Today’s plays › All plays › Cold email

Swap AI-written “personal” first lines for one real detail from their business

Picked and checked by Olga Pearson, SalesUpLevel

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If you sell: run it before your 10am

1. 01For each prospect, find one real, current detail about their business: a project, a location, a job they’re working on. Write down where you found it.
2. 02Paste that detail and your offer into the prompt below.
3. 03Read every line before it sends. Delete anything you can’t point to a source for.
4. 04Track reply rate per campaign, and compare a “one real detail” batch against your usual opener.

I sell [product] to [type of company]. Here is one real detail about this prospect’s business, with where I found it: [detail + source].

Write a cold email under 80 words that opens with that detail in plain words, connects it to one problem we solve, and asks one easy question.

Don’t add any other facts about them, no compliments, and no “I came across your profile.” If the detail doesn’t connect to our offer, say so instead of forcing it.

Watch out for

• 14.5% is one campaign, and he runs an outbound agency, so the numbers are his own and also a pitch.
• “One real detail” has to be true and current. A wrong detail is worse than a generic line.
• A human still checks every line before it sends.

Source: Christian (@coldemailchris), @coldemailchris on X, Oct 22, 2026. Results are as reported by the source; we did not measure them.

Run these next

• 10 · What not to doDon’t let an AI SDR send 1,000 unchecked emails a day from your main domain
• 02 · Cold emailMine your old cold email campaigns for what actually booked meetings
• 14 · Cold emailTest AI first lines against a plain template before you pay for them