I write a lot of emails. Prospecting, follow-ups, post-call check-ins, introductions, partnership conversations. On any given day, email is where most of my selling actually happens.
For a long time, I was writing every single one from scratch. Not because each email was truly unique, but because that’s just how I worked. I’d open a blank compose window, think about what I wanted to say, type it out, tweak it, send it. Ten minutes here, ten minutes there. It added up fast, and I didn’t even realize how much time I was losing to it.
Templates changed everything.
The problem I didn’t know I had
My sent folder is the same email written fifty different ways. My introduction email to a new contact was roughly the same every time. My follow-up after a discovery call hit the same points every time. My “just checking in” email to a quiet prospect was, predictably, almost identical every time.
But I was writing each one like it was new. Starting from a blank screen, pulling the structure from memory, choosing the words in the moment. The core message was always 80% the same. The other 20% was the personalization that actually mattered, the part that made it feel like a real conversation and not a mass blast.
I was spending all my time on the 80% that didn’t change instead of the 20% that did.
What actually changed
I set up templates in HubSpot for every email I send more than once. Introduction emails. Follow-ups. Post-call recaps. Re-engagement messages for contacts who’ve gone quiet. I use them heavily for Talk Commerce too, especially for the volume of podcast guest requests that come in.
The core message is already written. The structure is there. The value proposition is baked in. When I need to send one, I pull up the template, write a personalized opening (usually a line or two referencing something specific about that person or their business), and hit send.
What used to take ten minutes takes about thirty seconds.
That sounds like a small thing, but multiply it across every outreach email, every guest request, every partner follow-up. The math gets real very quickly. I’m not exaggerating when I say I got a full hour back every morning just from not rewriting the same emails.
The part I didn’t expect
The templates integrate right into Gmail. I don’t have to be inside HubSpot to use them. I’m in my inbox, I click the template, personalize it, and send. They work with other email services too. So the templates live in HubSpot but I access them wherever I’m already working.
That matters more than it sounds like it does. If I had to log into a separate tool every time I wanted to use a template, I’d stop using them within a week. The fact that they show up right where I’m already composing emails means there’s zero friction. It’s just part of how I write email.
Sequences: the layer on top
Once the templates exist, the next step is obvious. I string them together into sequences. A sequence is just a series of templates with timing between them, so the follow-up flow runs on its own.
I have a sequence for new prospects. First email goes out (personalized by me), then a follow-up lands three days later, then another one a week after that. If the person replies at any point, the sequence stops automatically. On their end, it still feels like a real conversation because everything comes from my actual inbox, not from a marketing platform.
Before sequences, my follow-up was inconsistent. Some prospects got three touches, some got one, some got zero because I just forgot. That’s not a strategy. That’s hoping I remember to do my job. Now every prospect gets the same thoughtful follow-up cadence, and I’m not the bottleneck.
What my mornings look like now
I open my inbox, and the outreach that used to eat the first hour of my day takes minutes. Guest requests for Talk Commerce, prospect follow-ups for Content Cucumber, partner introductions. Each one is a template pull, a quick personalization, and send. The rest of the morning goes to actual conversations, pipeline reviews, and the work that moves things forward.
The way I think about it is that templates handle the repetitive writing so I can focus on the parts that actually require me. The personalization. The relationship. The conversation that happens after someone replies. That’s where deals move forward, not in the fifteenth draft of an introduction email.
The foundation metaphor
Templates are the foundation of my whole sales workflow. Everything else I do in HubSpot (pipelines, workflows, reporting) works better because the templates are solid. If I didn’t have consistent, well-written templates, the sequences built on top of them wouldn’t land. The follow-up cadence only works because each individual email in the sequence is something I’d actually send manually.
That’s the part people miss when they think about email automation. The automation isn’t the hard part. Writing the emails well enough that they deserve to be automated, that’s the work. I spent time getting each template right, testing different subject lines, adjusting the tone until it sounded like me and not like a robot. The templates earned their place in the sequence because they work on their own first.
One more thing
I keep finding new places where templates save me time. Meeting confirmation emails. Post-webinar follow-ups. Partner introductions. Every time I catch myself writing the same email twice, I stop, turn it into a template, and never write it again.
Talk Commerce alone generates enough guest requests that without a template, I’d be writing the same scheduling email dozens of times a month. Now it’s a click and a personalized line.
At this point, templates aren’t a tool I use. They’re just how I work.
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