The four numbers
- Sent: how many emails you actually sent this week, not how many you planned to send.
- Opened: the count if your tool reports one, treated as roughly right and never as exact.
- Replied: any reply at all. A no is a reply, and it belongs in the count.
- Conversations: how many of those replies turned into a real back-and-forth about work.
Read them once a week
- Write the four numbers for the week on one line of a plain file.
- Put the date at the start of the line. Never edit an old line.
- Compare this week with the last three, not with your ambition.
- If sends are steady and replies are flat, the message is wrong, not the volume.
- If replies are steady but conversations are rare, the offer or the follow-up is where to look.
- Change one thing next week. One.
What never to do
- Do not buy a larger list to fix a message problem. It multiplies the problem.
- Do not count a send as a success on its own.
- Do not send the follow-up late; a same-week nudge lands, a three-week one reads like an afterthought.
- Do not treat someone else's screenshot as your benchmark. Their list, their offer, their timing.
When a reply turns into work
The moment somebody answers, the number that matters changes: whether the price you are about to send covers the work, and whether the terms leave you something at the end. Decide that before the call, not during it.
The free quote calculator builds a project price from the pieces of work you list, using your own hours and your own rate. It runs in the page and sends nothing anywhere. Having the figure ready is the difference between a good week and a job you quietly regret for two months.
- Write down the scope you are quoting for. A price without scope is a guess with a number on it.
- Leave room in the price for the revision round, because there is always one.
- Keep the same numbers line going after you stop sending. The pattern is what teaches you.
The free tool for this
A project price from the work you actually listed - A project price from the work you actually listed. It runs in the page, asks for your own numbers, and sends nothing anywhere.
If you would rather not build it yourself
Outreach Kit holds six short sequences for people who hate selling, a prospect tracker, and a rule set that keeps you out of the spam folder. Outreach Kit is $16. See it on the shop, and there is a plain page about it here: what it holds.
Questions people actually ask
How many emails should I send a week?
Start with a number you can genuinely personalise, and hold it steady for four weeks. A steady small number teaches you something; a large lazy one teaches you nothing.
What reply rate is normal?
Anyone quoting you one is quoting their own list, their own offer and their own country. Yours is the only baseline that will help you, which is exactly why the line is worth keeping.
Read next
How to follow up on a cold email without annoying anyone, How to find the right person to email at a company.