Terrible Ways to Start Your First Sentence to Prospective Customers

Let’s cut to the chase… Here are the 3 killer (not in the good way) starters of your first sentence that don’t get read or replied to. 

  1. “My name is…”
  2. “I work for…”
  3. “I hope you’re doing well.”
  4. “Did you find what you’re looking for?”

We have all used these before in our emails, check out why these aren’t good ways to start your first sentence to a prospective customer. 

“My name is…”

Starting your first sentence with, “My name is Paula Gregory, and I am the Director Business Development for Hometown Quotes,” will make the recipient archive/delete that email immediately. They can see your name in the “From” field or your email signature along with your title. It comes off repetitive and too much about you and not about them.

The solution for this is to just eliminate this statement. Respect the recipient’s time and it also saves you time. This will help ensure your email isn’t disregarded before they even get to the point. 

“I work for…”

Telling someone who you work for is boring and maybe even worse than starting with your name. At its most, it lacks originality and the first message the prospective customer imagines is “this person is trying to sell me something.”

Using your company’s name can be useful, if the company is well known or you have spoken with the buyer before. However, it should flow naturally in jogging the buyer’s memory. If you’re sending along content, insert the name into the descriptive sentence. For example, “I have linked Hometown Quotes blog post on Best Practices Contacting Leads you may find helpful.” 

“Did you find what you’re looking for?”

One of the most used statements used by sales representatives is “Did you find what you’re looking for” when following up on content sent to buyers. This statement is unclear, confusing and possibly ambiguous. 

Be specific so the prospective buyer knows exactly what opportunities you’re referring to. The more detailed you are, the more effortless it will be to have a more productive conversation with them. For example, “Did you receive the pricing promotion I sent over on [Date]?”

 

With these three first sentence starters addressed will help you to make a good impression on the buyer. As the saying goes, “what you say matters,” but in this instance “what you don’t say matters just as much.” This is not the magic recipe for sales, but at least NOT using these terrible ways to start your conversations could help you land that sale!

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