August 16, 2022 Outreach

Weirdest cold email format yet: can the Justin Michael Method work in fintech

I came across a radical outreach approach dubbed the Justin Michael Method. It advocates for an unusual cold email format, alongside multi-threading 3-5 five people at any one company.

Besides the emails, you’ll also swarm your prospects with calls and voicemails, all condensed within a short period, to get answers fast. What if you get negative feedback? Go a level higher.

*As a cold email copy nerd though, I zeroed in on his idea of changing the structure of emails to leverage pattern interruption: invaluable. You’ll see why.

Pattern Interruption 101

Summary

Emails are short
The tone is assertive and you never show submission to authority (this is a tone of voice pattern interrupt)
You don’t spend more than 1 minute on personalisation

They follow the following structure:

The key to keeping the emails ridiculously short is that they centre around one pain point/fear, a solution and relevance (prospect-product fit).

Example

In the context of fintech, let’s say you’re selling a currency management software used to protect profit margins from foreign exchange rate fluctuations when companies operate across borders.

This is the cold email structure:

Subject: “Asia expansion”

“Hi Jerry, saw your press release on your expansion into Asia, congrats. Our tech frees you from having to monitor currency across multiple systems—so you don’t increase foreign exchange and operational risk from the expansion. Competitor XX saved $1.1111 million last year from working with us. If that makes sense, how does your calendar look?” Thanks, Gabriel.

Nope, I didn’t make a mistake. That’s exactly how they’re structured: no paragraphs—white space to let poor eyes breathe, bolding of words… nothing.

PS: The method also advocates for grammar mistakes to give off the impression that it’s a quick—but relevant—email that could have been written while walking your goat to school.

Cold email format analysis

This is very different from what I’m used to, but that’s the point.

I like that it’s short and pointed; something you can only achieve when you understand your customer’s pain points (this is a deep dive article on finding pain points), their impact and the affected party well.

Though the one-paragraph structure stands out from the typical cold email, I’m conflicted about how it looks to the reader. I would thus bold some words, and sprinkle an italic or numerals to guide the eye. I would also explore using an unusual font in cold emails as a pattern interrupt tactic.

Besides the email copy, your list has to be targeted to ensure the message feels relevant. No spray and pray here. According to Justin, “if you don’t have good data, point the system at less than optimal targets or skip over crucial personas, it won’t work properly.”

There’s a lot about the Justin Michael Method I haven’t mentioned here. So read the ebook, adapt it to your situation and tell us how it’s working for you. ( I know one thing though, I’m stealing aspects of it too.)