freak shit can happen to anyone got out of a taxi in Monaco after a night out tripped on a drain ripped my knee completely out of its socket ACL, MCL, PCL, meniscus, popliteal artery... all gone was supposed to fly home in 12 hours. spent 2 months in a French hospital instead. 14 surgeries that year, i nearly lost the leg below the knee. now I can't lift my left foot and I wear an ankle brace every day let this be your reminder, take NOTHING for granted.
we paid acquisition(.)com $150,000 for mentorship they told us to make 2 changes in the business... INSTANTLY paid back the 150. and we've 3X'd since that conversation best money we ever fucking spent. lesson: NEVER be afraid to invest in yourself.
me: quick question about [Company] (0% reply rate) me: thoughts on [specific thing]? (0% reply rate) me: "{{FirstName}}, question for you" (0% reply rate) me: googles "cold email subject lines that actually work" article: "Quick question" is the best subject line! Me: ...
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we started Premium Inboxes because I wanted an Aston Martin told my co-founder: "this is the Aston Martin fund. any cash we make, I'm buying a car" the goal was a hundred grand. that was it. by the end of week four we were doing 80K a month... the question changed pretty fast after that: "how far can we actually take this thing?" funny what a stupid simple goal can become
NOBODY has the universal answer to cold email behaviour right now. and i say that as one of the people who tried hardest to find it. literally been in this game for years. i’ve spoken to THOUSANDS of cold emailers. sent MILLIONS of cold messages. i used to think i was ‘special’ and knew all the answers. we ran same-copy / different-account / same-recipient tests across hundreds of accounts trying to crack google vs microsoft behaviour. we couldn’t crack it. the honest answer we landed on is that the minute we find out what works, it changes. so watch out. anyone selling the universal answer is selling something.
best performing cold email template i've used? PPQ. P (Problem): their specific pain, in their words. what's keeping them up at night. P (Proof): a quick line of social proof matched to their industry. something like "helped a DTC brand increase sales 28% in 60 days" placed right before the CTA as a casual mention. Q (Question): a soft CTA that's easy to say yes to. "would it be crazy to hop on a quick call?" or "is this worth exploring?" bookmark this.
we started Premium Inboxes because I wanted an Aston Martin told my co-founder: "this is the Aston Martin fund. any cash we make, I'm buying a car" the goal was a hundred grand. that was it. by the end of week four we were doing 80K a month... the question changed pretty fast after that: "how far can we actually take this thing?" funny what a stupid simple goal can become
nothing validates a cold email set up better than OOO replies. they’re some of the BEST replies you could ask for as a cold emailer. think about it. you physically can NOT get an out-of-office reply from the spam folder. it's impossible. so that one auto-reply you keep ignoring... is actually the ONLY placement test that matters. an out-of-office straight up means you landed in Primary. no tool can tell you that you with more certainty.
I’ve NEVER seen a B2B business fail to book calls with cold email when they use this 5-step email sequence: (bookmark this) EMAIL 1: Initial outreach Use the PPQ framework: - One problem (their specific pain) - One proof point (quick social proof) - One question (soft CTA) - 80 words MAX EMAIL 2: Reminder + value add - Add a case study - Share a new insight - Give them a reason to engage No one wants to see “just bumping this!” Add VALUE. EMAIL 3: Ask for feedback Something like: - "Not sure if this was off base or just bad timing" - Makes it easy to respond without committing EMAIL 4: Light scarcity - "I still have a couple of spots this week if it's relevant" - Creates gentle urgency without being pushy EMAIL 5: The breakup - "No worries if now's not the right time" - "Feel free to reach out if things change" - Often gets the highest response rate of the sequence Steal this.
Richard Illingworth (@RCIllingworth) has 3.15K X followers with a 1.78% engagement rate over the past 12 months. Across 211 posts, Richard Illingworth received 5.64K total likes and 419K impressions, averaging 26.7 likes per post. This page tracks Richard Illingworth's performance metrics, top content, and engagement trends — updated daily.