A cold email to a VP of Sales lands in an inbox that already holds forty of them, most written by reps selling into the same category you are. The VP of Sales reading yours has written thousands of cold emails, coached reps through hundreds more, and can spot a sequence step from the first clause. So the standard moves die on arrival: the 'quick question' subject, the paragraph about your company, the 'does Tuesday or Thursday work' close. What survives is a note that reads like a peer who noticed something specific about their team and has one idea about the number. That is what the three templates below do. Each leads with a trigger or observation you can verify, makes one claim, and asks for something smaller than a meeting. The Claude prompt underneath turns the template into a note about their company instead of a note about yours.
What a VP of Sales is measured on, and what they delete
A VP of Sales is measured on quota attainment, pipeline coverage, and how fast a new rep gets to full productivity, and each of those has a date attached to it. They read email on a phone between calls, early in the morning or after the last pipeline review, and triage on the subject line plus the first sentence that shows in preview. Below the enterprise tier nobody filters their inbox for them, so you reach them directly, but you get a two-second glance to earn the tap. They delete anything that opens with your company, anything that says 'quick question,' and anything that reads like step three of a sequence. They reply to someone who has clearly looked at the team, the hiring page, or a public deal signal, and has one specific thought about this quarter's number.
Cold email to a VP of Sales: three templates
Pick the template that matches what you actually know about the account: a visible trigger, a pain you can name from the outside, or a customer they would recognize as a peer. Fill the placeholders from real research, then cut anything you could not defend if they replied asking how you know.
Subject: {{n}} open AE roles at {{company}}
{{first name}}, saw {{company}} has {{n}} AE roles open. Hiring that many at once usually means the back half of the year is riding on how fast they ramp.
One idea: most teams cut ramp by weeks by giving new reps the discovery prep the senior reps do by hand. We built that for Acme Observe's team and their new hires were {{result}} by week {{n}}.
Worth a 15-minute look, or would the one-pager be more useful first?Subject: coverage vs. the number
{{first name}}, most VPs of Sales are being asked to forecast on coverage they would rather not show a board.
The gap usually comes from where prospecting hours go: mostly research and CRM updates, a sliver on conversations.
We take the research and first-draft work off the rep, so the same headcount books more first meetings. Northwind Freight's team went from {{before}} to {{after}} meetings a week in one quarter.
If coverage is the problem this quarter, reply "coverage" and I will send how they did it.Subject: how Harlow Logistics' sales team hit {{result}}
{{first name}}, Harlow Logistics' VP of Sales had a setup close to yours: {{n}} reps, {{segment}} accounts, and a coverage problem going into Q{{quarter}}.
They rolled out {{product}} to the team and hit {{result}} in {{timeframe}}, including the two senior reps who fought it hardest in week one.
I wrote up exactly what changed. Want the two-page version, or a ten-minute walkthrough?{{n}} open AE roles at {{company}}
coverage vs. the number
ramp at {{company}}
your Q{{quarter}} pipeline math
how Harlow Logistics' sales team hit {{result}}
{{first name}}, one idea for the back halfSend it Tuesday to Thursday before 7:30am their time, from a real person's address, with no tracking pixel; a VP of Sales who spots one will forward your email to their team as an example of what not to do.
Personalize these to the account, not just the persona
The templates are the floor. The email that gets answered names their hiring page, their segment, and the customer that looks most like them, and that research is the ten minutes reps skip. Paste the template you picked with the prompt below and let Claude do the looking first.
You are writing a cold email to the VP of Sales at {{company}} ({{company URL}}) on behalf of {{my company}}, which sells {{one-line description}}.
First, read their site and careers page: what they sell, who buys it, how many sales roles are open, and any signal about the state of the team (new segments, a recent raise, a leadership change).
Then rewrite the template below for this VP. Line one must be a trigger or observation specific to {{company}} that I could defend if asked how I know. Keep one idea, one soft ask, and the body under 90 words. Use {{customer proof}} as the proof point and keep the claim exactly as stated, no embellishment.
Mark anything you inferred rather than read, so I can verify before sending. Then give me three subject lines under six words.
TEMPLATE:
{{paste the template}}Write cold email at scale with Claude
- B2B cold email templates skill →The Claude skill that writes cold email in your brand voice with the banned-word list and the one-idea rule baked in.
- Cold email from a value prop prompt →The copy-paste prompt version: one value prop in, one specific email out.
- Personalize cold email with Clay and Claude →The use case that runs these templates across a whole list with real enrichment data.
Frequently asked questions
How do you write a cold email to a VP of Sales that gets a reply?
Open with something you could only know by looking at their company: an open AE role, a new segment on the website, a recent raise. Then make one claim about the number they are measured on, quota, coverage, or ramp, and ask for something smaller than a meeting, like permission to send a two-page write-up. Keep the body under 90 words, because they are reading on a phone between calls. Cut every sentence about your company that does not connect to their number, and send it from a person, in plain text, before 7:30 their time.
What subject line works on a VP of Sales?
Short, lower case, and about their business. '{{n}} open AE roles at {{company}}' beats anything clever because it looks like an internal note and proves you looked. Skip 'quick question,' 'partnership,' and anything with their first name plus an emoji; they have seen each a thousand times and have a reflex for it. Six words or fewer, no capitals beyond proper nouns, and never a question you would not ask a colleague. If you can put a number they recognize in it, coverage, headcount, quarter, do it.
Should you email the VP of Sales or the frontline manager?
Both, with different emails. The VP of Sales owns the budget and the number, so they get the note about coverage, ramp, or forecast. The frontline manager owns the reps' day, so they get the version about hours saved per rep per week. Send the VP first, wait three business days, then email the manager and mention you have written to their VP, which reads as courtesy rather than an end-run. When the VP forwards your email down with 'thoughts?', the most common positive outcome, the manager already has context.