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262: Manners-First Sales Emails with Sam McKenna

Sam McKenna, Founder of #samsales Consulting, is driven by a mission to elevate the sales profession through manners-first sales emails, authentic connections, and using her platform for positive impact.

We learn about Sam’s journey to redefine sales, focusing on her Impact First Email Framework, a six-step methodology for crafting personalized and effective outreach. The framework includes creating unique, recipient-specific subject lines, using authentic preview text, transitioning seamlessly into addressing the recipient’s challenges, preemptively handling objections, and avoiding the presumptive use of calendar links. She also highlights how modern sales require emotional intelligence, adaptability, and consultative skills. She shares insights on how sales professionals can stand out in today’s competitive landscape while using thoughtful strategies to drive success.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Manners-First Sales Emails with Sam McKenna

Good day, dear listeners. This is Steve Preda with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest today is Sam McKenna, founder of #samsales Consulting, whose mission is to make a positive impact on the sales profession by helping organizations, large and small, better operationalize the most important aspects of their businesses, sales, pipeline, leader development, and LinkedIn. So welcome to the show, Sam.

Thank you for having me, Steve. Really nice to be here.

Well, it’s great to have you. So my first question is, as always, what is your personal “Why” and what are you doing in your business to manifest it?

Well, personal “Why.” So I think one of the things that I am most passionate about, as you said in my introduction, is making a positive impact. And how do we do that? So I think in a couple of different ways. One, we think about it from the sales profession perspective. I think sales, unfortunately, one, still has a bit of a dodgy reputation for most. And two, has a pretty low bar in terms of expectations of what our buyers have of what sellers are like. So it’s not hard to make a positive impact here, but I think teaching a couple of things about how to lead with a manners-first, buyer-centric approach, teach people that they can do things that are in favor of the buyer and with a little bit of good European manners, which are something you and I both know a little something about, and they can be really successful while doing it. They don’t have to cold call a hundred times. They don’t have to be really aggressive. They don’t have to be conniving. They don’t have to lie in order to be able to see success.

So I think that's one thing, just changing the perception of sales and making a positive impact there for the better. Share on X

And then two, I think one of the beautiful things about my career is I’ve managed to build a really big voice on LinkedIn. And I think what a shame if I only use that for our financial gain and our success. So to me, making a positive impact is also thinking about how I use that voice to raise money for causes that I really care about. Feeding kids or helping with humanitarian issues, et cetera. How do I use my voice to shine a light on women that are really deserving or to empower them by hosting free webinars? And I think, finally, giving our content away to underserved communities or people that could really use it. So people in the military, people that are transitioning from teaching to sales. We’re really trying to think about how to just use our voice for good, hopefully our company growth as well, so we stick around, but also for a little bit of good in the world. I think we could all use a little bit more of that.

Okay. So I’m hearing manners-first, buyer-centric approach. That’s interesting. And I mean, you told me you’re from Switzerland, and I mean, that’s my experience that the Swiss people are fairly civilized. If I look at Roger Federer, it’s kind of an iconic example of this. So that is a good segue to the framework discussion, because this podcast is all about frameworks. And you’ve developed a framework, which I don’t know what you call it exactly, but it’s about making the first email really impactful. So tell me a little bit about what is this about and what does it look like? So how does one achieve that goal?

I think if you ask any executive, any manager on the planet, when is the last time you got a really good sales email? They’d need a minute to really think about it. And the answer would probably be like, I haven’t in decades, if at all. And I think for us, we think about that framework really intensely. It’s one of the primary things that we teach. And I know it sounds, it can be really boring. Wait, hold on. But you teach for hours and hours on an email how to write one email? Yeah, we do. Because I think one thing that’s interesting about our framework is we teach all these pieces from subject line to opening sentence to all these things, which I’ll talk about in a second. But when we teach those things, you’re actually teaching building blocks for the rest of the sales process for every other email that you get. So that will send and receive as a seller and a buyer.

It's so important that you learn the framework and the building box of that very first email. Share on X

So let’s talk about a couple of things. As you said, we’re known for Show Me You Know Me. If you can squint behind me, that’s one of the frames that I’ve got in my background, and it’s our trademark line. And it’s really the art of doing our research on the buyer, who they are as a human, who they are as a company, what’s happening in their vertical. We try to find out as much as we can about the buyer, again, both as a person and also from a business perspective. And so that first framework is writing a subject line that makes absolutely no sense except to the person receiving it. So if you send me an email and you look like everything that’s in my spam right now, which is written with marketing language and quick question this and Sam plus Steve and makes absolutely just marketing jargon or AI jargon, you’re not gonna stand out, you’re probably going to my spam and you’re probably not gonna get opened. But if I sent you an email, Steve, let’s say that said something about maybe Federer, if I found it on your profile, maybe something about Hungary and then plus #samsales, you’d probably be like, well, I know Hungary, I know Federer, I don’t know what the hell #samsales is, but I’m gonna open it up ‘cause at least there’s something there that stands out. And anybody else looking at that email won’t know what that means. Would that get me an open? Would better alone get me an open?

Maybe.

Okay. I’ll work to earn it. So I think that’s one thing. Like we’re all fighting for the first most important thing and how to get that email open. So it starts with the subject line, really, really important. If my email’s not open, nobody’s gonna read it and all that effort’s going to be lost. Second component of that is that first opening sentence. So if you think about what an email box looks like, what do we see? We see name, subject line, first sentence, which is the preview text. So if we don’t nail it with that, if it comes across salesy, or if let’s say I write that really great subject line, and then I say, Steve, leading companies like yours are using #samsales for, you’re going to say, ugh, and you’re probably going to delete the email or not even open it. So I really have to nail it. So number one, I’m going to say something along the lines of we’ve yet to be properly introduced, but I’m Sam McKenna. So I want to connect the dots for you. That subject line plus that we’ve yet to be properly introduced, it’s just not something you read. And it makes you think, well, maybe we should have been properly introduced. Let me open up this email. So that’s the second component. Or we jump right into the Show Me You Know Me. So whatever it is that we mentioned in that subject line, that’s kind of wonky. We authentically connect with it right out of the gate. Maybe somebody writes to me about Switzerland. Maybe they write to me about Federer. Maybe they write to me about the speeding tickets that I’ve had, whatever it is, the things that they can find out about me, authentically connect. Then next part of the framework is we have to get to the business part of the conversation, but you need to make sure there’s a transition. Because what most sales reps do is they write that first part and they say, Oh, I see you’re from Hungary. I had the chance to visit there years ago. That’s cool. Hey, do you want to buy our stuff? No. So we need a transition, right? While I could talk to you about Federer all day, the real reason I’m reaching out is because of this. And this is where you want to think about the challenge they have and how you can solve that. So if you specifically say, hello, we can do XYZ for you. People aren’t going to say, I already have that. I don’t need it. Our XYZ rates are already good. We have to think about the challenge that they have. So I might say something like I know that as a modern sales organization, you have hundreds of thousands of LinkedIn sales navigator licenses. One of the things that we specialize in is training your sales teams on exactly how to use that. So that’s just what we do. It’s not the challenge they have. So I have to think about what’s the challenge they have and what’s the hidden or forthcoming objection. That’s where the real meat comes in. And that’s what’s next. Because that person’s going to say, I have a CSM at LinkedIn that already trains me on this. I don’t need you. So I’m going to say, while you might have a CSM at LinkedIn that trains you on this, here’s how we’re different. I have to get through that objection and I have to get through to the challenge. Your teams use this, they get trained on it, but they don’t learn how to use it to sell. They just learn how to use it. So I think that’s a couple of things there. And then that final framework, that final part of the framework is the close. The close under no circumstances is a calendar link. It is so presumptuous to me and lazy, frankly, to send a calendar link along. Here’s the equivalent of that. You walk up to somebody at a bar and you say, you’re super cute, can I take you out for a drink sometime? And the person says, that sounds great. And you say, here’s my calendar link for you to schedule that date with me. What? We would never, ever do that. So why do we do that in sales? And the other thing I would say to this, right, for everybody who objects and says, but the calendar link is so easy. You don’t have to go back and forth. Here’s what I would tell you. As a certifiable control freak, I don’t want my buyer to have to work around my calendar to schedule time with me. I want my buyer, one, I want to lead with manners-first. You tell me when you’re free and I will make it work. I’ll send the invite. I’ll do all the work on my end. I will take care of it. But, two, you tell me when it’s when it works for you, because whatever I have that’s personal, my one-on-one, my forecast call, my nail appointment, whatever that is, I’m going to move it for you. So you tell me when you’re free, and I’ll figure out how to make it work on my side. All of these components together, add up to just a different experience out of the gate. Don’t be like everybody else. It’s sending AI and scaled and veiled, inauthentic, just garbage. Be different, make an effort.

Okay, that’s great. So…

I’ll stop talking now.

No, no, I like it. So I like the idea of making the subject line very custom, recipient, preview text. Now I know what it is, but I didn’t know it a couple of weeks ago until I started sending some email blogs. The transition makes sense as well, and then the clues. Now, I have a couple of questions about this. So the first one is, it sounds like a really thoughtful email, which is great when you are on the receiving side. However, it makes the work really hard to scale on the sending side. Is this at all scalable or the idea is exactly not to make it scalable, make it a personal one-on-one outreach?

I think that the biggest question we get is, this is awesome, how does it scale? And we say, it doesn’t to a degree. So I think first, what you want to think about with, why are we so agitated about scale? Why does it have to be numbers, numbers, volume, volume? The reason for that is because our open and our reply rates are so low. So we have to send out volume because if we’re only going to get 6% of the people to open it. 1% of the people to reply has to be a lot of volume. Except when you do this, your open rates not only skyrocket, but so do your response rates. And I’ll tell you why, because your buyers are so numb to the normal outreach that when somebody is different, when they’re polite, when they make an effort, they’re like, thank God. And frankly, they reply most of the time, even if it’s a no, even if it’s not a right now, because you earned it and they want to say, thank you, great email, not for us right now, reach out in six months or I’m not the right person, we don’t do that, here’s who we do work with, et cetera. You’ll be amazed. And I think that’s, again, what I love about this methodology so much is how often people write us back and they’re like, holy shoot, it worked. And we’re like, we know, go do it again. So it doesn’t scale there. And the reason, the other thing you want to think about there is don’t just go to the standard person you’re normally reaching out to. If you reach out to a director of, let’s say sales every time, why are you reaching out to the director? Is the senior director, is the VP, is the AVP, RVP, are they typically involved? Are cross-functional senior leaders involved? Why don’t you reach out to the higher titles? Oh, well, they usually don’t come until later in the sales process. We have to earn our way up. So what? Start at the top. So where I also say it doesn’t scale is that you want to, instead of reaching out to your normal buyer persona, reach out to a skip level or skip, skip level and start there. What’s the bonus of that? Because they are also so subjected to so many of these terrible emails that they’re even more likely to respond to somebody who gave the effort. And on top of that, if I reach out, let’s say to the SVP who says, great email, you’re going to actually want to talk to my VP who directly reports to me. I’ve CC’d her in. You’re now multithreaded immediately. You have two conversations. You can start to do those threads. You can talk to the VP while still nurturing the SVP, and educating them along the way. It’s a win. Now, how does it scale? Here’s how it scales to me. When you want to start to think about, okay, I’m putting in the separate, how do I replicate it? The rest of the email scales, right? The challenge you’re solving, et cetera, scales across all of those buyer personas in an organization. And once you start to get to commercial and up, let’s say 1,000 employees and up, you can use that same content that you’ve written over and over. It’s just the Show Me You Know Me might still be custom to that person, or you can start to think about what the larger organizations, when you go to the DuPonts and the sales forces, et cetera, the Deloitte’s of the world, start to think about how you can find out things about the company and you can use that as your subject line. I’ll give you an example. So Ryan is the CEO of LinkedIn. And I looked at something that he wrote quite some time back. It was in the Financial Times. And he talked about non-making big bets, but doing like doing little small bets. Like trying things in small ways, testing the market and then going big. And so I can say something like that. I can say Ryan was just quoted in Financial Times around this. How could we help? Anyone that reports directly or directly, directly to Ryan’s going to say, what did my CEO just say? And open up that email so you can take something about the company. You can show you’ve done your research. You can show that you’re thinking about the company, but then you’ve got to specifically tie it to how you helped solve those challenges or whatever it was that was said. So it scales to a degree, but my advice to you would be, don’t think about scale. Pick 50 people, 10 people this week, Monday through Wednesday, do your research, write your emails, save them as drafts, send them on Thursday and Friday, send your second email on Saturday or Sunday, a quick follow-up and see what happens. I think you'll probably be surprised and then you'll probably get very excited and competitive about how you can break your own first week's record. Share on X

Love it, love it. Very good, very interesting framework. So what I’m wondering about is, is this the new face of sales? Because in the past, it used to be cold calling and lead gen follow up or maybe generate inbound leads and then call back kind of thing. And it sounds like this is much more realistic that someone would take a cold email like that if it’s customized and follows the right sequence as opposed to cold call. So, however, my follow-up question is, if that is the case, does it mean that the personality or the ideal salesperson is no longer what it used to be?

I think it is the new face of what it means to be successful in this market. And I think for forever, I think probably for the next decade, the way we always did things will continue to be the way that we do things, even though it’s not going to help us succeed. I think sales takes a very long time to adjust and catch up. You are likely familiar with platforms like Gong and Outreach and SalesLoft. There are still companies who don’t know, are you familiar with them?

No, actually, I’m not.

Hey, see, I’m proving points.

I’m probably 20 years behind you, not just 10.

They’re in the tech space. They’re commonplace. Everybody uses those platforms. But if you talk to people at Deloitte, if you talk to people at DuPont, if you talk to people at Exxon, and you say, how many Gong licenses do you guys have? They’re going to say, what’s a Gong? And you’re going to say, right. Gong and Outreach and Salesloft have been around for quite some time at this point. So it takes sales a long time to catch up. And I think also there is a willingness to hide behind processes that used to work because people don’t know what works today and they’re hesitant to gamble on new things and potentially lose their jobs. So we’ll talk to sales leaders who will just say, well, we’re just going to have people smile and dial 100 calls a day because what else would we do? And if that doesn’t work and if sales figures aren’t where they are, my job will be protected because I can say, well, we’re doing our part. It must be the market. It must be product. It must be product market fit. It’s not us. This is what works. We’re not, it’s not working. But if you do something different, let’s say you do Show Me You Know Me, it doesn’t work, you’ve now gambled on a new process and somebody can say, you don’t know how to sell. See ya. So I think it takes a long time, but I think that people that are willing to take that risk to say this isn’t working, we need to do something different are the ones that are going to see that success. I think the other thing is, again, I have a very strong stance on cold calls. So I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but I’m going to talk about it. But here’s my thought. I’ve never made a cold call in my life, and I think that tends to really upset people. And I think my stance on it also tends to upset people because they’ve relied on cold calls. I think we can be better than cold calls, and here’s why. First of all, let’s just look at the data alone. Number one, takes about 11 touches to even get somebody to pick up the phone. That’s a lot of smiling and dialing, even if you have an auto dialer, even if you Connect, you use a company like Connect. On top of that, show rates are really low, about 37% show rate for a meeting that’s booked on a cold call. So what does that mean? Does that mean the person’s time is wasted? We have to follow up, we have to get them again, we have to get them to agree, do they show up the next time? The other thing is cold calls don’t last. So even if I call you and I say, hello, here’s what I want to talk to you about, Steve, I leave you a voicemail. People are like, oh, leave a voicemail. They’re going to read your voicemail. It’s a great, it may be, but our buyers don’t live in their voicemail. I can’t tell you what the hell voicemails are in my voicemail. Where they live is in their email. And if you think instead, if you send that first email and they don’t respond and you send the second, and the third, and the fourth, and they don’t respond, consider that you are continuing to send them things where they can read, they can be educated, they can open and look at it, think about it, and be like, that’s interesting, and still never respond. But you are working in there. If you do Show Me You Know Me, you’re earning the right to educate them. Then you can also go multichannel, connect with them on LinkedIn, engage in their content, tag them in on things. Go and look and see what comments they’re engaging in and go and engage and have a conversation there. It’s a slower burn, but what you’re going to find is when you do that, it’s less volume, you’re protecting your reputation, and you’re just doing things that others aren’t doing. I think what’s interesting too is how LinkedIn can serve as such a positive channel for this. And I’m going to give you two distinct examples. We talk about something called bubble hunting. And if you don’t know what that is, if you go on LinkedIn right now, and you go into your inbox, you’re going to see in front of people’s pictures, there’s either no bubble, a green bubble with a dot, or a green filled in bubble, all green. When that green filled in bubble is there, that means that they’re on their desktop, and it means that they’re online. So you can see that they’re literally there. It’s like AOL Instant Messenger of the old days, like you can see that they’re online. So start to message them then. Send them a nurture. Say, I just read your podcast or just listened to your podcast. I just read your article. I love it. That's one of the things that I did to land a meeting with a really, really big title who owns about a billion dollars in P&L for a big company that does business with us. Share on X On another channel, just strategically looking and sending a message that stuck out, I was able to get the CMO of a $5 billion company on our podcast. She doesn’t know me, no comment connections, no referral, no anything. And she’s probably asked to be on podcasts all day, every day. In fact, we just recorded her podcast today. Just make an effort. You’ll be surprised at how sticking out like that can help you stick out.

Okay, so that’s very interesting. So back to my original question. Do you need people, salespeople with these different approaches, different personalities, than previously? Because it sounds like you need someone here who is more analytical, who can connect the dots, who can perceive what this person might be interested in. It requires some mental gymnastics to think about it, put more empathy, put yourself in the place of the person. And then you have to be a decent writer as well to do that. So does it mean that salespeople profiles are changing?

We need salespeople to have a brain, yes. I think what this is, is you really have to separate the two. There’s transactional selling, where you’re selling widgets or teleconferencing minutes or things like that, that are just really transactional. And then there’s a lot of selling that is consultative. If you have a consultative salesperson who is selling multiple products to enterprise buyer or analytical buyers who can’t build rapport, have a conversation, connect the dots, ask active listening questions, dig in deeper, solve challenges, you’re going to have a problem. So you need somebody that has that.

That's also what I love about sales is even if you don't have a lot of sales experience, if you can be resourceful, if you're intelligent, if you know how to make a connection, you can be successful. Share on X

My most successful salesperson ever had three whole years of selling experience. Katie O’Rourke, she works at salesforce now, and she was my very first hire. And everyone was worried when she came on board, three years, you’re going to make her an enterprise sales rep and she’s had three years of experience. Yeah, I’m going to do that. And she came in and broke every record in the sun, rookie of the year, rep of the year, all that stuff killed everybody because she has a brain, a really, really sharp brain. So hire for that, right? Ask those questions. Understand what kind of seller you’re getting. We don’t need somebody that’s been trained in every methodology that exists. We have 100,000 of those sellers that exist. Hire someone that is just smart, frankly. I will say also, this is why teachers are having so much success as they transition, unfortunately, from the education system here in the States and go into tech sales. Number one, they think who would take a chance on me? And we’re like, we will all take a chance on you. But two, think of how a teacher teaches. They instruct, they ask questions, they dig in, they challenge you, they sell whatever they’re teaching all day long.

Yeah. I mean, we are all selling all the time. Influencing people around us. And it’s just a question of what we call it, the security. That’s fascinating. So before we wrap up, I’d like to ask you kind of an off the stage kind of question. Because most of our listeners are business owners, small to medium sized business owners, business leaders, not enterprise level, typically, and you’re an entrepreneur yourself, what do you think is the most important question an entrepreneur should ask themselves?

In regards to what? Before they start a business, as they’re selling, in what area specifically?

In order to be successful as an entrepreneur. They are running a business, what is a question they should ask themselves that will help them be successful?

You said as we wrap up, because I can talk about this for another four hours, but I will try to be succinct. I think a couple of things. So one, in terms of success, I would say just a few things before you even take the leap. One, make sure that you have financial runway. It is a slow burn, even as a really tremendous seller on my side, it takes time to stand up a business. So make sure you have that financial runway. I think the other thing to understand is, what are you selling that’s different than what exists? Will you have product market fit for what it is that you’re bringing to the market? Now, I’m a sales trainer and you might say, well, sales trainer, like there’s, again, a hundred thousand of you out there. What makes you different? We teach something different. Our methodology, our style, everything is different. It’s not for everybody. And in fact, it’s not for a lot of people, but we’re different. And if that’s what you need, you’ll find us. The other thing I would say is in terms of your salesmanship, are you able to sell? Do you know how to run a sales process? Do you know how to prospect? Do you know how to lead initial calls? Do you know how to follow through, nurture, guide that deal to close? If not, find somebody, find a great co-partner, co-founder. Make sure you have funding to be able to hire, not a VP of sales that everybody gets excited about hiring, but make sure that you have somebody that can run that sales process. And the final thing I would ask you is who do you get your motivation from? And what I mean by this is, some of the most tremendously successful people that I know are there, I’m a total people pleaser, but they’re people pleasers who are not self-motivated. They’re motivated by pleasing and reporting to other people. So with that in mind, if you are not self-motivated, if you are not driven by your own goals, there’s a likelihood that you’re gonna take the leap and go to become an entrepreneur. And then there’s going to be no one above you to please, to report to, to work with, to say, atta girl, atta boy, I don’t have that. It’s my own self being like, great work today. So you just need to make sure that that satisfaction, that discipline and that motivation is within you, because if it’s not, I’ll be on the couch eating Cheetos before you know it.

So people who are people pleasers are unlikely to be successful entrepreneurs?

I am a people pleaser all day long, I want everybody to be happy and to be having a good time. However, if you are a people pleaser and you need to have somebody above you that is saying that is motivating you, that’s supporting you, that you’re doing a good job and is saying great work at the end of the day. It’s if it’s not enough to come from your own self, if you’re not self motivated, I think you’re going to be challenged because you’re going to miss out on the accolades you used to get at work because you’re the only one giving them to yourself and it might not be that rewarding in the end.

Yeah, no, I love this perspective. I never thought of people who are non-entrepreneurial as perhaps because they need someone’s validation and they cannot give it to themselves. It’s super interesting. We talked about your framework, which we might call the First Sales Email Impact or First Sales Impact Email, something like that.

I like it.

And I like this idea of the face of sales is changing and the new type of salesperson is more of an analytical, smart person who’s got emotional intelligence as well, who can basically influence others through thoughtful messaging. And we talked about your “Why” as well. So if people would like to learn more about your processes, and I saw on your LinkedIn page, there are a million things that you can help people with, if they would like to become better salespeople, more effective, or they want someone for the business that is going to shake some trees, where should they go and where can they learn more?

Come say hello on LinkedIn, first and foremost. I’m pretty easy to find there. And then go to samsalesconsulting.com. If you sign up for our newsletter, you’re going to find a bunch of things that we offer for free from our webinars, to our workshops, our YouTube channels, all of that. But then there’s also a spot under our playbooks where you can purchase our playbooks to go right to getting exactly what you want from us, whether it’s prospecting or how to implement Show Me You Know Me, how to write great emails, whatever it is you need is pretty much already there.

Yeah, I love it that you have playbooks that you also share with people so that they can just pick it up and incorporate it in their own systems. Fantastic. So, Sam McKenna, founder of #samsales Consulting and #samsales and the ShowMeYouKnowMe #SMYKM.

You got it.

Yeah, that’s a big thing trending on LinkedIn, so check her out. And if you enjoyed this show, then please follow us on LinkedIn and give us a review on Apple Podcast, on YouTube, and come back because twice a week, we are posting new shows on all these platforms. So thanks for coming, Sam, and thanks for listening.

Thank you, Steve. 

 

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