Reply-Driven Email Workshop — Landscaping Lead Generation and the Master Prompt
Live Webinar with Vanessa Roberts
(Raw transcription; not proofed for grammar or spelling.)
Click here for Google Doc of the transcript.
[1:14] Can you hear me now? I'm not muted, but my mic — is it working? Yeah, okay, great. I hope the audio is okay. I'm gonna have to use my speaker mic. So I guess I don't need that. Yep, just had a big Windows 11 update. So, all right, thanks for letting me know if you lose me again. Pop in. So I was just saying, yeah. So I had a grueling, grueling week of training — corporate training over at FinTitan last week. I've been telling Brian for about a year or maybe two that once I get both my kids off to college that I was going to go back and I was going to go get — I really want to get a psychology degree. And Brian would always say, “Why? Your boss isn't going to pay you more if you have a degree.” But I texted him on — Brian took until Wednesday — I said, “Yeah, this training has cured me of that nonsense about going to school.” My ADHD just, it could never. But I got through it and I learned a lot, got to review a lot of the processes that are going on over at FinTitan. I wasn't training for a position over there. I was just going along with the onboarding of the external sales team because Brian knew that me being aware of everything they're doing, what's working for them, and how FinTitan operates would help me support the FinTitan agents — folks who are referring businesses, restaurants and bars, nightclubs to FinTitan in a Small Batch group. So it was a very valuable time spent, but made me realize I do not miss school.
[3:02] So I hope everybody's doing okay. We're gonna jump right back into it this week with our call-to-action reply, the three-touch email campaigns. Our next campaign is landscaping. So we're gonna have a live working session after we run through some review training. So does that sound great to everybody? Now that you can hear me? Awesome, all right, I'm gonna jump off here so that you can see the screen bigger, and everybody sees my slides — “Reply Three-Touch Email Campaign” by me. For today, we're going to talk about landscaping. All good? Excellent. And we should see slides in advance. All right.
Why the Landscaping Niche? — Overview and Opportunity
[3:57] Vanessa: So our goal for today is to craft an email campaign to get landscapers to reply. We're going to build a complete three-touch email campaign, like we have been doing for niches and industries. We're not going to be asking for clicks, we're not going to be sending them to a landing page. The goal is to just get a reply — the first toe into a conversation — because a reply starts a conversation and a conversation opens the door. So why are we gonna work with the landscaping niche? Landscaping companies are local, service-based, they rely on word-of-mouth referrals. So our ability to help them generate that kind of attention — there is a real need and they respond to it. Most landscaping business owners are not drowning in marketing emails. They aren't sitting at their computer. They're not targeted very heavily for services that we can offer. So your outreach has a great chance of standing out to them.
[5:09] Most marketing that we've found is targeting insurance agents, real estate agents — those folks get marketed to a whole, whole lot. Landscaping and the trades and the contractors — that's a less tapped-into market, is what we're talking about here. So they're busy, hands-on operators, so they respond best to short, direct, personal messages, which is what we've been crafting, so it's a perfect fit for our approach.
[5:36] All right, so the philosophy of our call-to-action reply is we're looking for conversations over clicks, okay? Most cold email marketing is asking for — it's either very salesy, is asking for a click, it feels transactional, they're not engaging, they're not building a relationship. They are driving them to what can be perceived as a cold sales page, right? The call-to-action reply approach that we're developing is asking for a conversation. It feels personal. You're building a relationship. And when someone replies to your email, you have confirmation that they are investing their time and attention. It takes a lot more physical energy and attention and brain processing power for someone to choose to respond to you and type out a response, rather than just click out of curiosity. It is a micro commitment that is much more heavily weighted than just being curious and checking out your sales page. So it's a fundamentally different level of engagement than a passive click.
Building a Quality Prompt — Lessons from the Plumber Workshop
[6:54] Vanessa: So what we're gonna work on today is building a quality prompt. And everybody, let me know if you're not familiar — if you haven't been with me in the past, probably we've been doing it for about five or six weeks now. Using AI, the first thing you do when you are asking an AI to do something for you is you give it a prompt. And a prompt is the wording — how you craft the wording of what you're asking for is really important, because AI generally, mostly it gives you what you ask for, but it's colored by what it thinks you really want. So crafting a prompt is a really important step. So the quality of your AI-generated emails depends entirely on the quality of your prompt. We're going to look at an initial prompt, evaluate its flaws, and show you how to fix them to create a master prompt, like we've been doing.
[7:49] Okay, so the initial prompt — we took this from our plumber's work session, right? “I'm writing a three-touch email campaign to plumbers with the goal of getting a response. I'm offering the services of lead generation. I want each email to be business casual, no more than three to five sentences. Use plumber industry speak, don't be too salesy, just ask them to reply.” So this is the prompt that we used a couple of weeks ago when we started talking to plumbers. So what I asked AI to do is to take this — which was a great start for plumbers — and then I gave it the feedback that we had last week. It produced emails that were too wordy and predictable.
[8:35] So let's evaluate. Problem one was the first output for the plumbers was too many words, very formal, it was pushy, it felt like standard marketing. And that's what we are trying to avoid. We're trying to set ourselves apart as someone who's building a personal relationship, rather than someone who's just trying to hawk some goods. Correct — so our fix was to set the tone explicitly. We instructed the AI to be friendly, helpful, and not pushy. So the instruction I gave was: “Tone — friendly, helpful, and business casual. Sounds like I'm having a natural, non-salesy conversation with a family member or friend. Do not be pushy, gimmicky, or too predictable.” Right, so this gave the tool a lot of information about how I want to approach the conversation.
[9:27] All right, so the second problem was making claims you can't back up. The AI — our initial output of emails for the plumbers, and I was using the free version of Google Gemini — the AI tapped into, remember when I said “I tell it what I want but it often gives me what it thinks I want”? So it knew I was trying to have marketing emails. Well, what do a lot of marketing emails do? What does the AI know is out there in the world on the internet? Specific claims. Yes, every marketing course in the world will tell you to have social proof and testimonials and quantify your success, but what we're doing is we're building outreach campaigns for folks that maybe don't have that data, and don't have specific instances where they can claim success rates, right? If it's your first time reaching out to landscapers or the trades, etc., about these marketing services or the FinTitan or Allutional, whatever you're offering — if you don't have a success behind you, don't make specific claims about who we've helped and over-promising results. “I have more leads than I know what to do with,” for example. Don't promise the landscaper, the plumber, etc., that you already have leads that you're sitting on, or you can guarantee them X amount of money in a refund, or you can promise them X amount of money saved per annum on employee retention. And you don't need specific claims in the approach we're taking. So we told the AI not to make them. Explicitly tell the AI to not fabricate experience or make promises you can't, right? The last thing you want to do when you're starting out a relationship — which is what these emails are for — is build it on distrust, right?
[11:16] So claims and promises. “Do not make specific claims about who I have helped or specific issues they have faced. Do not over-promise. Position it as wanting to partner with them to build a system that generates leads specifically for them — honest and all able to be fulfilled.”
[11:47] And problem three — the original email lacked a graceful pivot on the final touch to handle situations where we reached the wrong contact. So when we did the initial prompt with plumbers, there was no nowhere for an unqualified or uninterested party to go. If you're talking to someone who was not the right person on the third email of that original campaign, it just kind of left it hanging, right? So we made an adjustment. So the instruction was: “On the third email, pivot the call of action — instead of just asking for a reply, say something more along the lines of, if I have the wrong person, please forward this message to the right contact and CC me or let me know.” This gives the person you're talking to an out or an exit ramp rather than just deleting the email. “Oh, I can't help them, I don't care,” right? If this person has seen these three emails and they see the value, they're interested in more leads, but they're just not the right person — pass it along, right?
[12:51] All right, so problem four — missing the full value proposition. The initial prompt only focused on lead generation, completely missing the opportunity to offer ongoing customer nurturing. All right, so fix — include both services, lead gen and nurturing. So we just flushed out the email. So it's not just putting yourself on the same path as an Angie's List kind of situation or Home Advisors, right? You're more than just inbound calls, right? So I'm offering — so this was the instructions to AI — “I'm offering two main services: lead generation, to help them fill their schedule with new appointments and clients, and ongoing customer relationship nurturing to develop long-term customer retention, loyalty, and growth by re-engaging their past existing customer base.”
[13:49] And problem five — doesn't sound like you. So the output sounded like a marketer instead of a real person, lacking a natural conversational voice. So how did we adjust for that? Under-promise, over-deliver, sound like you — this was our goal. So we instruct the AI to mirror your natural speaking style and take a conversational approach. The direct instruction was: “Tone — friendly, helpful, and business casual. Sounds like I'm having a natural, non-salesy conversation with a family member or friend. I prefer to under-promise and over-deliver.” So this is a restatement of the initial friendly, helpful, business casual request and a restatement of the “not to make claims.” “I prefer to under-promise and over-deliver” — that attacks the hypersalesy “but wait, there's more” kind of tone. Being humble.
[14:46] All right, so the final master prompt with all the fixes combined — and this is what we're going to take into our landscaping email workshop in just a second. By synthesizing the initial prompt with all of these adjustments, we've set the right tone, we're going to avoid false claims, we're adding the email-free pivot, we're gonna include the full value proposition, and ensuring a natural voice. After it's all said and done, after we've made all of our other adjustments, go back and make sure that we like the tonality. We've created a master prompt that will generate high-quality, effective emails. So what we've done is we've taken everything learned in the plumber workshop, and it's going to be our starting point in the landscaping workshop.
Live AI Workshop — Building the Landscaping Email Campaign
[15:28] Vanessa: So here is our master prompt. So I'm going to grab this and copy it, and then we're going to go into Gemini, all right? Everybody with me so far? I'm going to — and my slides advanced the whole time, right? Nobody said I was stuck on one slide. Let me get — all right, I want to copy exactly what the setup — okay, so let me copy. So I'm writing a three-touch email campaign to landscaping businesses and business owners with the goal of getting a response. I am offering two main services — lead generation to help them fill their schedule with new appointments, and ongoing customer retention, loyalty and growth by re-engaging their past existing customer base. Please write the three emails following these strict guidelines.
[18:13] All right, all right, so let's see. This campaign is designed to be punchy, respectful of a business owner's time, and focused on the two biggest headaches in the landscaping industry, which are empty gaps in the calendar, and leaving money on the table with past clients. Okay, what are we seeing right off the bat? What it didn't cap us at is the three sentences, right — the three to five sentences, right? So we're going to need to work on that. “I'll keep this brief because I know you're likely out in the field or managing the crew right now.” All right. That's good. They're speaking in the industry. “Most landscaping owners I talked to have the same problem. The schedule is either all or nothing — you're either buried in work or staring at a few empty days next week that should be filled with high-value installs or maintenance bills. I help landscaping businesses fill those gaps by generating exclusive, high-intent leads — no shared leads or Home Advisor bidding wars — booking appointments directly onto your calendar and ensuring your crews stay busy without you having to spend all night on estimates. Are you looking to add a few more projects to the book this month, or is your plate completely full?” All right, it's not a bad email, it's just a little long for what we're doing.
[19:24] The follow-up — “The Gold Mine” — focuses on retention and nurturing. “Following up on my last note — while getting new leads is great, most landscapers are sitting on a gold mine they haven't tapped into: their past customer list. It's five times cheaper to get a repeat project from an old client than it is to find a new one. I help you automate that nurture process so you stay top of mind for seasonal cleanups and recurring maintenance, upselling existing plants on hardscaping or lighting, generating consistent referrals without you having to ask manually.” Now this is really, really good — tapping right into knowing the services that most landscapers offer. This makes you come across like an authority, someone who does work with landscapers, you know what you're talking about, you know how to help people the way they want to get help. All right, so that's good. “We handle the outreach, you just handle the growth. Would you be open to a five-minute chat to re-engage your existing list to boost your baseline revenue?” Okay, all right.
[20:22] And then we have email three — the low-pressure check-in. “Permission to close your file. I haven't heard back from you, which usually means one of two things. You're completely slammed and don't need any more leads or retention help right now, or you're interested, but you've been in the weeds — pun intended — and haven't had a second to reply. If it's the latter, I'd love to show you how we can take the marketing and follow-up off your plate so you can focus on the actual work. If I don't hear back, I'll assume the timing isn't right, and I'll stop emails here. If you'd like to chat down the road, you know where to find me. Should we keep the door open or touch base in the fall?” All right. So it's a good start, but it's not how we know what we want and we know what works, and it's the shorter touch.
[21:10] So let me see if I can get this in a way I can copy paste because there's a lot of adjustments in our part two. I need to push down into something I can copy paste. So I'm asking, “Prompt from the training format I can copy paste.” All right, so while that's working, we can look over. All right, so these are the tone and style rules that we're going to give the AI to adjust from the initial prompt, right? “Length — keep each email very short, no more than three to five sentences max, do not be wordy. Okay, tone — friendly, helpful, and business casual. Sounds like I'm having a natural non-salesy conversation with a family member or friend. I prefer to under-promise and over-deliver. Style — don't be pushy, gimmicky, or too predictable. Do not sound like a traditional marketer. Industry speak — use natural landscaping industry terminology, e.g. seasonal schedules, crew, routing, off-season maintenance, to make me sound knowledgeable.” All right, so this wasn't too far off from the initial prompt, but we do wanna make these fine-tuning adjustments.
[22:49] So we're going to say, please write the three emails following the strict guidelines. And so I'm just copying and pasting what we just read, right? And part three — claims, call to action, and email three pivot. I'm going to paste this in at the same time, so I'm going to do part two and three at the same time. We're going to remove the claims and promises. We're going to adjust the call to action. And the three email specifics is where we indicate on the third email we're going to pivot to see if there's someone more qualified or someone I should be speaking to. So I am copying both part two here and three, right, into the same adjustment. Right — link, tone, style, claims and promises, email three specifics. All right. So this is part two and three. All adjustments. We're going to see how it kicks it out for us.
[23:55] Everybody is still with me? My chat's gone quiet. Thank you, Hazel. Hey, James. Steve, I see you. All right, great. Okay, so what we've got is much more of the casual conversation — just visually looking at it. It looks like less of a sales email. What do you guys think? Give me one if you can see how just without even reading a single word, just by looking at this in the inbox, this no longer feels like a pitch fest. Yep, all right, you get it. And the difference is — I'll scroll back up. Now you know me, I love bullet points, right? When you're talking to someone who knows you and you're not warming up a personal relationship, bullet points are really powerful when you're trying to get specific points across. But if what you're trying to do is to sound friendly and start a relationship, start a conversation, these bullet points and number lists can feel impersonal, right? So our adjustment.
[25:07] “Hey Jenny, hey Bob, I hope the seasonal schedule isn't keeping you too buried right now. I'm looking to partner with a local pro to build a custom system that helps fill any gaps in your regular routes with fresh leads. My goal is simply to help you keep your crew routing efficient without you having to stress over the calendar. Let me know if you're open to a quick chat about working together on this.” Okay. Dan says the screen froze for a little bit. Can everybody see my Gemini? It says “Email one, focus on new leads.” I just want to make sure that I don't pause. Just get back. Okay. Fantastic. All right. So this right here doesn't feel pushy. It feels natural. Sounds like you're talking to someone in the industry that you're familiar with. I like it.
[25:59] Okay, now we have to focus on nurturing, or follow-up email two. “Thought for company name.” Again, we're personalizing because all of the Small Batch System lists have business names. And nothing will grab my attention faster than seeing my own name in a subject line, seeing my company name — the recognition. It makes it feel personal. Even if you don't have the individual's name who you're emailing, that is super effective. “I wanted to follow up with a quick thought regarding your past customers. I found there's usually a lot of untapped potential in things like off-season maintenance or staying top of mind for new hardscaping projects. I'd love to help you set up a simple way to nurture those existing relationships so they stay loyal to your business long term. Let me know if you might be interested in the hands with that side of things,” right?
[26:54] So here we're introducing a new value proposition — one that probably other folks are hitting very hard if they are talking to this person. This sets you apart as a knowledgeable marketer. And these are generally the quickest path to lead conversion because the landscaper already has a proven relationship with these folks. I have a landscaper for my personal residence and, you know, it's weekly to cut the grass, blow the leaves. But once or twice a year he comes up and, you know, hits me with “it's time to cut the crepe myrtles, it's time to trim these bushes, it's time to do pine straw.” And I am a thousand percent more likely to give him that business — A, because he asked for it, and B, because it's him and I have a relationship with him and I trust him. So, being able to mass reach out to an existing list — maybe not somebody that you are in their yard every week, but you were last year — you can still reactivate, reengage them. So that is a high-value offer that you're able to give in that second email, right?
[28:12] And then email three did update to the pivot. “I'll make this my last note so I don't bother you while you're busy managing the softscaping season,” right? It's timely. “If you ever wanted to build a system to generate leads and keep your client base growing, I'm happy to help. If I have the wrong person for this, would you mind forwarding this message to the right contact and letting me know? I hope the rest of your week goes well.” Right? So — oh, do we have any feedback on this? Is this a final version of the email? Is there anything you'd change? I have a couple ideas, but I wanna know what you guys say.
Fine-Tuning the Campaign — Human Adjustments and AI Iterations
[28:51] Vanessa: I can't see all of the second email. All right, okay, so now the second email is on screen, and I will share this Google document with everybody with the replay. Craig, you can see it now. Yep. Nope, Dan, you can't see it. Let me know if it comes back. I'll highlight it too. Is it highlighting? This is email one, and then we've got email two here. There we go. All right, great. Thanks for letting me know. All right, so any feedback at all? I see two points that I'm going to ask for an adjustment.
[29:41] This is where AI stopped. So I asked Gemini to evaluate all of the plumber conversation and give me what it thought I needed for the landscape conversation, but updating it to landscaping. So this is as far as AI got me. This is where we always talk about — human fine-tuning is always gonna be necessary — because I see at least two things that I'm gonna ask it to change, but I wanna take your advice. Does anybody see — what's the — nobody? Nobody has any suggestions. All right, okay, I'll spoil it. I'll do the spoiler.
[30:21] And this is not something I could have leapt to, but here we go. Two adjustments. One — further personalize the email by mentioning that I am in their specific city. I'll say Atlanta, okay? To make the tone 25% less formal. I just felt like it was a little too heavy, right? Oh, and you know what, just to see how it does — format the sentences to have a line break between them so there is better spacing to improve readability. Let's just see how it does with that. We haven't talked about that. We're not doing bullet points, but we still want to have each point — because we're doing so few words, so few sentences, every sentence is heavily weighted. We don't want them to just breeze all through, but we don't want to make it impersonal with bullet points. So this is a compromise — just putting sentence, line break, sentence, line break.
[32:13] All right. Okay. I like the way it looks better. I'd love your feedback. “I would say I wanted to follow up with you.” Craig — yep, is that on a specific email or is that just always? All right, so let's see — focus on new leads. “Quick question about your company name schedule.” All right, personalization. High name, if you've got it, it's great. “Hope this seasonal rush here in Atlanta isn't keeping you too buried.” All right, so we've added in just a specific — it makes it much less spray and pray, much less wide net. “I'll take anybody who'll talk to me,” right. We're talking about — “I'm working in Atlanta. I'm looking to partner with a local pro to build a system that fills any gaps in your regular routes with fresh leads. The goal is just to keep your crew routing efficient without you having to stress over the calendar.” Right? It's still pretty similar, but it's broken out. It's a little more casual.
[33:08] Okay, I got you, Craig. Okay, focus on nurturing. “I had a quick thought about your past customers while I was out in Atlanta today.” This is where you would say “I wanted to follow up.” Okay. “There's usually so much work left on the table with off-season maintenance or just staying top of mind with new hardscaping projects. I'd love to help you set up a simple way to keep those relationships solid so they stay loyal to you for the long haul.” I really like the adjustments on this. As you can tell, this is probably my favorite approach — working with existing leads.
[33:46] Oh, we've got a note here. Mason says, “Gardeners I've worked with have never had or asked for my email. So I wonder how many would have emailed lists of their current or past customers.” Landscaping companies who aren't one-off, just a guy that knocks on your door with a truck, right? The landscaping companies usually have e-billing systems. They're using QuickBooks. They send an invoice. They have a larger, more infrastructure, right? And if they don't, that's okay. Maybe they have — like we could work on text opt-ins, right? The Small Batch System CRM has the SMS capability if you go Pro, so we could talk about text campaigns. I mean, there's lots of different options. If they have information, we can help them. But you can always generate business with scraped lists and stuff with marketing.
[34:54] All right, and third. “One last note — I'll make this my last note so I'm not a bother while you're busy with this softscaping season here in Atlanta. If you ever want to build a system to grab new leads and keep your client base growing, I'm happy to help. If I've got the wrong person for this, would you mind forwarding this to the right contacts and letting me know? Hope the rest of your week is a good one.” All right, so what do we see? We want to make the second email more — “I wanted to follow up.” Less asking for time, more instruction to reply back, make this less timid, right? And then I will also say — “Don't threaten ‘last note.'” I don't like that. I don't like saying it's gonna be my last email because I'm not. I'm gonna follow up with it in a month. This isn't the last email in the sequence. So my real quick edits right there.
[36:11] Oh Craig, I just saw your last note. “What about rewording, just staying top of mind in the second?” Yeah, we'll work on that. We'll see how it goes, how it plays out, right? So “Quick question.” “Hey, I hope you're hanging in there with the seasonal rush here in Atlanta. I'm looking to partner with a local pro to build a system that helps fill any gaps in your regular routes with fresh leads. My goal is just to keep your crew routing efficient so you don't have to stress over the calendar. Let me know if you're open to a quick chat about working together on this.”
[36:41] And Craig also says, “Keep that last email personalized to make him feel like he's losing a friend.” Ooh, I like that angle, right? Subject two — we're doing “I wanted to follow up,” right? “I wanted to follow up on my last note since I know things are moving fast around Atlanta right now.” That's a good addition. I like that. “I also had a thought about your past customers and how much potential there is in things like off-season maintenance or future hardscaping work.” I like that — like “Oh, I've been thinking about you. I had a thought about you.” Makes it feel very, very personal. I like this adjustment. “I'd love to help you set up a simple way to nurture those existing clients so they stay loyal to your business for the long haul. Reply back if you'd like to see how we can get that running for you.” All right, right there — that's where Craig says, “What about rewording, just staying top of mind?” Okay, so it drops that out of this version. So what do you think about this now, Craig? “Reply back if you'd like to see how we can get that running.” See, this is more assertive without being pushy, right? You wanna walk into this conversation knowing you've got the goods, right? You're the answer. This is the answer to the problem that he knows he's got, right? So we're not begging. We're not “oh, if you've got two minutes, just” — hey, when you're ready to take that next step, let's go.
[37:56] “I know you're likely swamped managing the softscaping season here in Atlanta. If you ever want to build a system to grab new leads and keep your client base growing, I'm around to help, right? If I have the wrong person for this, please forward the message to the right contact and let me know. Hope the rest of your week goes well,” right? This, the reason this sets apart is that it's not “Oh, you're losing out on millions of dollars because you're not talking to me,” right? This is “I'm here to help you. But I don't need you,” right? This isn't “I'm going to take my ball and go home, I'm going to give the leads to your competitors.” This is just, again, building a relationship, you're setting a tone. Because what you're going to do if you don't get traction off these three emails that you sent one week in May — you're gonna make an adjustment.
The June Follow-Up Sequence — Seasonal Messaging for Non-Responders
[38:44] Vanessa: “Give me a new version to use to follow up three emails in. It's May 4th right now — in four weeks.” All right, because you're not done. You're not writing them off. You're gonna keep emailing until they respond, tell you “no thank you,” opt out, etc. All right, so imagine a month from now, the beginning of June, right? Landscapers are right in the thick of the spring rush. These drafts lean into that seasonal timing while keeping things casual and direct. So in June, Atlanta spring rush. Okay, wait, let me say this — four weeks from May 4 is June, summertime in Atlanta. We don't wanna keep talking about the spring in June, right?
[39:59] Okay, so here we go. “The messaging shifts from the spring rush to the summer heat. These drafts reflect that transition in Atlanta.” All right. Atlanta spring rush, company name — all right, they still got the wrong subject line. No, it's where humanity comes in, right? “I hope you're hanging in there with the May rush here in Atlanta.” All right. Okay, Gemini is not getting it. “You are still giving me emails to send in May. I want emails to send in June to those who didn't respond in May.”
[40:51] All right, so now I feel like we're getting closer, right? “The summer schedule, the Atlanta summer heat for company name. I hope the June heat here in Atlanta hasn't been too brutal for your crew so far.” Good. “I'm still looking to partner with a local pro to build a system that keeps your regular routes full.” Okay, so these emails are exactly the same as the first. I don't like that. Those are too similar. How about this? Change the messaging, keep the tone, etc.
[41:48] “Atlanta summer routing for company name. Hey, I hope you and the crew are staying hydrated now that the Atlanta heat is really kicking in.” I like that. “Now that the initial spring rush has settled” — here we go. I knew we'd get there. “I'm looking to help a local pro build a system to keep their summer routing consistent and full. The idea is just to keep your schedule steady and predictable without you having to spend your evenings hunting for new prospects.” Okay. My husband's a contractor. I hate when he has to work at night. He is when he has to work at night, but during the day, he's building stuff. So I really like this. It taps into that work-life balance. Why do these men and women run their own businesses? The thought is so that you're not tied to all of those hours. You have more freedom. But do you, if you have to work 12 to 15 hours a day just to keep things rolling? So I like that a lot — “without you having to spend your evenings hunting for new projects.” “Let me know if you'd be open to a quick chat about how this could work for you.”
[42:56] All right, so number two. “I wanted to follow up since I know things are likely moving fast with summer maintenance and irrigation calls right now. I've been thinking about how often those big spring customers get lost once the initial softscaping or install is finished.” Very topical, I really like that a lot. “I'd love to help you build a simple system to nurture those relationships so you're the first person they call for their next big project or fall prep.” Yeah. “Reply back if you wanna see how we can get that running for you.” I love it. And “touching base.” “I'll step back for now. I know you're likely head down in the mid-season grind here in Georgia. If you want to build a system to grab new leads and keep your client base growing, I'm happy to help. If I have the wrong person for this, please forward this message to the right contact and let me know. I hope you have a productive summer and afternoon storms treat your schedule right.” Is this direction better for June follow-up? Yes, I like this a lot better. So, here — this is an example of a good follow-up to those who don't respond.
[44:03] Our last session, we worked on an email campaign that did reply and respond and nurture the folks who opened and replied but maybe didn't immediately take you up on your offer on these cold outreach emails. We will do the same thing next week for these. But here we've got your May emails for landscapers ready. Of course, take it and make it your own — run it through your own language model, humanize it, personalize it, make it your own by yourself, or run it through AI, however you prefer. I'll share that with you.
Three-Touch Framework Recap and Subject Line Tips
[44:52] Vanessa: But what we're working with is a three-touch framework at a glance. So just to recap — so we have an opening which establishes relevance and shows you understand their world. This is why we always want to — even if we don't have that language in us naturally, as you can see, Google Gemini, it's the free version, right? Everybody in the world has access to this. It doesn't have to cost you a lot of money. Those AIs can find the industry speak that — it's not heavy-handed, but it's just enough that it lets the landscaper or the recipient of the email feel like you aren't just pinballing around, you know, jack of all trades, right? It really makes them feel like you are intentionally speaking to them directly, right?
[45:46] So touch two is the value add. You're not just like everybody else who's just cranking out phone calls or clicks. “I've got a plan. I know what I'm doing. I know how to help you. And we can get you — get that schedule filled — not just with new folks, but people you already have a relationship with.” And touch three is the nudge — simple, low friction question that invites a reply. Yes, they can forward the message onto somebody else and you can start over, or they reply back and say, “Hey, you need to talk to Julie,” and then have them CC Julie, right? Because any kind of attention is a win because these are cold emails, right? You're trying to warm them up, but it's just a whole lot warmer if you get a reply than if you get a click, right?
[46:37] So things to keep in mind — with the opening, make it about them. Instead of coming in talking about yourself — “I, I, I, I get leads, I help people, I, I, I” — in all relationship building, and that goes for friendships, networking, and extending that into emailing. Establish your relevance and show the landscaping business owner that you understand their world, right? It's always about asking questions, learning about the person you're speaking to, getting them to open up. And it's tough to do with email — email by nature is a one-directional conversation — but you can convey that tone and that energy and that vibe. Reference something specific, right? We're talking about seasonal demand, crew management, local competition, and lean in with curiosity, not a hard pitch, right? You want to get them to want to talk to you, right?
[47:37] So we've got some subject line ideas, right? “Quick question about company name.” I like personalizing at every instance without being heavy-handed with it, right? You don't want to say their company name in every sentence, but tossing in the company name. We're talking about the city, we're talking about the weather in the city, right? And those emails — I don't know if you caught it, but we talked about summer storms in Georgia. Like, once the summer starts going, we will have 30 to 45 minutes of storms on even the most beautiful day. So it's relevant, it's knowledgeable. Again, it's avoiding that spray and pray. “I talk the same way to everybody” — and it's a subtle way to customize and personalize without, “Yeah, hey Bob, how are you doing Bob? Do you have enough business Bob? I can get you more business, Bob,” right? That's not relationship building right there.
[48:34] “I noticed something about your landscaping business,” “idea for your spring schedule,” etc., etc. Okay, we're citing the industry, the niche, the time of the year, your schedule — relevant. The subject line should feel like it came from a real person, not a marketing class. Bob, can you spell your name backwards, Bob? Bob can't. That's funny. Okay, here we go. So on to the value add — give before you ask. If we're creating a relationship, reciprocity is key — huge. You're already giving them something just by proposing the idea, right? They could take that email and be like, “Oh, I should reach out to my past customers.” It's a gift. It is a valuable piece of advice, but it shows that you understand marketing, you understand sales, you understand the industry. The second email provides genuine value — share an insight, a tip, an observation that demonstrates you have done your homework, right? For landscapers, this could be a tip on how similar companies are filling their schedule in the off season. You're earning the right to ask for a reply, right?
[49:45] And that's why I love so much the retapping back into an existing list. Do we get all the slides? Yes, Craig, I will give you all the slides. I'm gonna save them as a PDF. I'm also gonna give you a Google Doc of all of the prompting that we worked on in Gemini. So you get everything, all right? So an example value add — and this is not the same as what we ended up with on our emails, this is different. This is another example, just to get the brain juices flowing. “I was looking at how landscaping companies in Atlanta are booking out their spring schedules early and noticed a pattern. The ones filling up fastest are doing one simple thing differently. Happy to share if you're curious,” right? There's one simple thing — what is it? Doctors hate me — or doctors hate that we know this, right? It's a little tease, but you know, it gets the conversation going. This positions you as helpful, not salesy. It earns trust and invites engagement. I like the value add of working with past clients because it's not mysterious, it doesn't feel like a tease, it doesn't feel like a trick to get them to reply. “This one simple thing” — it's a little overdone, but it works.
[51:02] And touch three is the nudge — make it easy to say yes. The 30-mile short, friendly, and low pressure. You're not pitching. You're simply asking a question that's easy to answer. That's the key — it's easy to answer. “Are you the right person? Yes. No. Here's Julie.” The goal is to remove all friction from replying, right? Because just the reply, of any answer, is a win because it means they are seeing your emails. They are real people. They're alive. They're kicking. They're reading. And you're in, right? And then next week, we're going to go into how to handle those warm-ups for folks that do reply but don't instantly get on the phone with you. One sentence — make it feel like the easiest email they will respond to all day. And so the example nudge is “Just circling back — would it be worth a quick chat about filling your schedule this season? Or is your crew already booked solid? Either way, no pressure.”
[52:03] In our prompting that we did live together, I did take out asking for time. I don't like personally asking, “Do you just have five minutes?” Because it's easy to say, “No, I don't have five minutes.” “You have time for a call?” It's easy to say, “No, I don't have time for a call.” But “Hey, when you're ready to get serious, when you're ready to fill your schedule, give me a call” — it's assertive without being pushy. But the simple question that's easy to answer — “Am I talking to the right person?” — that's not an easy pushover question, right?
[52:35] So your complete three-touch sequence is ready. By the end of today's session, you'll have a complete three-email sequence. In fact, we did six — we did May and June, right? One goal: to start a real conversation.
Wrap-Up, Next Week Preview, and a Birthday Wish
[52:50] Vanessa: All right, so that's what I've got. Are there any questions about what we went over today? Fantastic, yes. All right, well then I — we're right at our hour mark, that took — you know, I didn't even have a dress rehearsal. Timed out right. You're very, very welcome. Amy, I'm glad you liked the approach. We are actually implementing it. I have been working with the FinTitan crew on using the three-touch campaign — not only for cold email outreach for client generation for them, but also the warmup sequences, the replies. When we get a lead capture, our contact form gets filled out from you guys — folks who are participating in the FinTitan agent program — how are we following up with those leads that maybe they don't log directly into the portal and start uploading their documents, right? We've got an open, we've got a reply, we've got a lead, we've got a click — what are we doing now? We are using this same process, and we're using this three-touch process, this call-to-action reply, because it works.
[54:03] So I'll leave you with this. What are we going to talk about next week? We're going to do the warm-up for landscapers, but then I need to know what industry do you want to reach out to next? So far we've focused on restaurants, we have focused on plumbers and landscapers for general outreach. If there is a specific offer or niche that you wanna work with, let me know. We can talk about it on Facebook, and if you don't wanna be public about it, you can go to getsupport.biz, and I'll get to work. I'll do the research, I'll put it together, and we'll talk about it on one of our next calls.
[54:36] All right, everybody, thank you so much. I hope you have a fantastic week. And in honor of my husband's birthday, which is today, I will say “May the fourth be with you” — and I have to say it was five or six years into being married to this man before I understood that that was a Star Wars joke that aligned with his May 4th birthday. Yes, it is Star Wars Day, May the 4th, and I was not a Star Wars kid. I did not get that joke. But he's a huge, huge fan. So him being born on May the 4th — he just gets tickled. He has a May the 4th shirt that he wears every year, and I gave him another one this year. I told him he has to wear it to all of his job sites today so everyone knows that it's Star Wars Day and it's Mike's birthday.
[55:32] Cass says, “My husband's birthday is near me too, not as close as yours.” Oh, yeah, because my birthday is Wednesday and Mike's birthday is today. Yeah, I love it because it means I really get to set the bar for how great a birthday he has and then he can't forget mine. Thank you, Hazel. I'm gonna work really hard to make sure that anything I can control today I do and I make it as special as I can. But I will tell them that everyone here with me today wished them a happy birthday. Thank you. All right, I will see you in the Facebook group. I hope you have a great week and we'll talk soon. Thank you so much. Bye-bye