Your champion's boss wasn't on the call, so write the email for them, and make it easy for your champion to hit forward. Two frameworks, one for executives and one for technical skeptics, plus four tests to run before you send.
A forwardable email is written through your champion, for the person they need to convince. It opens with a company priority in the buyer's own words, gets specific about what the problem costs, and ends with the kind of ask an internal email would make. Your champion should be able to forward it without rewriting it, and it should speak their company's language.
Placeholder answer
Short, practical frameworks for executive messaging, business cases, multithreading, and sales enablement.
You just wrapped a great call. Your champion nodded through the whole thing, said this was exactly what they needed, and asked you to send something over.
So you write the recap. Thanks for the time today! Here's the deck, the demo recording, and two case studies that seem relevant. How does next Thursday look to reconnect?
And then one week, then two, go by with no reply.
Your champion didn't forget to follow up with you, by the way. Buyers don't forget. They de-prioritize the people who aren't helping them get their job done, and your champion's biggest problem probably isn't their boss's biggest problem. Your recap only spoke to theirs. Which is where the forwardable email comes in.
A finance director at a Series C startup described the other side of this to me. After her evaluation, the rep sent a landing page full of short videos, case studies, and PDFs: "oh my, there are 12 docs in here! So I was like, nobody will want to read all this. I just need just a small chunk of this to show some other people." So she ended up excerpting lines from different PDFs herself, to build something she could share. "I'm not in sales, but I don't think you want to force someone to go on a treasure hunt like that."
A forwardable email is written through your champion, to the people they need to move: their boss, their CFO, and sometimes the skeptic who pushed back on your last call. Your champion is how it travels, and the reader is someone who wasn't on that call and thinks about the problem one level up.
It comes in two forms:
Either way, the goal is the same: position your champion to run the internal sale, so your deal keeps moving when you're not in the room. It's the written version of multithreading.
Here's an example from my book, Selling With. Say you sell software that researches and writes SEO content for marketing teams. Morgan, a marketing manager at a high-growth startup, wanted a demo because your keyword tool could condense a few of her workflows. She's ambitious, and after a few calls she's become your champion.
But Morgan's CMO, John, doesn't care about her content workflow. John cares about customer acquisition cost, and about the Series B the company wants to raise on the back of efficient growth. So instead of a recap with links, you'd write Morgan this:
Subject: Content Plan
Morgan, thanks again for the good chat earlier. You shared some super interesting points, here's a recap before we chat on Friday:
Your team (especially John) is working to drive CAC below $5K. The goal is "capital-efficient growth" by 12/31, before a Series B.
I can almost read the press release: Emergence Capital Leads Whopping $100 Million Series B on the Back of Capital-Efficient Growth.
To make it happen, you have to ramp SEO content by 10x... but the team's feeling stretched and unsure how to move forward.
So we built a plan (linked here) for how this can work together. Guessing John may want to weigh in on our plan too?
Wait, where are the case studies? The deck? The demo recording? There's a time and place for those, but none of them gives Morgan a reason to forward anything to John, and this email does it in about 100 words.
That press release line isn't just a turn of phrase, either. I've pre-written press releases for a handful of deals, mirroring the format from the "Press" section of the customer's own website, and on a few of them I bought a $10 domain (companyname-wins.com) to host it. It's the fastest way I know to get an executive to picture the future you're both working toward.
Then look at how it ends. Sales emails ask for time ("how does 30 minutes Thursday work?"), while internal emails ask for feedback or add an item to a meeting that already exists. "Guessing John may want to weigh in?" reads like the second kind.
Use this one for non-technical readers, usually your champion's boss or the budget owner. It's the ghostwritten form, which is why it's signed with your champion's name.
Subject: [Internal Project Name] by [Timeframe]
[Name],
[Reference the internal project / trigger] highlighted something I thought you'd want to see:
Based on [internal team]'s analysis, we identified [specific $ / % / # impact] on [target outcome] we can impact within [timeframe].
Three key points from the team's review:
- [Root cause] is costing [amount] in [lost / declining metric] - Quick win: [immediate benefit] within [short timeframe] - Strategic value: [longer-term business outcome]
[Champion name] suggested a [timeframe] pilot focused on [specific use case], which would prove out [risk] behind the full project: [link to broader business case].
Next step: [Champion] and I blocked [short time] this [day] to review the pilot approach with you. Could we get your take on the metrics?
\- [Champion name]
Use this one when a technical stakeholder has pushed back. Don't try to win the argument in writing, show them you heard it and let them define what proof would look like. Skeptics' concerns get weighed more heavily than everyone else's enthusiasm, so this email is worth the extra care.
And if they'd rather wait on an alternative, add the strategic P.S. at the bottom of the template.
Subject: [Technical Outcome], Next Steps
[Name],
To follow up on our [topic] discussion: your point on [their specific objection] resonated, especially given [relevant past experience that validates their concern].
Three technical details I should have emphasized:
- [Protection point 1]: how you protect their primary responsibility - [Protection point 2]: how you protect their team / resources - [Protection point 3]: how you protect their career risk
[Next-step document] will be in your inbox by [specific date]. But first, I'd value your input on [a specific aspect they can control].
What specific [metrics / criteria] would prove this isn't just [their core objection]?
\- [Champion name]
P.S. Completely understand if you'd prefer to wait for [their preferred alternative]. But given [evidence of cost / risk of delay], I'm concerned about [specific business impact] while we wait.
If you're not sure who that skeptic is yet, the multithreading guide covers how to find them.
Executives read your email during another conversation, on a call that's running long or in a meeting that doesn't need all of their brain. So put the bottom line up front, keep the sentences simple, and aim for a body of around 100 words. (The Morgan email above runs a little over, which is fine.)
Getting there means writing long, then cutting. Draft 200 words without any fluff, then cut it to 50. It's like Blaise Pascal once said: "I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time." People want the 50-word email with all the value of the 200-word one.
The depth goes in a linked one-pager, like a 1-page business case, so the email only has to earn the click.
You're not wrong. The first few times you write like this, you'll wonder whether one email is really worth this much time. It gets a little easier with practice, but it's not supposed to be easy breezy. Just worth it.
Optimizing your follow-up so it doesn't cost you too much time sounds reasonable. Which always gets you to the exact same place as the average rep. Costly signaling works the other way: the more a message clearly cost you to write, the better it lands, and the higher the contract value, the higher the bar for the follow-up.
But we're all human, and some weeks you'll fall behind. When that happens, don't choose between a forgettable template on time and a great email that's a week late. Send this instead:
Subject: On the Way
[Name], I mentioned following up on our conversation by tonight. Turns out that timing was ambitious (I was excited about our conversation). I'd like to invest more time into a more thoughtful recap and set of suggestions. This way, it'll land better with your team. We can share it with them by Friday. Would that timing work okay for you?
Just don't use that one twice with the same account.
Pull up the last five follow-up emails you sent and run each through the four tests. Then pick the one going to your biggest deal, figure out who your champion actually needs to convince, and rewrite it for that person, through your champion.
If you're stuck on the opening, start from the line you'd want that person to repeat. The 4-sentence soundbite is the compressed version of what a forwardable email delivers.