Every sales rep I know has a slightly different relationship with ChatGPT. Some swear by using it to help with everything from research and pre-call prep to objection handling and re-engagement. Others have tried it once, gotten a comically generic cold email in return, and immediately jumped ship.
Many in the second camp, however, used ChatGPT for sales in the early days—when ChatGPT would write borderline restraining-order-ready "breakup" emails for prospects who ghosted them. A lot has changed since then. ChatGPT at least knows the difference between drafting a message to help you break up with your therapist versus one to let a prospect know you're taking the hint—but leaving the thread open, just in case.
Here, I'll share how to use ChatGPT for sales, along with 13 tried-and-true ChatGPT prompts to help with every stage of your sales journey.Â
Table of contents:Â
How to use ChatGPT for sales
Give ChatGPT context
ChatGPT doesn't come pre-loaded with knowledge about your product, ICP, or anything else it might need to draft a strong sales email that doesn't scream AI-generated. You have to give it the context it needs. The more specifics you feed it upfront, the less editing you'll have to do on the back end. Â
Here's a ChatGPT prompt you can start with:Â
Prompt: You are a sales rep at [company name]. We sell [brief product description] to [target customer]. I'm going to ask you to help me write sales emails. Here's context on my prospect: [name, role, company, relevant details].
ChatGPT's memory should automatically carry memories of key details—like your role, industry, and preferences—across conversations. But if you want to be sure ChatGPT's pulling in these details for specific types of chats, you can set up dedicated projects instead. This way, you don't have to repeat yourself at the start of every conversation just in case.Â
And if you connect Zapier to ChatGPT, you can skip the manual briefing entirely. With Zapier MCP, ChatGPT gets access to the apps you're already working in. Instead of feeding it context by hand, it pulls what it needs. For example, it can check HubSpot for where a deal stands, pull the last email thread from Gmail, and cross-reference your calendar for the last touchpoint. From there, it can use all of that to draft a follow-up that's actually grounded in what's happening with the deal.
And because your credentials stay managed by Zapier, the model never sees them directly, so you can give ChatGPT access to your CRM and inbox without handing over the keys.
Match the task to the sales stage
Tell ChatGPT where you are in the deal, not just what you want it to write. That's how you get AI-generated outputs that don't read like generic-straight-to-spam gobbledygook.Â
Pre-call: Use ChatGPT for research and prep.Â
Mid-cycle: Ask ChatGPT to draft follow-up emails and suggest ways to handle common objections.Â
Late-stage: Use ChatGPT to help with re-engagement and referral requests.
Prompt, edit, and verify
ChatGPT will rarely give you something you can send without touching it. (You could. But I can't guarantee it'll deliver the outcome you're hoping for.)Â
Instead, think of ChatGPT's output as the first draft that gets you 70% of the way there. The remaining 30% is yours to add: the specific detail that shows you actually did your homework, the sentence that sounds like you instead of a press release, and a quick fact-check on anything the model pulled from the web.
This is especially true for personalized emails. If you ask ChatGPT to use a prospect's LinkedIn profile or recent company news, read every line before you hit send. AI hallucinations are real, and a confidently wrong detail in a cold email is worse than no detail at all.
13 ChatGPT prompts for sales
If there's a specific type of sales email that you want ChatGPT's help crafting, feel free to jump ahead. Otherwise, keep scrolling for more inspiration and prompt templates.
1. Prospect research and pre-call prep
ChatGPT can do a lot of your pre-call legwork, including:Â
Summarizing publicly available knowledge about a company or a prospectÂ
Identifying likely paint points based on industry and sizeÂ
Brainstorming different angles to lead withÂ
Here are a few example prompts you can use.Â
Prompt: I'm getting on a discovery call with [name], [title] at [company]. They're in [industry] with roughly [company size] employees. Based on what you know about this type of company, what are the most likely challenges they're facing around [relevant area]? What questions should I ask to uncover those pain points?
Prompt: Summarize what's publicly known about [company name]—recent news, product launches, leadership changes, or growth signals—that would be relevant context for a sales conversation.
2. Cold outreach
Sending a cold sales email to someone who's never heard of you is the hardest message to get right. The instinct is to go generic, but generic is exactly what gets your message sent to trash. ChatGPT can help you write something that sounds like it was written for one specific person, as long as you give it enough context to work with.
Instead of a prompt like "Write a cold email to a sales lead," give it more to go on: the prospect's name, their company, what you know about their role, and what you're pitching. The difference in output is significant.
Prompt: I want to send a cold email to [name and their company] to pitch them on [your company or product description]. Find publicly available information on [name of prospect], and use that information to write a concise and informal cold outreach email.
Prompt: I work at [company name and your role], and I'm looking to [goal of email]. Here are some details about my prospect from their LinkedIn profile: [paste relevant bio, headline, or experience]. Write a concise and informal cold outreach email that references this context.
If the output still reads a little too AI-generated, you can train ChatGPT to write like you by feeding it a few of your own past emails as style examples before asking it to draft anything new.
3. Follow-ups and deal management
Follow-up emails aren't necessarily difficult, but they're usually boring: you're just regurgitating a lot of what's already been said. But they're necessary. They serve as a paper trail for both parties to have clarity on the next steps you've agreed on.
Since one of the main draws of ChatGPT is that it can remember specifics you previously fed it, it's easy to jump back into a ChatGPT conversation about a specific prospect and prompt it to write a follow-up without having to explain the details all over again.
Prompt: Write a concise and informal follow-up email to [name] from [company] who I've just had a call with and is now ready to [describe next action].
If you've connected ChatGPT with Zapier MCP, you can ask it to look up the person in your CRM, pull their deal stage and last activity, or grab the meeting notes from your AI notetaker before it drafts anything.
Prompt: I just got off a call with [name] at [company]. Pull up what we have on them and any recent meeting notes, then write a brief, informal follow-up email that recaps where we left off and confirms next steps.
Because your apps are already connected through Zapier, ChatGPT knows where to look without you having to specify the tool or paste anything in.
4. Objection handling
There are many reasons why a prospect might say no to signing up: budget concerns, timing, or they're already using a similar product or service. But here's what separates a struggling salesperson from a winning one: you know how to address each of these concerns without coming off as pushy.Â
ChatGPT can help you write sales emails with this level of tact and consideration.Â
Prompt: [Describe the prospect's objection.] Write a gently persuasive follow-up email to help [name of prospect] overcome this objection. Emphasize the value of [your product or service].
This is another good opportunity to use your call transcript—paste it in directly, or if you've connected Zapier MCP, ask ChatGPT to pull it from your AI notetaker. Either way, let it identify the objections rather than summarizing them yourself. A hesitation that felt minor on the call can look a lot more significant when you read it back, and getting ahead of it in your follow-up is usually worth the extra line.
Prompt: Pull up the most recent meeting notes with [name] at [company]. Identify any objections or concerns they raised—explicit or implied. Then write a follow-up email that addresses them. Emphasize the value of [your product or service] and keep the tone gently persuasive, not pushy.
5. Re-engaging ghosted prospects
When a prospect is ghosting you, the worst thing you can do is barrage them with dull "Just checking in!" emails. Any email that exists simply to bump yourself up the prospect's inbox will almost certainly get ignored.
A better approach: give ChatGPT the context and ask for something that earns a response—whether that's a new angle, a relevant trigger, or a little self-aware humor.Â
Prompt: Pull up [name] at [company] in the CRM. Review our interaction history—last touchpoint, any emails, deal stage—and use that context to write a short re-engagement email that leads with something relevant rather than a generic check-in.
Prompt: Write a concise and professional but funny sales email to a prospect who's been unresponsive. Use subtle humor—nothing over the top.
Adding subtle humor to a last-attempt email is risky, but pairing "funny" with "professional" in the prompt keeps things more or less in line. Not totally happy with the jokes ChatGPT comes up with? Hit the Try again button—and keep refreshing until it tells a joke that makes you laugh. Or smile. Or at least feel something.
6. Referrals and customer expansion
Referral emails are awkward to write—you're asking a favor from someone you just convinced to trust you. And expansion conversations require a different tone than new business entirely. ChatGPT can help you thread both needles.Â
Prompt: Pull up [name] at [company] in the CRM. Review their history with us—how long they've been a customer, use case, any notable interactions. Then, in my writing style [or describe your personal writing style], write a concise and informal email asking for a referral via [channel] that references their specific experience with the product.
Prompt: I'm reaching out to an existing customer at [company] about expanding their usage to [product/feature/team]. They've been a customer for [timeframe] and their main use case has been [describe]. Write a warm, low-pressure email that opens the conversation.
Benefits of using ChatGPT for sales
ChatGPT won't offer up a winning sales email right off the bat, but it sure can get you close. Here are a few advantages of using ChatGPT to help generate sales emails.Â
Create personalized emails at scale. Once you've nailed down a couple of go-to ChatGPT prompts for sales emails, it's easy to plug in details about a prospect and generate all kinds of sales emails. This way, you can scale your outreach efforts while maintaining a consistent style and tone across multiple emails.
Cost-effective resource. If you don't have the budget to hire a dedicated team of writers to write snappy sales email templates or your sales team doesn't have the bandwidth to write these emails from scratch, ChatGPT offers a budget-friendly way to come up with new ideas.Â
24/7 availability. ChatGPT is always accessible, which makes it the ideal sales partner to turn to any time a lead comes in.Â
Automate ChatGPT with Zapier
If you're using ChatGPT to help with sales emails, you're probably already reaching for it in other parts of your workflow too. At some point, manually copying prospect data into prompts becomes its own form of busywork.
With Zapier, you can connect ChatGPT with 9,000+ app integrations, so it can take those responses and do something with them across your tech stack. With Zapier MCP, ChatGPT can pull in live prospect data, draft a follow-up based on your last call notes in your CRM, and queue it as a draft in Gmail—all without you touching a single field. Your app credentials stay managed by Zapier, with OAuth-based authentication, so the model never sees them directly. If you're running high-volume outreach, that kind of automation compounds fast. Learn more about how to automate ChatGPT.Â
Zapier is the most connected AI orchestration platform—integrating with thousands of apps from partners like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Use forms, data tables, and logic to build secure, automated, AI-powered systems for your business-critical workflows across your organization's technology stack. Learn more.
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This article was originally published in April 2023 by Katie Paterson. The most recent update was in June 2026.
