How to Ask For Something In An Email and Actually Get What You Want

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Every day, 300 million emails are sent and received globally.

Imagine how many of those are from people who want something, and are emailing someone else to get it.

Now imagine how many of them fail.

I see that firsthand, because, as the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine, I get a lot of bad pitches — so much so that I literally keep a folder called "Bad PR Pitches".

In looking at them as a collection, there’s a clear theme: An email fails when it focuses too much on what the sender wants, instead of what the recipient wants.

Yes, people are generally emailing me because they want to be in the magazine, but this truth goes far beyond PR pitches. It's about any time you email anyone — to ask for help, for someone's time, for a partnership, or for a sale.

So, what does bad look like? And how could it be made better? It's important for everyone to know, which is why I want to open my inbox and show you.

I went on my friend Nicole Lapin's awesome Money Rehab podcast to read some emails I'd received. (Nicole is also a fellow Bulletin writer!) But I'm also going to share one in this newsletter, and break down where it went wrong — and how any email could be made better.

Ready for a trip into Bad Email Land?

One bad email

Here is the entirety of an email I once received:

One thing you know about me is that my name isn’t Jaden. We should all extend each other the courtesy of getting each other’s names right.

But that’s not even the sender’s biggest mistake. The really bad line? “How do we do that?”

This writer is treating my podcast as a service — as if being on my show is as simple as ordering a hamburger. But the thing is, that's not how it works. I am not a service provider. I have no service to provide!

So, what is my job? It is to provide valuable content to my audience. Yes, sometimes I interview people as a way of providing that value, but my focus is always on the audience. You cannot buy your way into what I create. You can only show me that your story, or knowledge, or insights, is of value to my audience.

Was this person trying to help me do that? No. He was simply asking me to provide value to him.

When you’re reaching out to ask someone something, you must understand how to make your request appealing to them. That means focusing on what motivates them — and packaging a value proposition, succinctly.

For the person who sent that email above, that could have meant writing, “Hey, I know your audience is really interested in X, and here's something that can help you do that.”

If this person had pitched me that way, then at least we would have been speaking the same language — instead of them asking for me to do something far outside the scope of my job to help them accomplish some goal that I’m not at all connected to.

A lesson in pitching

So that was my one bad email. But like I said before, this rule goes far beyond just pitching a podcaster or magazine editor. The fundamentals of pitching me are the same as pitching anybody.

Whenever you're reaching out, you have to be thinking: Who is the recipient, what is their role, and what do they need to accomplish?

When I read, “My producer says he'd like to book me on your podcast. How can we do that?” all I really hear is, “Hi, you hand out opportunities. I would like one of those.” But that's not how my job works, and it's not how almost anyone's job works. I need opportunities, too. So does everyone!

Want to connect with people? Don't ask for an opportunity; BE the opportunity.

So how could this email have landed better?

Here’s an example from someone else pitching to be on my podcast — but he nailed it. This came from a leadership strategist named Richard Medcalf:

It kept going on like that.

He showed a deep familiarity with the show, as well as my goals in how I serve my audience in the show.

He dug into a specific subject that he thought my audience would like, and where he has expertise.

He even detailed specific points that he could cover, so that I could trust he'd deliver genuine insights.

And see that bit at the top, about how he's sure I "receive a zillion pitches"? He's right! I appreciated him acknowledging how he was adding to that load. But then he differentiated himself in a way that few others did.

In short, he made it impossible for me to say no. So I said yes, and he got on the show.

You can write great, impactful emails too. Just don’t forget who they’re really for.

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Cover credit: Getty Images / wenmei Zhou