solid 3-step email flow?

Do emojis help or make you look like a try-hard? Be honest.

Is there a cheat sheet for subject lines that don’t suck?

Also, if anyone has some sample sequences or templates that don’t feel like they were written by a robot having an identity crisis, I’d love to see 'em. I know Datananas has some decent templates, but I always end up tweaking them so much they’re unrecognizable.

Oh and side note, I’m probably gonna be the one training the next intern on this stuff next semester (yikes), so I’d love to at least pretend I know what I’m doing by then.

Appreciate any advice, links, rants, or general emotional support

Thanks in advance!

Natasha (intern, stress-emailing since May)