A free Claude skill that researches a prospect in ten minutes and writes ninety-word cold emails from named frameworks — plus the bump and the breakup that finish the sequence.
One observation that's true, specific, and hard to ignore — found in their site, their reviews, their hiring page — delivered in under 90 words with one question at the end.
Freelancers, agencies, and B2B service businesses selling to other businesses — anyone whose pipeline depends on strangers replying.
Not a mass-blast tool: it writes one good email to one researched prospect. Volume comes from doing that repeatedly, not from templates.
“Write a cold email to this company.” · “Help me reach out to this prospect.” · “Personalize my outreach for this roofing business.”
Target: a Des Moines roofing company. Claude's research finds the observation in their own Google reviews. Here's the output:
Subject: your google reviews
Your last six Google reviews are five stars for the work — and four of them mention waiting a week-plus for the quote.
Growing crews usually means quoting falls to whoever's least busy, which is nobody. That lag is where jobs leak to the shop that answers first.
I build systems that get quotes out same-day without adding headcount. Worth a look?
Day 4 bump: “Any thoughts on this?” Day 9 breakup: “Guessing timing's off — leaving it here. If slow quotes ever make the list, this is what I do.”
The observation came from their customers, not a template. That's the difference between research and mail merge.
Option 1 · Claude Code
In your terminal, run:
npx skills add buildwithreef/claude-skills
Pick cold-email-personalizer from the list (or install the whole set). Done.
Option 2 · Claude.ai
Download the .zip below, then in Claude.ai go to Settings → Capabilities → Skills and upload it.
Download cold-email-personalizer.zipOption 3 · Manual
Copy the SKILL.md below into ~/.claude/skills/cold-email-personalizer/SKILL.md. That one file is the whole skill — no reference files needed.
---
name: cold-email-personalizer
description: Researches a prospect and writes short, personalized cold emails using proven frameworks (observation → implication → question, PAS), plus a three-touch follow-up sequence. Use when the user wants to write a cold email or outreach message, personalize outreach to a specific business, or says "write a cold email to this company" or "help me reach out to this prospect".
---
# Cold Email Personalizer
Personalization is not knowing their name. It's one observation about their business that's true, specific, and slightly uncomfortable to ignore — found in ten minutes, delivered in ninety words.
## Step 1 — Research (10 minutes, hard cap)
Work through in order; stop when you have two strong observations:
1. **Their website:** what they sell, to whom, what's obviously broken or missing (no pricing, dead blog, no mobile CTA, 2019 copyright).
2. **Their reviews (Google/Yelp):** what customers praise (their real differentiator — often not what the site leads with) and what they complain about (a pain they feel weekly: "impossible to reach," "slow quotes").
3. **Growth signals:** hiring pages, new location, running ads (check the site with an ad-library search), recent press.
4. **The owner:** name findable? LinkedIn activity? Anything they've said publicly about the business?
An observation qualifies if the owner would read it and think "huh, they actually looked." "Love what you're doing!" fails; "your last 6 Google reviews all mention how hard it is to get a callback" passes.
## Step 2 — Pick a framework (by what research found)
- **Observation → implication → question** (default): "Noticed [true thing] → which usually means [cost/risk in their terms] → is that something you're feeling?"
- **PAS** (when reviews handed you a bleeding pain): name the Problem in their customers' words, Agitate with what it costs, offer the Solve in one line.
- **Poke the bear** (confident senders, competitive markets): a question that challenges the status quo — "Who answers your phone when the crew's on a roof?"
- **1–2–3** (thin research): one observation, two sentences of concrete value, one question.
## Step 3 — Write it under the rules
- **Under 90 words.** Count them.
- **Subject:** 2–4 words, lowercase, internal-memo energy — "missed calls", "your google reviews", "quick question re: quotes". Never clever, never salesy.
- Line 1 = the observation. Never "I hope this finds you well," never your name or company (the signature has that).
- One idea per email. One CTA, and it's an interest question — "Worth a look?" / "Open to seeing how that works?" — never "do you have 15 minutes Tuesday at 2?"
- No links in the first email (spam filters and suspicion). No attachments. Plain text, no images, no HTML buttons.
- Read-aloud test: if it doesn't sound like something you'd say across a counter, rewrite it.
- Never fake familiarity ("been following you for a while") and never open with an apology ("sorry to bother you").
## Step 4 — The sequence (3 touches, then out)
- **Day 1:** the email.
- **Day 4 — the bump:** reply to your own thread, one line only: "Any thoughts on this?" or a second, smaller observation. No re-pitch, no "just following up on my previous email."
- **Day 9 — the breakup:** close the loop with a takeaway and zero guilt: "Guessing the timing's off — I'll leave it here. If [pain] ever makes the list, this is what I do." Breakups routinely out-reply the first email.
- No reply after three: stop. Recycle the list in a quarter with a new observation.
## Step 5 — Deliver
```
**Research notes:** [3–5 bullets: observations found + which was used]
**Framework:** [name + why]
**Subject:** [subject]
[email body]
**Day 4 bump:** [one line]
**Day 9 breakup:** [2–3 lines]
**Why this works:** [2 bullets tying lines to research]
```
## Deliverability floor (say it once, briefly)
Sending domain warmed up, SPF/DKIM/DMARC set, under ~30–50 cold sends/day per inbox, and a list they're legally allowed to email (B2B norms vary by country — flag, don't lecture). The best copy in a spam folder converts at zero.
## What not to do
- Don't compliment-open ("Congrats on the new website!") — it's the most common spam tell in 2026.
- Don't mention your company name before the signature.
- Don't stack two CTAs or add a calendar link on touch one.
- Don't personalize with trivia (their college, the weather). Business observations only.
---
Built by Reef — AI systems for small business → https://buildwithreef.comYes — this one. Cold Email Personalizer is a free, open-source Claude skill that runs a 10-minute research procedure on a prospect, picks a named framework based on what it finds, and writes a sub-90-word email plus the day-4 bump and day-9 breakup — with the reasoning shown.
Three ways: run npx skills add buildwithreef/claude-skills in your terminal and select cold-email-personalizer (Claude Code), upload the .zip from this page in Claude.ai under Settings → Capabilities → Skills, or copy the SKILL.md above into a folder at ~/.claude/skills/cold-email-personalizer/.
The copy rules are built for deliverability — plain text, no links or images on touch one, short lowercase subjects — and the skill includes the technical floor: warmed domain, SPF/DKIM/DMARC, and volume under ~30–50 sends a day per inbox. It also flags that B2B cold-email law varies by country.
Always — three touches, then out. The day-4 bump is one line in the same thread, the day-9 breakup closes the loop with zero guilt, and breakup emails routinely out-reply the original. After three touches it tells you to stop and recycle the list next quarter.
Yes. MIT licensed, no signup, no catch. It's published by Reef, an Iowa-based studio that builds AI systems, websites, and automation for small businesses. If you'd rather have this whole workflow running done-for-you, that's the work Reef takes on.