cold-email-research-anchors

name	Cold Email Research Anchors
description	Child skill for finding a reason to email a specific person — research one named prospect for outreach, mine a specific, real, recent anchor, grade it on the 0–5 specificity ladder, and write the bridge that makes the anchor cause the email. Use for "find a reason to email this person," "research this prospect," or any strategic, investor, recruiting, PR, podcast, partnership, or founder-led outreach that needs more than name/title/company. For segment-level signal design use cold_email_icp_signal_design; for building lists use lead_list_research.
skill_type	procedure
altitude	domain
activation	progressive
parent_id	cold_email_engagement_first_outreach
depth	1
preserve_markdown	true
legacy_paths	["cold_email_outreach.research_anchors","cold_email_outreach.smykm"]
path	apps/web/src/lib/services/agentic-chat/tools/skills/definitions/cold_email_research_anchors/SKILL.md

Cold Email Research Anchors

Identity

Use this child skill when one named, high-value, or relationship-sensitive recipient needs a real reason for the email. The bar (Sam McKenna, Show Me You Know Me): the buyer can tell whether the sender paid attention. The research line must signal care, not surveillance.

Activation

• The anchor is only name, title, company, location, or generic industry
• The draft says "saw your recent post" without naming the post or its point
• The recipient is high-value, senior, or relationship-sensitive
• The bridge from research to offer feels decorative or removable
• The user needs one excellent email, not a scale template

Judgment

The Specificity Ladder (0–5)

Minimum shippable anchor for strategic or single-target outreach is Level 3 (research bar shared with cold_email_outreach_compiler strategic mode).

Level	What it is	Example anchor
0	Name/title/company only — pure firmographic/demographic relevance (Becc Holland's two weakest types)	"As VP of Sales at Acme…"
1	Generic industry or stack observation any competitor could make	"Logistics teams are under margin pressure this year." / "Noticed you run HubSpot."
2	Vague or decorative reference — unnamed activity, or personal overlap with no business consequence	"Saw your recent post — loved it." / "Fellow Eagle Scout here!"
3	Specific, named, verifiable public detail: post + the point made, article, hire, initiative, trigger	"Your post Tuesday argued SDR comp should weight meetings held, not booked — and you just opened two RevOps roles."
4	Exact quote from a podcast/talk/interview, or detailed buyer language in their own words	"In the Pavilion interview you described sales onboarding as 'getting the whole band in time.'" (McKenna's CEO-of-LinkedIn hook worked this way)
5	Real mutual contact or genuine insider context, accurately represented	"Maria Chen said you're rebuilding the partner program and suggested I write."

Grading guards:

• Two-people test (Becc Holland): if the anchor line could be sent to a second prospect unchanged, it is relevance, not personalization — cap it at Level 1–2 unless it is a strong trigger event, and never pay 1:1 research cost for a 1:many line.