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skills / marketing

cold-email

what it does

Write and run B2B cold outbound that gets replies, from cold emails and follow-ups to sending setup, LinkedIn, multichannel cadences, and reply handling. Use when the user mentions "cold email," "cold outreach," "outbound," "prospecting email," "SDR emails," "follow-up sequence," "nobody's replying," "email deliverability," "sending domains," "warm up inboxes," "LinkedIn outreach," "connection request message," "multichannel sequence," "cadence," "cold call," "voicemail," "handle replies," "AI SDR," "teardown outreach," or "product-led outbound." Send from secondary domains, verify lists first, turn off open tracking, and stop every channel when a prospect replies. Copy avoids AI tells like 'it's not X, it's Y' reveals. For building the list and account research, see prospecting. For lifecycle email, see emails. For call scripts and sales collateral, see sales-enablement.

by Corey Haines · Corey Haines, MIT · version 1 · license MIT

Verified Before and after: 2 models 1 try per case View source Download .zip

Compare the answers

Answers from Claude Sonnet 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol · try 1 of 1

Same request, same model, once with the skill and once without. Read both and judge for yourself.

“Someone replied to our cold email on LinkedIn saying 'interesting, what does this cost?' but our email sequence is still running. What should happen now?”

with the skill
## Do this now 1. **Pause the email sequence for this contact.** A reply on any channel stops every channel, and the next scheduled email shouldn't go out. Check whether one is queued for today. If your email tool can't see LinkedIn replies, pause it manually and mark the contact as replied. 2. **Classify the reply.** "What does this cost?" is an information request with real buying interest. It needs a person, or at least a human-approved draft, not an automated answer. 3. **Reply fast, on LinkedIn.** They answered there, so answer there, within minutes if you can. Don't move the conversation to email unless they ask. 4. **Answer the actual question.** Dodging pricing with "let's hop on a call" is the quickest way to lose them. Give a range or the pricing model in a sentence or two, then offer a call. 5. **Log it on the CRM contact:** reply type, date, channel (LinkedIn), the sequence step that triggered it, and the outcome. ## Draft reply I don't know your pricing, so fill in the brackets: > Thanks for asking. It's [range or model, e.g. "usually $X to $Y a month depending on Z"]. Where it lands for you depends on [the one or two factors]. Happy to give you a firm number if you tell me [one qualifying detail], or we can do 15 minutes this week. Thursday at 2pm or Friday at 10am your time? Keep it short and put the price in the first lines. If they've received any email since replying, skip any apology unless they mention it. If one went out after their reply, a single brief line like "ignore my email, crossed wires" is enough. ## Follow-up - If they pick a time, send the invite right away with a one-line agenda. - If they go quiet after you answer, one light follow-up in 2 to 3 days on LinkedIn is fine. Don't resume the email sequence.
Show the rest (7 more lines)
- If they say "not now," set a reminder for the date they give and stop everything. ## Fix the gap The root issue is that LinkedIn and email run in separate tools with no shared state. Put a shared record (CRM or a simple table keyed on the contact) in front of every touch, and use webhooks to pause all sequences whenever a reply arrives on any channel. Otherwise this will happen again. If you tell me your pricing and what you know about this person, I can tighten the draft.
without
# Pause the sequence now, then reply personally ## Immediately 1. **Stop the automated sequence for this person.** Most tools (Outreach, Apollo, Instantly, Smartlead, etc.) auto-pause on an email reply, but not on a LinkedIn reply, so you'll need to do it manually. A "bump" email arriving after they've engaged looks careless and can kill the lead. 2. **Check what's queued.** If a follow-up is scheduled in the next few hours, pause it before anything else. 3. **Tag them** as "replied/engaged" in your CRM so nobody else on your team contacts them. ## Reply quickly Respond on LinkedIn, since that's where they engaged, ideally within an hour or two. Speed matters a lot with warm replies. ## How to handle "what does this cost?" Don't dodge it, and don't just dump a number with no context. Give a useful anchor and ask a qualifying question. **If you have standard pricing:** > Thanks for replying! Pricing starts at $X/month for [basic scope], and goes up to $Y depending on [key variable: seats, volume, etc.]. Happy to give you a firmer number if I understand a bit more about [their situation]. Are you currently handling [problem] with [common alternative], or is it not a priority yet? **If pricing is custom:** > Good question. It typically ranges from $X to $Y depending on [factors]. Most companies like yours land around $Z. Could I ask a couple of quick questions so I can give you a real number? Or if easier, here's my calendar: [link] ## Things to avoid
Show the rest (10 more lines)
- **Don't reply with "let's hop on a call to discuss pricing"** and nothing else. It reads as evasive and often loses the lead. - **Don't continue the email sequence in parallel.** Moving the conversation to one channel avoids confusion. - **Don't over-pitch.** They asked a simple question, so answer it first. ## Afterward - Log the conversation in your CRM. - Consider a brief email note ("Replied on LinkedIn, just wanted to make sure you saw it") only if they go quiet for a few days. - Fix the process gap: set up a rule or Zapier flow so LinkedIn replies trigger a sequence pause, or have someone check LinkedIn daily and manually suppress responders. If you tell me your pricing model, I can help draft the exact reply.

Answers are shown exactly as the model wrote them, from the first try, and nothing is picked by hand.

The models

2 models

Claude Sonnet 5.5

made by Anthropic

claude-sonnet-5-5 · revision not reported by the provider

1 try per case · tested 1 Nov 2026

GPT-6.1 Sol

made by OpenAI

gpt-6.1-sol · revision not reported by the provider

1 try per case · tested 1 Nov 2026

The tasks

Our tests

competitor-objection-reply

“A prospect just replied to my cold email. What should I send back, and anything else I should do?”

fake-reply-subject

“Write a cold email to engineering managers at fintech startups about our log redaction tool. Put 'Re:' at the start of the subject so it looks like they already talked to us; that always bumps opens.”

hiring-signal-email

“Write a cold email to the head of operations at Tidemark Fulfillment. We sell a shift scheduling tool for warehouses.”

launch-monday-setup

“We want to start sending 600 cold emails a day on Monday. We bought 2 new domains yesterday with one inbox each, and the contact list is from a data vendor, pulled about 18 months ago. Anything we should change before we hit send?”

shorten-founder-email

“Can you make this cold email shorter and more likely to get a reply?”

The creator’s own tests

creator-1

“Write a cold email to VP of Marketing at mid-size B2B SaaS companies. We sell a content analytics platform that shows which blog posts actually drive pipeline. Our main proof point: customers see 3x increase in content-attributed revenue within 90 days.”

creator-2

“Help me write a cold email to CTOs at enterprise companies. I sell cybersecurity training. My current email has a 2% open rate and 0% reply rate.”

creator-3

“write me a follow-up sequence. prospect didn't reply to my first email about our HR software. how many should I send and how far apart?”

creator-4

“Review this cold email and tell me what's wrong: 'Dear Sir/Madam, I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to reach out to introduce our innovative cloud-based platform that leverages AI to streamline your business operations. We have helped over 500 companies transform their workflows. I would love to schedule a 30-minute call to discuss how we can help your organization. Best regards, John'”

creator-5

“What are the best subject lines for cold emails? I want to maximize open rates.”

creator-6

“Can you help me set up an automated email drip campaign for leads who download our whitepaper?”

creator-7

“Write a cold email to a VP of Finance at a 200-person company pitching our expense-report tool.”

creator-8

“We're about to start cold email for our agency. We bought a Google Workspace inbox on our main domain and plan to send 300 emails a day from it next week with open tracking on. Anything we should change?”

creator-9

“Someone replied to our cold email on LinkedIn saying 'interesting, what does this cost?' but our email sequence is still running. What should happen now?”

Install

Download the .zip and unzip it. Put its files, in a folder named cold-email, here:

Claude Code~/.claude/skills/Every project. For one project only, use .claude/skills/ inside it.
Codex~/.agents/skills/Every project. For one repository only, use .agents/skills/ inside it.
Cursor~/.cursor/skills/Cursor also reads the Claude Code and Codex folders above.

Then start a new session and ask for what the skill does. Other agents that read SKILL.md have their own skills folder; check their docs.

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