How to write an introduction letter to a business
What a cold introduction letter to a potential customer needs to say, and how Joogoos drafts them for businesses that could become your customers.
Why the letter is different when you want a contract
One-off work and contract work are sold in different ways. A one-off job usually comes from someone who already has the problem today — a blocked drain, a birthday buffet, a flat that needs a clean before the viewing. Commercial work rarely arrives like that. The office manager, the site foreman or the pub landlord already has someone, or has nobody and hasn't thought about it this week.
So the introduction letter isn't an advert. It is a short, specific note to one named person at one named business, saying who you are, what you do for businesses like theirs, and what you would like to happen next. It is the written version of walking in and introducing yourself, except it arrives when they have time to read it.
That is also why a generic letter fails. If the same words could be sent to a dentist, a car dealership and a nursery, the reader can tell, and a letter that could be for anyone reads as being for no one.
Do the ten minutes of homework first
Before writing anything, find out two things about the business you are writing to.
The first is a name. "Dear Sir or Madam" tells the reader nobody looked. The name of the office manager, the general manager, the facilities lead or the owner is usually on the website, on LinkedIn, or available by phoning the front desk and asking who looks after cleaning, catering or maintenance.
The second is one true detail about them. They have just taken a second unit. They run a staffed reception, so visitors see the floors. They do client lunches on Thursdays. They have a fleet of six vans parked at the back. One real detail, mentioned in the first two lines, is what separates a letter from a leaflet.
It is also worth deciding honestly whether you want them as a customer. Contract work is a relationship you will be in every week, so a business that is too far away, too big for your capacity or known for paying late is not worth the stamp. Writing ten good letters beats sending a hundred.
What a cold introduction letter needs to say
Six things, in roughly this order.
Who you are, in one line. Your name, your trade, and where you are based. "I'm Ade, I run a commercial cleaning round in Dalston" does the whole job.
Why them. The detail you found. This is the sentence that proves the letter was written for them and not copied.
What you actually do for businesses like theirs. Be concrete and operational: early-morning cleans before staff arrive, a hot lunch for twenty delivered by midday, reactive callouts within the working day, a quarterly service on the extraction. Resist adjectives. "Reliable" and "professional" are claims every competitor also makes, so they carry no information.
One piece of proof. The strongest proof is another business of a similar size and type that you already look after, named if they are happy to be named, described if not — "I clean two serviced-office buildings on the same street". Insurance, trade registration and the fact that your staff are the same people every week are all proof as well.
What happens next, made small. The letter should not ask them to switch supplier. It should ask for something that costs them almost nothing: a ten-minute look round, a sample lunch for the next board meeting, a quote for comparison when their current contract comes up.
How to reach you. Mobile number, email, and the name they should ask for. Put it in the sign-off, not only on a letterhead.
Keep the whole thing to one page, and shorter if you can. A busy reader finishes a short letter and skims a long one.
A worked example
Here is how those six parts look as one letter from a cleaner approaching a small office. The same skeleton works for a caterer or a trade.
Dear Sam,
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I'm Ade and I run a small commercial cleaning round covering Dalston and Haggerston. I noticed you've taken the second floor at Pritchard House as well as the first.
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I clean two serviced-office buildings on the same street, both before 8am so the day starts clean and nobody works around a mop. A typical contract with me is three mornings a week, bins, kitchens, washrooms and floors, with the same two people every time, and a deeper clean each quarter.
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I'm fully insured and happy to send the certificate. If it's useful, I could come by for ten minutes one morning and give you a written price, so you have something to compare against when your current arrangement comes up for renewal.
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Either way, good luck with the new floor.
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Ade Okoro — 07xxx xxxxxx — ade@…
Notice what is missing: no mission statement, no list of values, no paragraph about how long the company has been established. Notice also the last line before the sign-off. Giving the reader permission to do nothing makes the letter easier to answer, not harder.
A caterer swaps the operational detail: a fixed lunch menu for ten to forty people, dietary requirements handled as standard, delivery in the half-hour window before the meeting. A trade swaps it again: planned maintenance visits, a named number for breakdowns, and a schedule of rates so there are no surprises on the invoice.
The mistakes that get letters binned
Opening with yourself at length. "Established in 2011, we pride ourselves on…" is the most skipped sentence in business writing.
Listing every service you offer. A long list asks the reader to work out which bit applies to them, and most readers won't.
Pricing in the first letter, when the job varies. A price without a site visit is either a guess or too high to be interesting. A rough range is fine when the job is standard.
No ask at all. A letter that ends "I hope to hear from you" has handed the next move to the busiest person in the room.
Attachments and brochures as the main event. The letter has to work on its own, because the attachment may never be opened.
Following up without becoming a nuisance
Most introduction letters get no reply, and that is normal rather than a verdict on the letter. One follow-up, about a week or two later, short, referring to the first note and repeating only the small ask, is reasonable and often where the reply actually comes from.
After that, leave it and diarise them for later. Contracts change hands when something breaks: the cleaner stops turning up, the caterer gets an order wrong, the contractor retires. Your letter's job is to be the thing they remember when that happens, which is a good argument for writing to the same businesses again in six months rather than finding new ones.
Getting them written when you are the one doing the job
The honest problem with all of this is time. If you run the business yourself, the letters get written on a Sunday evening or not at all, and usually not at all. That is exactly who Joogoos is built for: small business owners who run the business themselves and never get round to the marketing, and who don't want to learn prompts, hire an agency or sign up to a monthly plan.
Joogoos writes introduction letters to businesses that could become customers. You tell it about your business once, so it knows what you do and who you do it for, and it drafts from that. You approve everything before it goes out. You pay as you go instead of paying a subscription.
It does the rest of the marketing in the same place: social posts and short videos made from your own photos, articles written and published on your own website so people find you on Google, and a count of who visits your site and why.
The part you keep is the part only you can do — choosing which businesses are worth writing to, and knowing the one true detail about each of them. If you want to start with a few letters, get in touch and tell us about the work you want more of.
Questions
How long should an introduction letter to a potential customer be?
One page at most, and shorter is usually better. A busy reader finishes a short letter and skims a long one. If you cover who you are, why you are writing to them specifically, what you do for businesses like theirs, one piece of proof and one small next step, you have said enough.
Should I send it by email or by post?
Both work and they fail differently. Email is quick and easy to forward, but competes with everything else in the inbox. A posted letter is rarer, so it gets opened more often, but there is no reply button and it can sit on a desk. If the business has a reception and a physical address you visit anyway, posting or dropping one in is worth trying.
What do I write if I have no commercial clients yet?
Use the proof you do have. Domestic or one-off work at a similar scale still shows you turn up and finish. Insurance, trade registration, how long you have been working and the fact that the same person does the job every time are all reassuring. Don't invent a client list — it unravels at the first question.
How do I find the right person to address it to?
Look for an office manager, facilities lead, general manager or owner on the company website or LinkedIn. If you can't find one, phone and ask who looks after cleaning, catering or maintenance. A name in the greeting tells the reader someone actually looked.
Can Joogoos write these letters for me?
Yes. Writing introduction letters to businesses that could become customers is one of the things Joogoos does, alongside social posts, short videos from your own photos, and articles published on your own website. You describe your business once, and you approve everything before it goes out.
Do I have to sign up to a monthly plan?
No. Joogoos is pay as you go rather than a subscription.