Sales Email Exercise (Headline, Offer, Proof, Persuade, P.S.

Original Letter Comments

To: Make sure you have the
right name, email
From: address and appropriate
Date: greeting. First names
are better for emails.
e.g. James,
Dear Mr Smith
Subject: New 'Sales Activator' Sales Training System Headline
Does this really grab
you? At least the
benefit is fairly obvious,
use this to train your
workforce
The Sales Activator® is the best new sales training and selling development system for Proof
This shows other
decades (source: businessballs.com). It is now used by leading companies such as Shell, companies that have
Barclays, Zurich Life, and DHL, because it offers significant advantages over conventional used. It is best if there
sales training. are quotes, numerical
proof, guarantees and
ideally an introduction
from a personal friend.
For a cost equating to just a few hundred pounds per sales team per year, your sales Offer
It is best to make the
people and managers can each participate in at least 70 hours leading-edge sales main offer before the
training and development per year - and what's more they will enjoy doing it. proof. This offer is too
vague to be effective. A
better version would be
for £399 you will receive
70 hours…
The remarkable 'Sales Activator' system uses a participative team-game quiz format to Persuade
They’re trying to provide
develop : more information and
details to persuade the
• leading-edge sales skills person, but the benefits
don’t seem to be very
• effective selling processes clear.
• peer-to-peer sales coaching
• motivational sales management skills, and
• shared best practice and team building

If you'd like to assess the effectiveness of the Sales Activator® for your sales organisation, At least they’ve offered
something for free, but
you can arrange a no-obligation, free one hour Sales Activator experience - with an
the message is getting
approved facilitator - for one of your sales teams at your next team meeting. confused. Do I have to
I'll call you soon, or please feel free to contact me to arrange it. take any action? (If you
are going to call them,
you don’t have to tell
Yours sincerely, etc. them… You’ll do it
(Signature and name) anyway)
P.S. You can see more details about the Sales Activator®, and download a free Sales P.S.
This hasn’t been
Performance Report showing the five critical factors that deliver most sales thought through,
improvement at the Sales Activator® page on www.businessballs.com. because instead of
strengthening the call to
action, it asks you to
read more sales
material.

It would have been

better to say that if you
email back today, you’ll
be given a free trial.

Source: The Sales Activator®, is a trademark of the Trainique Ltd. More info on http://www.businessballs.com/

Find more great resources at: http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/

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 Exercise 1 - Write an improved letter

You have now read the original letter and the comments beside it. Discuss how you could improve this letter
and in pairs write down a new and improved letter.

Subject: Headline
How can you grab the
reader’s attention?
Offer
Make a clear offer to the
person to make them act

Proof
How can you prove what
you say? Who are your
customers? Can you
quote them? Have you
got numbers or
percentages? Have their
colleagues/competitors
got the system?

Persuade
This is about the benefits
of the system.
• How have other people
benefited?
• Why is this a special
opportunity?
• What will happen if they
don’t purchase your
system?

P.S.
Final twist to make sure
they act now, make it
URGENT, so that people
read and act straight
away.

Find more great resources at: http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/

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 Improved Letter Sample

Original Letter Comments

To: Make sure you have the right name,
email address and appropriate
From:
greeting. First names are better for
Date: emails.
e.g. James,
Joe,
Subject: Oli Said You Wanted a Sales Training Program Headline
Make it personal, if the guys know Oli
he’s much more likely to read this
email or better still start with a phone
call and then follow it up with an
email. Every extra personal detail you
know or can find out will increase your
chances dramatically.
We met your colleague Oli at the Trade conference in Birmingham and he said Offer
The offer has been made very clear.
that you were looking for a well designed Sales training program. Well I’m very
pleased to say that for £399 you can buy the best sales training program on the
market, which we are confident will increase your sales performance
significantly.

The Sales Activator® is currently used by Shell, Barclays, Zurich Life and DHL. Proof
There’s a number in here, there’s
Barclays said that since its introduction, they’ve increased revenue per sales concrete companies and a quote from
person by 35% and sales people from DHL said that they appreciate the quality a satisfied customer. (Ideally make it
of training that DHL provides, in fact Eileen Hoden enthused,” It’s great to know from one of the company’s
the company cares about us and is willing to help us improve our sales competitors)
techniques.”
In fact we’re so confident that your sales guys will want this system that we’re Persuade
Reduce the risk and increase the
prepared to give you a free demonstration with no obligation or you can even benefit of them contacting you.
phone one of our existing customers to check out the benefits they’re getting!
General closing of the letter with the
phone number included, so that they
Please email or call me (01234 648458) so that you may have the opportunity to can make an instant decision.
experience the Sales Activator® yourself.

Yours sincerely, etc.

(Signature and name)
P.S. If you send me a reply today with all your details and names of your sales P.S.
A final twist to make them act quickly,
people, then I can get you the last 10 places for the 1-month free trial of our new i.e. if you don’t do it today we won’t
version! give you the free trial.

Find more great resources at: http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/

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