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Cold outreach that got me to open
A tactic so clever I had to share it.
Most cold outreach is trash.
Generic. Lazy. A total waste of time.
But one message recently earned my attention, with just 2 cents.
Here’s what happened:
Someone sent me $.02 on PayPal. The note said:
“Just giving my 2 cents.”
That’s it. Simple. Creative. Different.
It worked because it broke the pattern.
Everyone follows the same LinkedIn DM templates or blasts cold emails with zero effort. But originality wins.
This one:
Cut through the noise
Made me want to engage
Created a story worth sharing
Here’s the lesson:
Creativity > volume.
You don’t need to send 1,000 messages a day.
You need to send one message that doesn’t feel like the other 999.
Want to stand out in someone’s inbox?
Do what nobody else is doing:
Send a voice note instead of a text wall
Record a short personalized Loom
Reference something they’ve posted recently and add a real insight
Or hey—drop a PayPal cent or two
It costs almost nothing to be thoughtful.
And it buys you the most valuable thing in business:
Attention.
To standing out,
Eric Siu
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