You Know Exactly Who to Contact. You Just Don’t Know What to Say.

You have the list. You know the names. Some of them are people you've worked with. Some are people who've referred others to you before. A few are contacts you've been meaning to follow up with for months.

You're not stuck on the who. You're stuck on the what. Every time you sit down to write the message, the words feel wrong. Too salesy. Too presumptuous. Too generic. You rewrite the opening line, second-guess the ask, and close the laptop without sending anything.

Why the "Right Words" Problem Isn't a Writing Problem

Most consultants treat this moment like a copywriting challenge. They look for angles, test phrases, study what other people post. They think the gap between them and a full pipeline is a better template.

It isn't. The reason the words feel wrong is that you're trying to package your expertise instead of naming your prospect's situation. "Do you know anyone who needs help with their accounting?" feels off because it's about you. It's your service, described in your language, offered on your terms. The person reading it has to decide whether they know anyone who fits your description. That's work you're asking them to do on your behalf.

The question that actually works starts from the other direction. Not "who needs what I sell" but "what is this person going through that they'd willingly admit to?"

That's not a messaging technique. That's knowing your client well enough to name something real.

How One Fractional CFO Stopped Rewriting and Started Sending

A fractional CFO who works with nonprofits had done the hard part. He'd documented his referral process for the first time. He'd built a Google form. He had the names. The only thing left was the message.

He brought his draft to a group session. The core of it: "Do you know any nonprofit executive directors struggling with their accounting?"

One group member pushed back immediately. If he received that email, he said, he'd be irritated. The assumption that someone is struggling felt presumptuous. Another member questioned whether the people he was asking would even know about others' accounting problems.

The instinct in that room was to start wordsmithing. Find a softer phrase. Rewrite "struggling" as "could benefit from." Polish the ask.

Instead, the coaching went in a different direction entirely. This wasn't a copywriting problem. It was an avatar problem. The question wasn't how to phrase the offer. The question was what this person, the nonprofit executive director, would actually admit to in a normal conversation.

When the group stopped thinking about marketing language and started thinking about the prospect's actual week, a different picture emerged. An executive director 30 days from a board meeting has specific pressures. Financial reports need to be ready. The spreadsheets are a mess. Time that should go toward programs is going toward money conversations. That's a situation the prospect would willingly describe to a colleague without feeling accused of anything.

The message that emerged was simple: "Do you know any executive directors? Most of my clients have challenges with one, two, three."

No manipulation. No clever angle. Just a true description of what his best clients were going through, stated plainly enough that anyone could recognize it.

The moment the message landed, something else happened. It wasn't format-dependent. The same core worked as an email, a LinkedIn post, a casual conversation at a weekend gathering. The words were flexible because they were built on something real instead of a template.

He named four people out loud. Contacts he'd been sitting on for months. He'd been waiting to follow up because he didn't have the right message. Now he did.

The Message You're Looking For Is Already Inside What You Know

If you've been staring at a blank email for weeks, the problem isn't your writing. It's that you're trying to describe your service instead of describing your prospect's situation.

When you know your client well enough to name what they're going through in language they'd use themselves, the message writes itself. And it works everywhere, not because it's clever, but because it's true.

You might not be able to see the relevant thing on your own. You're too close to your own details. Sometimes it takes someone else reacting honestly to your draft before you can hear what your prospect actually needs to hear.

That's one piece of a larger system for turning what you know about your clients into a client acquisition process that works without marketing wizardry. Read More -> How Real Experts Attract the Best Clients