Responses to Ramit’s Brain Trust’s four cold emails to me

I was recently featured on the I Will Teach You To Be Rich blog for an interview I conducted for Ramit Sethi’s Brain Trust program. Ramit’s readers are astute. Here are some of my fave cold emails from them.

Thank you for including me in your Brain Trust, Ramit!

DISCLAIMER: My website publicly and actively urges visitors to contact me via email. I enjoy meeting new folks. I’m providing this input for anyone who wants to go beyond someone’s filter.

The most effective messages

Ramit, you’re a jerk!

He’s revealed the secret. Tours will shortly be sold out.
Museum Hack is brilliant. But you already knew that.
Continue your excellent job. I’m sure you’re coming up with new ideas.
Bravo.

This one appealed to me because of the strong, straightforward subject and the message, which is wonderfully written, requires nothing of me, and appeals to my ego. This was my favorite email, and I’m sure I’ll respond favorably to it!

subject: Hacking the Love Museum

What a brilliant concept!! I simply wanted to say that you’re quite fantastic.
Would you mind if I bought you a drink?
If you ever need (OFFER OF SERVICES), I’m the one to call.

It’s flattering and thoughtful of you to provide value with the drink offer. Someone who offers me something for free: fantastic! I used to work in the industry that this guy currently sells, therefore I am still interested in the market. I don’t want to be impolite because this individual is providing value, but other than a free drink, I’m not sure why I’d want to meet. They did not mention their title in their email signature, which would have provided a little more information.

subject: Clever Idea!

Your tour service sounds fantastic, Nick; we’ll get in touch with you before our next trip to New York. Thanksgiving greetings

This was really lovely and elegant. It appealed to me.

subject: Good day

Today, Ramit Sethi’s blog featured you. Sure, you’re getting a lot of mail today… This is a good thing.

I, too, reside in the Village. My favorite museum is the Frick. Perhaps you’re giving a tour there?

Back in 2001, my favorite show was “Van Gogh and Gaugin” at the Chicago Institute… took you back to the summer when they lived together, showcased work they’d produced side by side, showed photos of ladies at the neighborhood bar who were their muses, and chronicled incidents from their “Felix and Oscar” relationship in great detail. Genius!

I enjoy museums, but I think that many of the tours are boring. I’d want to learn more about Museum Hack.

Again, I’m not trying to be nasty; I’m simply providing input as someone who received a dozen or two letters as a result of this interview: the purpose is to assist you, the reader, produce better content. There are two things about this that bother me: (1) The subject line just says Hello, and (2) the request of “Would want to know more about Museum Hack” because I mentioned it in the interview, we have a beautiful website, and what should I write about?

Conclusion

Someone mentioned in a high-profile magazine is certainly treating email like a triage call rather than a fireside chat. Keep it brief, provide value, and if you ask for something, make it specific and add something that will set you apart from the throng (a creative subject, a photo attachment, etc). If you’re wanting to connect with someone, I recommend setting a goal of merely getting to Message 2 (getting them to respond) rather than achieving your end-goal from Message 1.