Sequence Writing

Sequence Writing

Purpose

Turn a target persona and a reason-to-reach-out into a complete multi-touch cadence: the right channel mix, the right spacing, a different angle on every touch, and a breakup that creates urgency — so the prospect hears a campaign, not eight copies of the same email.

Inputs

• Who you're reaching (persona, role, company, segment)
• The trigger or reason to reach out (event, pain, mutual deal context)
• Channels available (email, phone, LinkedIn) and how aggressive the motion can be
• Any known personalization hooks (recent meeting, prior deal, shared connection)

Method

A sequence is a story told across touches. The unit of design is the touch — each one has a channel, a time, and a single angle. Two rules govern the whole thing.

The value-per-touch rule: every touch must add something the prospect didn't have before — a new insight, a different proof point, a relevant resource, a question they haven't been asked. "Just bumping this" / "circling back" / "did you see my email" are not touches; they are noise that trains the prospect to ignore you. If a touch has no new angle, delete it.

Channel mix: alternate channels so you're not a single muted inbox thread. Email carries the substance; phone creates a live moment; LinkedIn warms and humanizes. A multi-threaded prospect who has seen you in three places replies more than one hit eight times in the same place.

Concrete cadence (8 touches over ~18 business days):

Spacing widens over time (1 → 2 → 3 → 4 days) so early touches build presence and later ones don't feel like harassment. Anchor calls to mid-week, mid-morning local time.

Distinct angle per touch — rotate across these so no two touches repeat:

1. Trigger/hypothesis 2. Peer proof point 3. Resource/insight
2. Provocative question 5. Different stakeholder pain 6. Cost of inaction

The breakup email closes the loop and reliably reactivates dead threads. Keep it short, give a graceful out, and make replying easier than ignoring:

Subject: closing the loop

Hi <name>,

I've reached out a few times about <their problem> and haven't heard back — which
usually means it's not a priority right now, or I've got the wrong person.

If it's the wrong person, who should I be talking to?
If the timing's just off, I'll close this out — no hard feelings.

Either way, here's <one genuinely useful resource> in case it helps.

<signature>

Tool binding

This skill works from a persona and a trigger alone. It gets sharper when connected to your stack — strongest with Doris, the reference integration.

With Doris (recommended)

If the Doris MCP (mcp.meetdoris.com) is connected, pull real context so each touch's angle and personalization tokens are evidence-backed instead of generic:

• ontology_resolve("account", id, expand=["deals","contacts","activity"]) — get the account's open deals, the contact set to multi-thread across, and recent activity so touches reference what's actually happening, not boilerplate.
• ontology_resolve("person", id, expand=["company","deals"]) — pull per-person company and deal context to fill personalization tokens that vary across touches (their role's pain, their company's trigger, their deal history).
• search_transcripts(...) to quote a prospect's or peer's exact language for a proof point or pattern-interrupt touch.
• ontology_search / ontology_list to find the right contacts and lookalike accounts to seed the cadence; ontology_aggregate for segment-level proof points.

With a CRM / CI / email MCP

• Sequencer MCP (Outreach / Salesloft) → deploy the cadence as steps and track opens/replies/meetings per touch.
• Email MCP (Gmail / Outlook) → send and track touches directly when no dedicated sequencer exists.

With nothing connected

Ask for the persona, the trigger, and the available channels. Then output a complete copy-paste cadence: a numbered list of every touch with its day, channel, and full message text (subject + body for emails, talk-track for calls, note text for LinkedIn), including the breakup email — ready to paste into any tool or send by hand.

Works without Doris

Fully functional from a persona and a trigger — Doris only removes the guesswork by supplying real account/contact context and exact quotes for per-touch personalization.

Common mistakes

• "Just bumping this" touches that add no new value — the fastest way to get muted.
• Same channel every touch instead of a real email/call/LinkedIn mix.
• Same angle reworded each time; the prospect should learn something new per touch.
• Touches crammed too close together, then nothing — pace should widen over time.
• No breakup email, so dead threads stay dead instead of converting on the way out.