---
name: cold-outreach
description: Research and write specific cold emails, follow-ups, and multichannel outreach sequences. Use when contacting prospects, investors, partners, or candidates.
license: MIT
---

# Cold outreach

Write outreach that proves attention and makes one reasonable ask. Support a single message or a full sequence; do not force a campaign when one email is enough.

## Choose the mode

- **Single message:** one cold email, introduction request, follow-up, or direct message.
- **Sequence:** several touches across email and an optional professional network, each with a different job.
- **Audit:** diagnose an existing message or sequence for specificity, clarity, deliverability, and repetition.

## Workflow

1. Establish the sender, recipient, relationship, goal, offer, evidence, and requested next step. Ask only for facts the available context cannot supply.
2. Research current recipient signals when browsing is available. Prefer primary sources: the person's work, company pages, interviews, releases, job posts, and public writing.
3. Separate verified facts from inference. Never invent familiarity, praise, mutual contacts, results, or urgency.
4. Write the shortest message that can establish relevance and make the ask. The first sentence must fail if pasted into an email to a different recipient.
5. For a sequence, give each touch a distinct purpose: relevance, useful proof, a new angle, a low-friction alternative, or a graceful close. Do not paraphrase the first email five times.
6. Check subject lines, sender identity, domain authentication, unsubscribe requirements, and applicable outreach law before recommending volume.
7. Read every message aloud. Remove throat-clearing, generic flattery, hidden asks, fake scarcity, and claims without provenance.

## Load deeper guidance

- Read [single-email workflow](references/single-email-workflow.md) and [single-email reference](references/single-email-reference.md) for short-message formulas and deliverability checks.
- Read [sequence workflow](references/sequence-workflow.md) and [sequence reference](references/sequence-reference.md) for cadence, widening channels, and campaign output.

## Output

For a single message, return the subject, body, one alternate opening, and any fact that needs confirmation. For a sequence, return a table with day, channel, purpose, copy, stop condition, and measurement. Keep research notes separate from send-ready copy.