- Sales
- v1.0.0
- outreach
Reach out
Use this skill whenever creating outreach — a cold email, a LinkedIn message, a follow-up, or a multi-step sequence — for a company, a contact, a list, or a signal. Use it even when the user doesn't say "outreach": any request to write to, contact, message, or get in front of a prospect or account goes through here. Covers picking the hook, matching the org's voice, choosing the sequence shape, and staging everything for approval. Trigger phrasings: "reach out to", "draft outreach", "email this company", "message this prospect", "follow up with", "build a sequence", "contact these visitors". Also use it for strategic outreach questions ("how should our cold emails sound", "what cadence should we run") — the output is then a point of view grounded in the org's saved voice, not a sequence.
SKILL.md
Produces a staged outreach sequence awaiting the user's approval, with the reasoning attached: who, why now, what hook.
The motion table — this org's, not the skill's
This table is the org's motion library. It starts seeded and is meant to be edited — rows get added, renamed, and replaced as the org's motions take shape. Open the matching reference before drafting; follow its don'ts over generic instinct.
| Situation | Reference |
|---|---|
| Named company, named contact, or a small account set | references/targeted.md |
| An identified website visitor | references/website-visitor.md |
| A recurring or scheduled list run, cold volume | references/cold-list.md |
| Someone engaged with a post or profile on LinkedIn | references/linkedin-engagement.md |
| Funding, hiring spree, leadership change, product launch | references/company-signals.md |
| Form fill, content download, demo request, MQL, signup | references/inbound-hand-raiser.md |
| Webinar or conference registrants, attendees, no-shows | references/event-follow-up.md |
| Third-party intent data — category research, review-site activity | references/intent-signals.md |
| The user gives feedback, wants outreach to sound or perform better, announces a strategy shift, or asks to set up the voice | references/improve-outreach.md |
No row matches (win-back, referral, reply handling) → run the procedure below and say so in the reasoning. A recurring motion with no row → propose creating its reference page and adding the row.
references/improve-outreach.md is how this skill becomes the org's: it says where every kind of feedback gets recorded. Open it whenever the user reacts to a draft — feedback that isn't written down is retraining that never happened.
This org's voice and rules
Nothing recorded yet. Org-wide rules from user feedback live here, one do/don't per line with its condition when it has one. These outrank everything below except the user's live instruction.
Anchor on the hook
Every message needs a reason it goes to this person now. Hook ladder: trigger event > relationship > their own content > company initiative > persona pain (usable, but say so in the reasoning). No hook → push back before drafting. NEVER invent a signal.
The hook informs the angle; it rarely appears in the copy. Tracking-type signals — website visits, intent data, profile views — NEVER appear in the message. A public event may be referenced once, later in the message, as an observation with its implication — NEVER as the opening sentence, never as a congratulation. Leading with someone's funding round or new hire is the clearest tell that a machine wrote the message.
Voice
Approved sends accumulate automatically as style examples. Examples carry the voice; this skill carries the strategy — when they contradict, the skill is right, because examples can't be unsaved and lag every course change. Imitate an example's tone and rhythm, never a choice that breaks a rule. NEVER imitate copy from skill text or another org. No examples yet? Draft anyway from what's loaded — ICP pains, value prop, personas — plainly and shortly, tell the user the voice is provisional, and offer the voice setup flow in references/improve-outreach.md. If a contradiction keeps recurring, run that page's course-correction flow.
Draft
- Opener, email: the hook's implication, in the contact's frame. One sentence. The event or signal itself never opens the message.
- Opener, LinkedIn: say who you are and what you want in the first line. A DM has no room for a warm-up observation — it reads as preamble and gets skipped.
- Body: one researched detail max, reacted to rather than exhibited. One proof point max — attributed, sized to the company. Never a feature list, never an invented customer or stat. On LinkedIn, drop the proof point and the hard numbers entirely; the register is a message between two people, not a pitch.
- CTA: one ask, and make it the smallest real thing that could land this week — a short list to run, one account to check, a sample to review. Offering to do concrete work, or asking for the raw material to do it, beats asking for time.
- Pitch at the reader's altitude: C-level hears risk and strategy, VP hears performance, director hears operational pain.
- Shape per email: signal → proof → ask (fresh trigger); problem → cost → fix (only when the pain is documented in the ICP); before → after → bridge (easy-to-picture change).
- Draft in the language the org sells in — a wrong-language sequence is an error, not a style choice.
Cadence
The org's recorded cadence always wins; default: 3–5 steps, days ~0/3/7/14, single channel unless the motion says otherwise, never referencing one channel from the other. Every follow-up is shorter than the last, stands alone, and brings a genuinely new angle — new proof, sharper insight, useful asset, peer story — or gets skipped. Last touch: a 25–50 word breakup, door open, no new pitch — and once sent, honored. Multi-thread only for large accounts (~200+ employees), committee signals, or on request — different angle per contact, never the same email twice into one company.
The final gate
Run on every message before staging; a failed check means rewrite, not tweak:
- Delete the opener — still makes sense? The personalization is decoration; rebuild around the hook.
- Does the close contain the word "worth"? Rewrite it. "worth 15 minutes", "worth a quick look", "worth a conversation" — anyone who receives outbound has read them a hundred times, and they cost replies. Ask for the thing itself instead.
- Does sentence one name a funding round, a launch, a hire, or any other event? Rewrite — open with what it means for them, not with the news.
- Could this go to anyone else this week? Then it's a blast in costume.
- One CTA. 60–110 words, follow-ups shorter. Subject 2–5 words, lowercase, internal-looking. More "you" than "I/we".
- Email: is the proof a number or a name? "Helps teams like yours" is not proof.
- Read as the recipient with a full inbox: any reason to reply beyond politeness?
Stage
Check for an existing unsent sequence to the contact — edit, don't duplicate. Stage for manual approval with the reasoning: who, why now, what hook, which reference. NEVER auto-send unless the user says so in this conversation. NEVER attach files; link instead. A channel missing its contact data gets fixed or dropped.
What good looks like
A first-run draft — new org, zero examples — approved with a tweak, not a rewrite: a hook that fits nobody else this week, substance traceable to the org's ICP and value prop, nothing that smells like a template. Watch for: the proof point swelling into a feature list, the CTA collapsing into a calendar link, a segment blast dressed as personalization, and feedback evaporating instead of landing in the skill.
Files
10 files ship with this skill. They are installed beside the SKILL.md.
Reach out
Imported from the GTM Skills library by Swan (https://www.gtmskills.com), skills/ido-goldberg/reach-out
at https://github.com/swan-gtm/gtm-skills/commit/5d786aad0c7b2ca59b1abf1f601f9407ca261996. Written by Ido Goldberg (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ido-goldberg-ab1590b0/).
The skill is shared under the MIT License below; this notice must stay with any copy.
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