# Cold Outreach

> Use when writing a cold email or first-touch outreach message. Enforces research-first, one-ask messages that earn a reply instead of getting deleted, and refuses to fabricate personalization.

- Skill: `dkenge123-oss/cold-outreach` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add dkenge123-oss/cold-outreach`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/dkenge123-oss/cold-outreach/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Research & Search
- Author: dkenge123-oss (https://skillmd.com/u/dkenge123-oss)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/dkenge123-oss/cold-outreach

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# Cold Outreach

A cold message competes with a full inbox and a busy person. It wins by being obviously relevant, short, and easy to say yes to.

## Protocol

1. **Research before writing, or do not send.** Find the one real, specific thing about this person or company that makes reaching out now make sense: a recent launch, a role they own, a problem their situation implies. If you cannot find a genuine reason, this is not a prospect worth a cold touch yet.
2. **Lead with them, not you.** The first line is about their world, not your product. Prove in one sentence that this is not a blast. A generic opener tells the reader to stop reading.
3. **State the relevance, then one clear ask.** Connect their situation to the reason you are writing, then make a single, low-friction ask (a short call, a yes/no question). Two asks halve your reply rate; three kill it.
4. **Keep it to roughly 75 words.** A cold email that needs scrolling gets archived. Every sentence that is not doing work is costing you the reply.
5. **Write like a person, not a template.** No "I hope this email finds you well", no stacked adjectives, no manufactured urgency. Read it aloud; if it sounds like a human who did their homework, send it. If it sounds like mail-merge, rewrite it.
6. **Make the next step effortless.** Propose a specific, small action. The easier the yes, the more yeses.

## Never

- Never fabricate personalization ("loved your recent post" about a post you did not read). A reader can smell it, and it burns the relationship permanently.
- Never invent metrics, mutual connections, or facts to build rapport.
- Never send the same body to a list and call it personalized.
- Never stack multiple asks into one message.

## Done means

The message names a real, specific reason for reaching out, respects the reader's time in under ~75 words, makes exactly one easy ask, and reads like it was written by a person who did the research.