How to Make an Ask That Gets Results w/Example Emails

Some women, especially traditionally employed ones, are able to go through their entire career without really asking for anything.

They get jobs, application requests, or clients through referral. Their clients and bosses are so happy with their work that they give raises and bonuses without being asked. They are happy enough with the way things are that they never have to push through the discomfort of asking for something they don’t get.

When you are self-employed, and particularly when you are self-employed and designing your life and career not only around your own needs but also those of your family, speaking up for what you want and need becomes even more important.

But how do you push past the discomfort and fear of rejection not only to ask, but to ask in such a way that you are guaranteed to succeed?

Finding the Courage and Confidence to Ask

For many self-employed women, the problem is not how to figure out what to ask for or find the right way to ask it, but to gear yourself up to allow yourself to ask for something.

One of the quickest ways to break through this block is to understand what you are missing (your opportunity cost) for not asking for things. Take a moment to contemplate: what would your business look like if you asked people for impossible things and they said yes most of the time?

That was the surprising result of Jia Jiang’s rejection therapy, he asked people for things that seemed preposterous, guaranteed to elicit a no: a security guard to loan him $100, a random professor if he could do the day’s lecture, and a flight attendant if he could make the safety announcement.

At first, the point was to inoculate himself against the uncomfortable feeling of asking for something he would probably not get. But as he went along, Jiang was shocked at the generosity and willingness to help he found in others. The professor scheduled him for a lecture. Bloomberg Business wrote an article profiling him. As he got past his initial fear, which made him ask quickly and cringingly just to get it over with, he began to phrase his requests in ways that were easier to say yes to.

It’s like jumping in a cold lake instead of edging your way in. When you go at difficult things confidently and vigorously, your mindset affects the results.

The even more surprising part of this mindset shift is how it allows you to be more successful. What Jiang found as he went along was that in the early asks, he would pose his question and more or less run away once he got his obligatory no.

But as time went on, he learned to give more information with his requests—both before and after—to help reach a compromise to get to yes even if he initially received a no.

The 4 Key Aspects of an Ask that Gets Results

  1. Subject line that begs to be opened
  2. Opening sentence that sustains interest
  3. A question that’s easy to say yes to
  4. Brevity and respect for the individual’s time

No matter what statistics you use, the open rate for emails, even from lists you’ve signed up for a.k.a. people you know, is pretty abysmal. In email marketing, 10 percent is considered a pretty good open rate. So your very first hurdle is a subject line that will get your email opened.

Questions are great for this, but being clear and specific as to why the recipient needs to open the email and open it now goes a long way. We’ve covered how to craft attention-grabbing opening text for either your first line or the subject line extensively in our guide to writing a sales pitch, and these are often under-appreciated by small business owners and entrepreneurs that focus too heavily on how exactly to phrase their ask.

The ask itself is something that countless business and fundraising books spend hundreds of pages exploring, but it’s actually the simplest part of your email. Ask for something the recipient can say yes to.

Two common themes in the sales world are “always be closing” and “get to yes,” because it’s accepted wisdom that once you get someone to say yes to something, whether it’s buying an inexpensive product or simply getting on the phone, you’ll have a lot more success with what you actually want from them.

If you want to raise your rates but don’t think the client will be very receptive, ask to set up a phone call to discuss some changes you’re going to be making to your business processes. That’s easy to say yes to, and once they’re on the phone, it’s both harder for them to say no and easier for you to get more time, space and interaction to build a good case.

But you can also use this easy yes, incremental technique to get a boost in your income right there in the email, like this:

Dear Client,
I’ve really enjoyed working with you on your social media marketing and wanted to let you know how it’s been going so far. (Of course the client wants to know how it’s going.) I reviewed some reports and we’ve actually increased retweets by 150% since I started and your followers consistently by 10% each week. (What client wouldn’t be delighted and ready to listen to whatever you have to say next after this??)

These are great results in just a couple months, but they really point to the potential of your audience. With increased capacity to connect with more of our users and fans on a personal level, I can see those numbers easily jump up substantially, getting weekly impressions up to 5 million. I have some time in my schedule and can add another 10 tweets per day for an additional $500, adding 25% to our current agreement.

Would you be interested in extending our contract to take your engagement to the next level?

Best,
You

Remember, the worst that can happen is that they just say no and things stay as they are!

Ask Scripts You Can Use Right Away

I love to share scripts on this website that you can pluck and plug in the blanks with your own information to cut down on both indecision paralysis and the plain old time it takes to form a well crafted email.

Here are some easy things that you can ask for today, both to get comfortable getting to no or yes and to show yourself how powerful a simple ask can be.

Once you use these a couple times, you’ll find that as you read through and adapt our script for your circumstances, you’ll learn by doing how to create your own simple yet powerful asks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lisa Stein owns FreelanceMom.com, is a college business professor and a mom to Gabriela and Elle. Lisa is dedicated to playing a part in helping women and moms run a business they love, help support themselves and their family and create a flexible lifestyle. You can find her online on Facebook and Twitter or at home burning something in the kitchen.