What is a premise in cold email personalisation?
A premise is the researched reason for reaching out to one person, and it opens the email. The method comes from Becc Holland, founder and CEO of the sales training company Flip the Script, who taught it as Head of Sales Development at Chorus.ai. Holland's slides from that time, Personalization at Scale (the PDF file is dated 4 November 2019), split a cold email into three parts:
- Premise. What about the prospect or their company triggered your outreach.
- Body. Your company's value proposition, mapped to that premise.
- Call to action. A request for one time to talk through what the premise raised.
Chorus.ai's write-up of Holland's episode of its Flip the Script webinar series (17 October 2019, read via the Internet Archive; PersistIQ republished it in February 2020) adds the proportions: three lines and no more than four, with the premise as the longest line, the body of medium length and the call to action short.
Holland's advice has shifted a little since. In a LinkedIn post on 12 May 2026, Holland allows four to five lines at most and one link at most, and asks for at least one piece of unique value in every email: a question about something the reader likely didn't know, a statistic they likely didn't know, or a piece of third-party content.
What are Becc Holland's five premise buckets?
Five places to find a premise, listed on Holland's 2019 slides in this order. The middle column is what the slides list under each bucket; the right-hand column summarises how Chorus.ai's write-up describes it.
| Bucket | Listed on Holland's slides | How the 2019 write-up describes it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Self-authored content | Webinars, articles, posts | Probably the most responsive bucket |
| 2. Engaged content | Liked, shared, commented | A slightly lower response rate than bucket 1, but it can still be quite high |
| 3. Self-attributed traits | Profile line, headline, company line | Holland's favourite, because people are describing what they do well |
| 4. Junk drawer | Schools attended, personal interests, hobbies | For when the first three give you nothing; be ready to justify how the detail relates to your product |
| 5. Company | M&A, posts, blogs, hiring, website language | For when the junk drawer gives you nothing; be detailed and selective so the message doesn't feel mass-blasted |
The order matters. The write-up reports Holland's view that a prospect who sees their own content discussed knows they aren't being mass-blasted, and that Holland had seen response rates of 90% or higher from very senior executives when engaging with self-authored content. That is Holland's own observation from 2019, with no sample or method published, so don't plan around the number.
Flip the Script now offers a download called The 6 Buckets of Personalization, which its page describes as six buckets with examples ranked on expected response rates. The page doesn't name the six, so this post works from the five on Holland's 2019 slides.
How long should premise research take?
About three minutes per person, and under five. In a LinkedIn post on 3 June 2022, Holland described how most of Holland's own prospecting sequences are built. The post lists 16 steps over 21 business days, 5 emails, 10 cold calls, 2 voicemails and 1 LinkedIn research step, and puts a time on most of them:
| Step in Holland's sequence | Time limit | Average Holland gives |
|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn research: pick three premises | Under 5 minutes | About 3 minutes |
| Emails 1, 3 and 4, which include a premise | Under 8 minutes to send | About 3.5 minutes |
| Emails 2 and 5, which don't | Under 5 minutes to send | About 45 seconds |
| Cold calls, using the premise from the most recent email | About 2 minutes | Not given |
The research happens once, and its three premises feed three emails and the calls. Holland's 2019 slides make the same point with a slide titled Research once for a prospect, and the write-up describes storing premises in custom fields in the sales engagement tool instead of spreadsheets. Holland's reps had their prospects deactivated from the tool if those fields were left empty.
Holland's 2022 post also says emails 1, 2 and 5 (the break-up email) convert best, with email 5 the highest overall. It gives no figures for that. For a founder the arithmetic is simple: 20 prospects at three minutes each is one hour of research, enough for three personalised emails to each of them.
Where do you find each premise on LinkedIn?
Each bucket has a home on a LinkedIn profile or company Page. The 2019 write-up says the buckets can be found on a prospect's LinkedIn profile; the mapping to LinkedIn's sections below is ours. LinkedIn's help page on the Activity section says it shows a member's posts, comments, articles and profile activity, with filters by type. If it's empty, LinkedIn says the member may have set it to private or may have no recent activity. Most of the profile sections below come from LinkedIn's list of sections you can add to a profile, and the hiring signal from the Jobs tab on a company Page, where members can search the organisation's openings. All three help pages were checked on 20 October 2026.
| Holland's bucket | Where to look on LinkedIn | Example premise (ours, for a fictional rota tool) |
|---|---|---|
| Self-authored content | Activity: posts and articles they wrote | Your post last week on booking weekend cover on a Monday |
| Engaged content | Activity: comments they left on other people's posts | Your comment under [name]'s post about fixing the forecast before the app |
| Self-attributed traits | Headline, About section, current position | Your headline says you open kitchens that run on time |
| Junk drawer | Education, volunteer experience, organisations, causes | You volunteer at a culinary school's careers day, and we help kitchens keep trainees |
| Company | The company Page's posts and Jobs tab | Your Jobs tab lists three site manager roles |
Work down the list in Holland's order and stop at the first bucket that gives you something specific. If the Activity section is empty, go straight to bucket 3. A junk-drawer premise only works if you can connect it to your product, as the fourth row does.
Should a buying signal be the premise?
Mostly not, on Holland's slides, though hiring and M&A news sit in the company bucket. A slide titled Postbound Premises sorts other information into two groups. Downloads of whitepapers, ebooks and other resources, webinar registrations and attendance, conference attendance, being a past user, an earlier demo and mutual connections can appear in a message for context, without being its main point. Company funding, buyer intent data and email opens stay out of the message entirely, and are used only to signal that a buyer may be ready.
So for funding and intent data, the signal tells you who to contact and when, and the premise tells you what to say. That split matters if you find people through signals. Siela's AI SDR does: it looks for people posting a pain point, comparing tools, engaging with a competitor's posts or raising funding, then writes each LinkedIn and X message for that person from their profile and the signal that surfaced them, and a second AI reviewer checks it before it is sent. Holland's slide goes further than we do, keeping funding and intent data out of the message altogether. If you write your own messages, follow Holland: let the signal choose the person, and let one of the five buckets supply the first line. Our guide to buying signals for small teams covers choosing the signals.
How do you fit a premise into a LinkedIn note?
Our suggestion, not Holland's: put the premise in the note and save the body and call to action for the message after they accept. LinkedIn's help page on personalised invitations (checked 20 October 2026) says a note can be up to 200 characters, and that free accounts can add one to up to three connection requests a month, while Premium members can personalise all of them. Holland's longest line, the premise, can fit that space, as our examples show.
| Bucket | Example connection note (ours, under 200 characters) |
|---|---|
| Self-authored content | Read your post on cutting agency shifts at weekends. The point about booking cover on Monday stuck with me. Would be good to connect. |
| Engaged content | Saw your comment on [name]'s post about rota apps: fix the forecast before the app. Same view here, and it's the problem I work on. Happy to connect. |
| Self-attributed traits | Your headline says you open kitchens that run on time. I work on the staffing side of that, so I'd like to connect. |
| Junk drawer | You volunteer at a culinary school's careers day. We help kitchens keep the trainees they hire, so I'd like to connect. |
| Company | Your Jobs tab lists three site manager roles. Growing groups often hit rota trouble first, which is the problem I work on. Happy to connect. |
When they accept, send the other two lines: one sentence mapping your value to the premise, then a request for one time to talk. Our connection request templates have more notes under 200 characters.
Run a one-hour premise session this week
Block one hour, research 20 people, and record which bucket each premise came from. The plan is ours, built on Holland's time limits.
Pick 20 people
Choose 20 people you would most like to talk to this month, ideally from one role so the body line can stay the same.
Give each one three minutes
Set a timer. Check the buckets in order and write up to three premises per person in your CRM or a notes column. Stop when the timer ends, even if you only found one.
Write the premise line first
Make it the longest line of the message. Then map your value to it in one medium sentence, and finish with a short request for one time to talk.
Spend notes where they count
On a free LinkedIn account, use your three notes a month on the three strongest premises. Send the others without a note and use the premise in the first message after they accept.
Tally replies by bucket
Next to each person, note the bucket the premise came from. After a month, count replies per bucket. Holland's 2019 order is a starting point; your own tally tells you which buckets work in your market.
Frequently asked questions
What is a personalised premise in a cold email?
It is the researched reason you are contacting one specific person, written as the first and longest line of the email. Becc Holland's structure puts the premise first, then a body that maps your value proposition to that premise, then a short call to action asking for one time to talk it through. Holland's 2019 slides list five places to find one.
What are Becc Holland's premise buckets?
On Holland's 2019 slides there are five, in order: self-authored content such as posts, articles and webinars; engaged content the person liked, shared or commented on; self-attributed traits from their headline or profile; a junk drawer of schools, interests and hobbies; and company news such as hiring, blogs and M&A. Flip the Script now offers a download describing six buckets.
How long should you spend researching one prospect?
Becc Holland's June 2022 LinkedIn post sets under five minutes for the LinkedIn research step, about three on average, and uses it to pick three premises. Those premises then feed three of the five emails and the calls, so the research happens once per prospect. For emails without a premise, Holland gives an average of about 45 seconds each.
Should you mention a prospect's funding round in a cold message?
Becc Holland's slides say no. Under postbound premises, company funding, buyer intent data and email opens are listed as information not used in messaging, only to signal buyer readiness. Use a funding round to decide when to reach out, and take the first line from what the person wrote, engaged with or says about themselves.
What if a prospect has no LinkedIn activity?
Move down Becc Holland's buckets. LinkedIn says an empty Activity section can mean the member set it to private or has no recent activity, which rules out the first two buckets on LinkedIn. The headline, About section and current role cover self-attributed traits, education and volunteering cover the junk drawer, and the company Page's posts and Jobs tab cover the company bucket.
Sources
- Becc Holland on LinkedIn: For most of my prospecting sequences, here's the breakdown (published 3 Jun 2022)
- Becc Holland on LinkedIn: Here's 5 cold email tips that I live by (published 12 May 2026)
- Becc Holland, Personalization at Scale (Chorus.ai slides, PDF) (PDF dated 4 Nov 2019, checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Chorus.ai: How to Personalize at Scale (via the Internet Archive) (published 17 Oct 2019, archived 19 Nov 2019)
- PersistIQ: How to Personalize at Scale (republished from Chorus.ai) (published 12 Feb 2020)
- Flip the Script: The 6 Buckets of Personalization (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- JB Sales podcast 176: Becc Holland on Personalization at Scale (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: View your activity or a member's activity on LinkedIn (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Add sections to your profile (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Jobs tab of your LinkedIn Page (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Personalize invitations to connect (checked 20 Oct 2026)