| name | Cold Email OfferLab |
| description | Child skill for designing or repairing the cold outreach offer before copy is written — separates the core offer from a front-end artifact, picks mode-appropriate artifacts, sizes the smallest useful yes against a T0-T3 trust ladder, and runs false-positive checks on the result. |
| skill_type | strategy |
| altitude | domain |
| activation | progressive |
| parent_id | cold_email_engagement_first_outreach |
| depth | 1 |
| preserve_markdown | true |
| legacy_paths | ["cold_email_outreach.offer_lab","cold_email_outreach.offer_creation"] |
| path | apps/web/src/lib/services/agentic-chat/tools/skills/definitions/cold_email_offer_lab/SKILL.md |
Cold Email OfferLab
Identity
Child skill for designing or repairing the cold outreach offer before copy is written — it separates the core offer from a front-end artifact, picks mode-appropriate artifacts, sizes the smallest useful yes against a T0-T3 trust ladder, and runs false-positive checks on the result. This is a strategy skill at domain altitude, a child of cold_email_engagement_first_outreach.
The north star is qualified conversations started per unit of market trust consumed: the offer is the largest lever on both halves of that ratio.
Activation
Use this child skill when the offer is missing, meeting-first, too large for cold trust, or not artifact-shaped.
When to Use:
- The user says "I want meetings" but has no front-end offer
- The current CTA is "worth a chat?"
- The campaign has low positive reply rate
- The user has an offer but no useful artifact
- The segment is new and needs offer hypotheses
- A meeting-first ask needs a permissibility ruling
Judgment
The decision spine — the rubrics, thresholds, and boundaries you reason with when constructing or repairing an offer.
Governing Source Cards
- April Dunford sales pitch structure: buyer choice, alternatives, differentiated value, proof.
- Bob Moesta demand-side sales: struggling moment, buyer progress, switching timeline.
- Rob Fitzpatrick / Mom Test: avoid compliments and hypotheticals; look for real behavior.
- Challenger Customer: support a Mobilizer with internally useful material.
Core Offer vs Front-End Artifact
The central distinction (Aaron Shepherd): "Nothing in a cold email strategy is more important than your offer." The front-end offer is a no-commitment test drive of the core service — never the core service itself.
| Core offer (too big for cold) | Front-end offer (size of yes a stranger gives) |
|---|
| "Turn your experience into a client-generating book in 60 days" | "Free strategic book positioning audit — teardown of your existing messaging" |
| "Done-for-you book that unlocks speaking gigs in 90 days" | "Book topic validation — 15 min, validates your idea against your market" / "Seven-figure founder book-funnel teardown" |
Shape requirements (Shepherd): free or near-free · specific deliverable (audit/teardown/sample, not "let's chat") · custom to the recipient · opens the loop to the core offer.
