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Good Morning, How Are You? — Dropped Like a Stone into a Frozen Lake: The Unconvincing Message

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Why does your sales e-mail convince nobody? And what should you do instead?

There is a strange moment I experience every morning — a moment that, if I described it to someone who doesn't work in the digital world, would seem entirely banal, almost ridiculous as a subject for reflection: "Good Morning, How Are You?" — Dropped Like a Stone into a Frozen Lake: The Unconvincing MessageI open my inbox and work through, with a patience they don't deserve, a pile of unsolicited messages written by people I don't know, about services I'm not sure I need, phrased in a language that tells me everything about the sender and nothing about me. And I think, as I delete them one by one, that somewhere out there is a person who wrote these messages in the genuine belief that they would persuade. That behind every hastily worded subject line there is a sincere hope — behind every "Good Morning, How Are You?" dropped into the void like a stone thrown into a dark lake, without knowing whether there is still water there or whether it has frozen over. The Romanian popular expression "like a walnut in the wall"

And it is precisely this sincere, unfounded hope that troubles me most. Not stupidity, nor bad faith — but ignorance. The fact that there are people who work honestly, who offer real and valuable services, and who still reach nobody, because they don't know that persuasion has a logic, an order, a set of principles that neither you nor I invented, but which were described by a man named Robert Cialdini four decades ago, after years of research — and which the ordinary Romanian knows intuitively through proverbs and grandparents' stories, without ever having read them set down in academic form.

Many Words, Much Poverty — or Why What You Say First Matters

The first proverb that comes to mind when I read a badly constructed sales e-mail is this: many words, much poverty. Not because an e-mail should be short for the sake of brevity, but because the length of a message that says nothing relevant to its recipient is a form of communicative poverty — proof that the sender spent not a single minute thinking about who is reading, only about what they want to sell.

The e-mail I received, the one that set all of this thinking in motion, looked, on the surface, perfectly innocuous: "Good Morning, How Are You? A few months ago I sent you an e-mail introducing our services: article writing and advertorial publishing. We are following up with an update, as we have reorganised our services to be better suited to the times we live in: Lower prices / We have integrated AI into our workflow without losing the human element / We always keep up with what is new and we adapt."

I read this paragraph three times — not because it was complex, but because I was wondering whether I had missed something. A reason why this information concerned me in particular. There was nothing. The dominant grammatical subject was we. We have. We have integrated. We are. The recipient — that is, me — was invisible in the very e-mail addressed to him.

Cialdini calls this fundamental principle of persuasion reciprocity — but true reciprocity does not mean offering something after you have asked for something; it means offering before any request has been made. Giving without having laid hands on what you want. Romanians know this differently: if you want to receive, learn to give. Or more directly: the hand that gives does not grow poor. These sayings are not rural sentimentality. They are behavioural psychology dressed in bark and weathered wood. They describe the same mechanism measured in neuromarketing laboratories: when you receive something of value without having asked for it, a powerful impulse is activated within you to return the gesture. The psychological debt precedes any rational decision.

An e-mail that respects reciprocity looks entirely different: "I analysed a few pages on [domain] and noticed that the recent articles are not structured to be cited by AI tools — Google Gemini, Perplexity, ChatGPT — which are increasingly absorbing top organic traffic. If you would like, I can send you a short report with specific observations — with no obligation on your part." The difference is not one of tone. It is one of direction. The first e-mail moves from sender to recipient, asking. The second moves from sender to recipient, offering.

The Craftsman Hallows the Place — or On Credibility Earned, Not Proclaimed

The second thing that bothered me about the e-mail I received was the abundance of unsubstantiated claims. "Perfect content for your website." "Always up to date with what is new." "We have integrated AI without losing the human element." Each of these sentences is hollow in itself, because it contains no verifiable element. They are assertions that ask to be taken on trust, without having given me any reason to extend it.

The proverb that comes to mind is the craftsman hallows the place, and I first heard it from my father, who was a mechanic and who understood intuitively that a capable person doesn't need to say they are capable — it shows in their work. My father never spoke about the quality of his work. He showed the repaired engine, the changed wheel, the checked brakes. The proof was in the object, not the word.

Cialdini calls this principle authority and emphasises that it is not built through declarations but through evidence, references, and verifiable results. A person who tells you they are an expert is no more credible than one who says nothing, if they have nothing concrete to back it up. An e-mail that respects the principle of authority doesn't say "we are good" — it shows they are good: "We worked with [client in a similar field] and in six months organic traffic grew from 800 to 4,200 unique visitors per month, exclusively through structured editorial content and a methodically built backlink profile." The figure is verifiable. The client is real. The method is explained. That is authority.

Closely related to authority is the principle of social proof — the fact that people tend to do what they see others doing, especially others who resemble them or whom they respect. Romanians know this from tell me who you keep company with and I'll tell you who you are. The proverb describes the mechanism of social proof precisely: before I evaluate who you are, I look at whom you have chosen to be with. An e-mail that uses social proof doesn't say "we work with important companies" — it says: "Among the clients we have worked with over the past year are firms from [field], [field] and [field]" — or, better still, presents a specific situation with results attached.

Not Everything That Flies Is Worth Catching — or On Specificity as a Form of Respect

There is a fundamental problem with any sales communication that addresses everyone: it addresses no one. When you write an e-mail that could equally have been sent to an online clothes shop, a tax consultancy firm, and a dental practice, you have produced a linguistic artefact with no real recipient. The fitting proverb is not everything that flies is worth catching — that is, not everything that appears to be an opportunity is one, and not every message phrased in English constitutes an act of communication.

Personalisation does not mean putting the recipient's first name in the subject line. Any two-penny e-mail marketing software does that, and everyone knows it is automated. Real personalisation means demonstrating that you spent at least a few minutes understanding who the person is, what they do, what challenges they face, and why you chose to write to them rather than to someone else.

A genuinely personalised e-mail looks like this: "I noticed that you publish content about [specific topic observed on the site]. It is a subject that attracts good search traffic, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to rank as AI captures a growing share of direct answers from Google. There is a specific strategy for this type of content — we are no longer talking about classical SEO, but about AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation): structuring articles so that they are cited by AI tools, not replaced by them." This is an observation that could not have been sent to just anyone. It presupposes that the sender visited the site, read a few articles, and thought through a connection. This is value before the ask. This is reciprocity applied.

Make Haste Slowly — or On the Graduated Ask

The original e-mail was especially wrong in its premature overreach. Having offered nothing, having demonstrated nothing, it demanded in a single move: the website, the name, and the telephone number. Social psychologists call this error front-loading the initial request, and it fails almost invariably, because it activates resistance rather than engagement.

The proverb that perfectly describes this principle is make haste slowly. Or, in its practical version from popular wisdom: don't put the cart before the horse. Success in selling, as in any human relationship worth building, requires a logical sequence of progressive commitment. Social psychology calls it foot-in-the-door: ask for something small first, receive a small "yes", and only from there build towards larger commitments.

An e-mail that respects the principle of the graduated ask never requests a phone number and personal details at first contact. Instead it asks for a "yes" to a micro-request: "If you would like, I can send you a short audit — three or four specific observations about your website, with no obligation on your part. If after reading it you feel it makes sense to discuss further, excellent. If not, you will have received something useful in any case." This is a first "yes" — easy, reversible, costless. From there, if the audit is good, if it demonstrates genuine competence, the conversation opens naturally.

Kind Words Open Many Doors — or On Tone as a Signal of Character

The original e-mail oscillated strangely between the formal register and a smiley face :) at the end. This tonal inconsistency is not a minor stylistic detail. It is a signal. It tells me that the sender did not think coherently about the identity of the voice they were using. That there is a dissonance between the desire to appear professional and the desire to appear likeable. That these two desires were never reconciled.

Romanians have an extraordinarily precise proverb for this situation: kind words open many doors. But kind words, in folk wisdom, do not mean theatrical warmth or emoji plastered at the end of a business message. They mean authentic warmth, calibrated tone, consistency. A person who speaks kindly speaks the same way at all times — not sweetly to the boss and sourly to the employee, not formally to the client and carelessly to the supplier.

The tone of a good sales e-mail is warm but not familiar. Direct but not aggressive. Respectful without being servile. It makes no compromises in order to seem more likeable — because people instinctively sense the difference between genuine and calculated warmth.

Every Man Is Indebted with One Death — or On Authentic Urgency Versus Manufactured Urgency

The original e-mail contained no urgency. Not even a false one. It was a passive invitation without stakes — an "if you wish" that tied the action to no consequence whatsoever. And yet urgency is one of the most powerful psychological mechanisms in decision-making — because, as Cialdini observed, people fear loss more than they love gain.

The proverb that explains this in Romanian is semantically distant but emotionally precise: every man is indebted with one death. That is, there is one thing that is certain and irreversible — the end. For that very reason, everything that is finite, limited, and will no longer be available acquires value. Not because it is better, but because its disappearance is certain.

Ethical urgency — and I emphasise ethical, because manufactured urgency is a form of manipulation you recognise and reject — is urgency that springs from a real reality: a window of opportunity that genuinely exists, a problem that worsens if not addressed now, a context that is changing. An e-mail that uses honest urgency might say: "Google's algorithm has significantly changed the way it indexes content over the past six months. If you don't adjust the structure of your articles before the next crawl, you risk losing your current rankings." This is real urgency, grounded in a verifiable fact, not an invented deadline.

As You Make Your Bed, So You Must Lie in It — or On the Consistency of Commitment

Cialdini speaks of commitment and consistency as a second fundamental mechanism: once you have said "yes" to something, you tend to remain consistent with that "yes". People do not wish to see themselves as inconsistent, and for that reason a small initial commitment opens the path to larger ones.

The perfect Romanian proverb for this is as you make your bed, so you must lie in it. It describes the principle of consistency precisely: what you lay as a foundation determines everything that follows. If the first contact with a potential client is a useful audit, a pertinent observation, a generous gesture — they will tend to remain consistent with the image of you as a capable and generous person. If the first contact is a request for personal data without any value offered beforehand, your image will be that of someone who takes without giving.

Knowledge Without Conscience Is the Ruin of the Soul — or On Ethics in Persuasion

It must be said explicitly — as Cialdini himself emphasises in his book — that these principles can be used both ethically and manipulatively. The difference is not in the technique; it is in the intention and the substance. An e-mail that uses reciprocity to offer genuine value to someone who can benefit from it is ethical. An e-mail that simulates reciprocity — by offering something useless or false — is manipulative.

Knowledge without conscience is the ruin of the soul — this is not a Romanian proverb; it is Rabelais, but it has entered our cultural thinking and I include it here because it is apt: you can know all of Cialdini's principles of persuasion and use them to deceive. You can construct false urgency, invented social proof, fabricated authority. You will probably persuade, in the short term. You will certainly lose, in the long term — because, as our own proverb says, a lie has short legs.

Ethical persuasion begins from a simple premise: what you offer must be real and of value to the person to whom you offer it. If your product or service is not good, no technique of persuasion will save you in the long run. Cialdini's principles are not tools of manipulation — they are tools of communication that, when applied on an honest foundation, shorten the distance between you and someone who might genuinely benefit from what you have to offer.

Conclusion — The E-mail as an Act of Respect or an Act of Trespassing

I return to my inbox each morning with the same feeling I have when someone knocks at my door to sell me something without having been invited: a mixture of irritation and sadness. The irritation is for the space invaded without permission. The sadness is for the person who worked to compose a message that nobody will read.

Before you send a sales e-mail, there is a question that Cialdini — indirectly — and Mark Twain — explicitly — have both formulated: Would you be comfortable if the recipient made this message public? If the answer is no — if your message asks more than it offers, if it asserts without demonstrating, if it addresses everyone and no one — then it is not a sales e-mail. It is noise.

The good e-mail is the one the recipient reads and thinks: someone spent time understanding what I am dealing with. That is respect. That is the only foundation on which lasting commercial relationships are built.

Or, as Romanians put it more simply and more truthfully than any marketing manual: treat people as you would have them treat you.

15 Questions and Answers on Persuasion in Communication with Prospective Clients

1. Why are sales e-mails ignored in overwhelming proportions?

Because most of them address the sender, not the recipient. They communicate what the sender wants to sell, not what the recipient needs to know. Any message that does not begin from a real problem faced by the person it is addressed to is, psychologically speaking, background noise.

2. What is reciprocity in sales communication, and why is it the first principle to observe?

Reciprocity means offering something of value before asking for anything in return. It is the first principle because it activates a deep and universal psychological mechanism: the moral obligation to return a kind gesture. If you offer a useful diagnosis, a pertinent observation, a piece of relevant content — the recipient feels, unconsciously, compelled to respond. Not from weakness, but from human nature.

3. Is reciprocity a form of manipulation?

No — not if what you offer is real and of value. Manipulation arises when the "gift" is false or irrelevant: a useless e-book, an "audit" that says nothing concrete. Ethical reciprocity requires that what you offer before making your ask is genuinely useful, regardless of whether the sale is made or not.

4. Why do vague assertions destroy credibility rather than build it?

Because the human brain instinctively detects vagueness as a signal of uncertainty or deception. When someone tells you they have "lower prices" without telling you lower than what, or that they produce "perfect content" without showing you an example, your mind activates a defensive reflex. Specificity, by contrast, signals real knowledge and generates trust.

5. How does social proof work in prospecting e-mails?

Social proof works through a transfer of credibility: if other people similar to me have chosen to work with you and achieved good results, my perceived risk decreases. The most powerful way to apply social proof in an e-mail is a concrete case with real figures from a field similar to that of the recipient.

6. What mistake does a premature request for personal data most frequently make?

It activates psychological resistance. When someone asks for your phone number, name, and website before having demonstrated that they deserve a moment of your attention, you feel you are being treated as a resource rather than a person. Social psychology calls this phenomenon reactance — the instinctive tendency to resist when you feel that your freedom to decide is being threatened.

7. What does a well-constructed call to action look like compared to a weak one?

A weak CTA is passive and without stakes: "If you wish, please contact us." A good CTA is specific, graduated, and reversible: "I will send you a three- to four-page audit of your website. If after reading it you find nothing useful, you are under no obligation." The second asks for a small commitment, offers a clear value, and reduces decision-making anxiety.

8. What role does tonal consistency play in the perception of professionalism?

A decisive one. Inconsistent tone — formal in the body, informal at the end — communicates identity confusion. The recipient doesn't know what kind of partner they would be working with: rigorous or relaxed? Tonal consistency is, above all, an implicit promise about how you will be once the commercial relationship has been established.

9. Why does urgency work as a persuasion mechanism, and when does it become manipulation?

Urgency works because, psychologically, the fear of loss is stronger than the desire for gain. Cialdini documented this mechanism extensively. It becomes manipulation when the urgency is manufactured: false deadlines, invented stock shortages, "one-time" offers that recur every week. Ethical urgency springs from a real and verifiable reality.

10. How important is personalisation, and what does it actually mean?

It is decisive in the age of AI, when people's filters for generic content are finer than ever. Real personalisation does not mean using the recipient's first name. It means demonstrating that you have read, that you have thought, that you have connected information about them with what you have to offer. A genuinely personalised e-mail could not have been sent to anyone else.

11. How does the principle of commitment and consistency influence a long-term commercial relationship?

A first small "yes" opens a door. People tend to remain consistent with decisions they have previously made, especially when those decisions are public or carry a moral commitment. For that reason, the correct strategy in prospecting is to build a series of small, incremental "yes"-es — not to deliver an exhaustive sales presentation at the first point of contact.

12. Can a short e-mail be more persuasive than a long one?

Absolutely. Research shows that e-mails of seventy-five to a hundred words have the highest response rate. Length does not add authority — specificity and relevance do. An e-mail of eighty words containing a precise observation about the recipient's concrete problem is ten times more effective than a five-hundred-word e-mail about your services.

13. Is there a difference between persuasion and conviction?

Yes, and it is an important one. Conviction operates at a rational level — you present arguments, the other person evaluates them, and makes a decision. Persuasion operates also at an emotional and psychological level — it activates pre-rational mechanisms that prepare the ground for a decision. The most effective sales messages combine both: emotion opens the door; argument walks through it.

14. Why do sales e-mails written in the first person plural ("we have", "we offer") perform worse?

Because they place the sender at the centre of the message. The recipient is not primarily interested in you — they are interested in themselves, in their problems, in their goals. An effective e-mail uses the second person as much as possible: "you", "your website", "the challenge you are facing". The grammatical subject of a good e-mail is the recipient, not the sender.

15. What question should anyone ask themselves before sending a sales e-mail?

One single question, but a decisive one: If the recipient made this message public, would I feel comfortable? If the answer is yes — if your message offers real value, is honest and respectful, and addresses a real problem — then you can press send. If you hesitate, if there is something in the message that makes you slightly uneasy, stop and rewrite it.

Bibliography

Petru Cojocaru is a web analyst and editor at cojocarupetru.ro. He writes about digital communication, persuasion, and the ethics of online presence.

My Confession, One Week Later

I reread my article about that unconvincing e-mail — the one with the "Good Morning, How Are You?" dropped like a stone into a frozen lake. And, as so often when I return to something I have written, I found something I had missed at the time. A nuance. Perhaps the most important one of all.

I wrote about reciprocity, about authority, about social proof, about urgency. I quoted Romanian proverbs, split hairs, and drew up the complete diagram of ethical persuasion. And yet, there, between the lines, I sensed that I had missed something that cannot be caught in principles and lists of best practices.

What I Noticed When I Truly Reread

I looked at the e-mails I had kept, as a recipient. Not the ones I had replied to — but the ones I hadn't deleted immediately, yet didn't know what to do with. And I noticed a pattern I had not named in the article.

There is a strange moment in which you, the recipient, read a well-written text. It has good sense. The words are chosen with care. It is not illiterate, not aggressive, neither too short nor too long. It is semantically polished. And then, instead of convincing you, that text awakens in you... something else.

A curiosity, a suspicion, or a bewilderment.

The curiosity: "Why did they send me this particular text?"

The suspicion: "It's too well-crafted. What do they actually want?"

Or, simply: "I don't understand. What has this got to do with me?"

Why Does This Happen?

Because we have all learnt to be wary. Not out of malice — out of self-preservation. Our inbox is a silent battlefield in which every message fights for a fraction of a second of our attention. And in that fraction of a second, our brain makes a lightning assessment:

  • Do I know someone who received something similar and was deceived? → suspicion
  • Did I ever ask for anything this person is showing me? → bewilderment
  • Why me specifically? What do they know about me? → curiosity

That is what I missed in the article: that a good, well-crafted text with genuine good sense is not enough. More than that — in certain contexts, it becomes suspect precisely because it is too good.

The Nuance I Did Not Write Then

Here it is now, as a confession:

When the recipient notices a well-written text, considered and semantically polished, they do not move directly to "how lovely, let me reply". They enter an intermediate state of gentle alertness. They wonder: "What am I not seeing here?" Or: "What is all this care trying to conceal?"

It is like walking into a house that is too tidy. You do not feel at ease immediately. You look for signs of real life — an unwashed plate, a book left face-down, a layer of dust on the shelf. Their absence makes you suspect that something is not authentic.

The same is true of a text that is too polished in a cold context (an unsolicited e-mail, an out-of-the-blue offer). It can signal, perversely, too much effort. And excessive effort, in the mind of a recipient who does not know you, is often read as "they have something to hide" or "they tried too hard to convince me, so something must be false here".

What This Means for Me as the Author

It means I was wrong by what I left out. I wrote an article about how to persuade, but I did not say enough that sometimes persuasion comes not from the perfection of the text, but from small imperfections that signal authenticity.

Or, more precisely: an impeccable text in an imperfect channel (a cold e-mail, a message on LinkedIn from a stranger) creates a rupture. Reality has rough edges. Real offers carry traces of a human being, not just semantic refinement.

An e-mail that says "I know you receive dozens of messages like this one, and you will probably delete it" — that small addition of self-awareness, that crack in the armour of perfection — can be more persuasive than the most beautiful paragraph about reciprocity.

Because it acknowledges the recipient's reality. It does not try to ignore it or transcend it through verbal polish.

And Now, the Answer to the Question That Nagged at Me for a Week

I wrote the article with the certainty that a good, well-crafted, sensible text is enough. I was wrong. It is not.

It is necessary, but not sufficient.

A good text opens the door. But if the recipient, looking through the open doorway, sees no one there — only an impeccable hallway, too clean, too arranged — they will not enter. They will remain on the threshold, staring with suspicion, or curiosity, or incomprehension.

What is missing? An outstretched hand. An acknowledgement that you, the sender, are yourself aware of the strangeness of the situation. A "I know it's odd to receive a message like this from a stranger, but here is why I'm sending it to you anyway".

That is the nuance I wanted to express, and it took me a week to find the words.

A Final Thought, to Close

I think, in fact, I always knew this. It's just that in the article I was caught up in demonstration. In the need to show that I knew the principles, that I could explain them, that I could split hairs to the finest degree.

But a text that sets out to persuade should not demonstrate anything about its author. It should make room for the recipient. And that room is not a sterile, impeccable space. It is one with air in it, where you sense someone has been before, where small imperfections say: "this is real, this is a person, not a sales tool trying to fool me".

That is what I learnt by rereading myself.

Now it is written. At least here, in this confession.

But I Committed a Double Cardinal Sin: Pride and Ignorance

I acknowledge that I was wrong to ignore the client's profile and the stage of market maturity in which the message operates. Across broad segments of the Romanian market — small entrepreneurs, public institutions, SMEs in secondary towns — an e-mail that directly asks for contact details, that asserts with confidence without demonstrating, that appears to know what it is doing without explaining why, may work better than a sophisticated and nuanced e-mail.

Not because the nuanced e-mail is wrong in itself, but because it works in the short term and erodes in the long term. A client won through a tone of authority without substance quickly becomes dissatisfied when the deliverables fail to support the promise. In Romania's small and vertical market, reputation moves quickly.

But that is a retention problem, not an acquisition problem — and what matters is ACQUISITION. I explain this further in a separate article, "To Whom and in What Context?".