Most salespeople don’t know how to do cold LinkedIn outreach. Many salespeople try to do cold LinkedIn outreach and do it badly. Houston, we have a problem! Don’t we? I’m in a fairly good place to talk about this, because I do LinkedIn outreach and I teach how to do LinkedIn outreach. However, most importantly, I’m the recipient of a lot of LinkedIn outreach – and nearly all of it is awful.
When you’re a trainer, a coach, or a speaker, you quickly learn that there is an entire industry of people just dying to separate you from your money by promising miraculous growth – if you’ll just pay them to market you or help you market yourself. This entire industry focuses on reaching out on LinkedIn. I get somewhere between four and six messages a day. Most of them follow the same format. “Hello, Troy, you should know that I’m different and here’s why…” not realizing that they sound exactly the same as everyone else. Well, I received a message a few days ago from a guy who started that way. When I didn’t respond, he messaged again the next day. His message was a bit longer than most. I decided to try an experiment. Here’s how I responded to him:
“I suppose I’d be open to a brief strategy call. However, you should know this – you might ‘be the opposite of every LinkedIn marketing company,’ but you sound exactly like every other LinkedIn marketing company that bombs me with messages every day. There’s no shortage of people ready to separate coaches like me from their money, with big promises and crap returns. And of course, you’ve done the typical move of reaching out with a hard-sell message right away with no attempt at getting to know me or building a relationship that would give you credibility with me. So – with all that said, if you’d like to schedule a short call, I’m open to it, and I’m always open to learning ways to build my business. That said, I don’t apologize for being direct and protective of my time. But here’s my expectation for that call:
- You will have at least viewed my website to get an understanding of what I do.
- No small talk or cheap rapport building. I don’t schedule these calls to talk football.
- Your questions should be to gain understanding, not lead me.
- You be ready to tell me, in simple and straightforward terms, how you can help based on what you have learned about my business.
The ball is in your court.”
He has read that message, but I haven’t heard back from him. I doubt that I will. He’s sending out hundreds of these per week, and probably half of those people are blocking him immediately. But, since he’s working on the law of large numbers, I’m sure he’s getting some appointments. And that message will put him off because he’ll figure that I’m a jerk, or too tough, and there are easier marks.
Here’s what this guy doesn’t know about me and probably won’t ever get to learn: I’m a tough sale but once I’m sold, I’m SOLD. I’m loyal as hell, and if someone helps me, I will evangelize for them at every opportunity. But I’m protective of my time. When someone wants to sell to me, I expect them to have their act together. They should have a basic knowledge of what I do and be able to fit their services into that context. I’m happy the Chiefs won the Super Bowl (will I get sued by the NFL for using the name, or should I have said “the Big Game?”), but it’s neither the focus of my life nor something I’m interested in talking about during a sales call. And I expect a straightforward dialogue with no manipulative BS.
In other words, I’m like most of your prospects, and that’s where this worm is going to turn. You see, the guy who messaged me works nationwide to a big industry. There are some 4 million people in the USA alone who are engaged in some form of speaking or coaching – so if he burns some potential leads, who cares? He has a monstrous base of prospects. Most of you are measuring your prospect list in the thousands, hundreds, or even tens. You can’t afford to burn too many of them. So, if you want to avoid failing in your cold LinkedIn outreach, here’s how to do cold LinkedIn outreach right:
- No immediate hard sell. I’ll be honest; I cringe when I accept connection requests from people in certain lines of business. That’s because I know that, within minutes, I’m going to get a hard-sell message for how they can revolutionize my business. This hard-sell message is going to be incredibly generic and not speak to me as an individual at all, and there will be no attempt at relationship building. Try this: When your request is accepted, just send a soft message thanking them for accepting and telling them that you’re looking forward to networking with them here. And leave it at that. Believe it or not, you will stand out and be memorable by NOT telling them how awesome you are and how you can solve all their problems!
- Engage. Now that you’re connected, engage with them and their posts. Why do people post on social media? They want ATTENTION. Give it to them. Like their posts. Comment on them when it’s appropriate – and the comment shouldn’t be, “You know, if you buy from me, you can do that even better!” We get just a little dopamine hit when we see that someone has liked or commented on our posts, and very few people actually do that. When you do, your name appears and they remember it. Don’t be a stalker, of course – but give them a little attention. You might find that they give it back.
- Post meaningful content. Post about more than your current product line. Post interesting articles that you’ve read (this one, maybe?), post tips on how to do business better, even a personal post every now and then is good. But be active. I’m not talking about posting all the time. One post every day or two keeps you alive on LinkedIn. Between #2 above and this tip, you’d be amazed at what you can accomplish in 30 minutes a day.
- Cold LinkedIn Outreach should be appropriate and individualized. When you do reach out directly (no less than 3 weeks from initial connection), it should be individual, specific, and appropriate. It should display some knowledge of who they are and what they do, and speak directly to how you can help them. For instance, “Hey, Stan, I saw you’re opening a new branch in Peoria. You might not know this, but we have a great service center in Peoria that can help you with the startup and maintenance of that building.” No generic hard-sell crap.
- No fake rapport. Two things I’m sick of when someone tries to sell to me. “How about those Chiefs?” and “Kansas City? Great barbecue there.” I’m sick of it for two reasons. First, it’s an assumption – if you’re from Kansas City, you must be a dyed in the wool Chiefs fan, right? Er, not so much. Like I said, I’m a good Kansas Citian, I’m glad (and surprised) that they won, and I attended my friends’ watch parties. But football does not absorb my life. And if you’re from Kansas City, you’re big into barbecue, right? Well….yeah, I am. I have my own smoker and I’m convinced that the best ribs in Kansas City come from it. But that doesn’t mean that I want to spend time that I’ve allocated for a business conversation on a topic that the salesperson probably doesn’t have any real interest in. It’s fake and inauthentic, and it works against building rapport. Want to really build rapport? Ask a couple of good questions about your prospect that both demonstrate that you’ve done a bit of homework and that you want to dive deeper. Then LISTEN to the answer.
Unlike the people who approach me, I’m guessing that you can’t really use the “law of large numbers” to generate a prospect flow, and that you can’t afford to have half of those you approach block you. So, understand that prospecting and outreach are a slow play now. Instead of doing outreach for next week’s appointments, you’re going to do cold LinkedIn outreach for next month’s appointments – or next quarter’s. That’s okay. Those appointments will likely be better and more productive.
