3 myths about LinkedIn prospecting that you should know
That I learned in the past 3 months
Read time: 3 min
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LinkedIn has become the modern-day goldmine for prospecting.
But there are some wrong ideas about it. Today, I'm diving into the 3 of the most common myths I've encountered. My deep dive into LinkedIn prospecting at Castor led me to book half of my meetings with data leaders. Plus, after interviewing 6 top sales reps who swear by LinkedIn, I've gathered some invaluable insights.
Let's clear up these wrong ideas together.
Myth 1: "You need a personal brand to succeed on LinkedIn."
Truth?
Not really.
I have had a personal brand since 2019. At Chili Piper, very few of my meetings came from my online show or my posts.
At Castor, I just posted a bit, and half of my meetings were from me reaching out directly.
Julia, Caspian, Devesh, and Holly? (That I interviewed on the show).
They get most of their meetings by just reaching out.
Not from their posts.
And I’ve seen a lot of people preaching SDR should create content to engage with their prospects.
It’s a waste of time. If you’ve never done the job of your prospects. Don’t do it.
You can be helpful in other ways.
Make sure your LinkedIn page says how you can help. People will check it when you message or add them.
When does personal branding and creating content work?
When you are an expert for your prospects, and here are 3 examples:
Monica McIllroy works with sales leaders and founders to help them with their SDR team. She shares content about that because she has been leading SDR teams for quite some time.
Deb books most of his meetings come from the content he posts on LinkedIn. He helps SDRs, and then those SDRs help him get to the right person.
Chris Walker worked as a marketer for 8 years before creating Refine Labs 3 years ago. Most of his early revenue came from posting on LinkedIn
Myth 2: "Don’t pitch slap on LinkedIn."
Truth?
Yes, you can.
But it depends on when.
Note: Just because you can pitch doesn't mean you should spam.
A lot of advice on LinkedIn is from people selling to sales folks.
Why? Because salespeople are super active there. But remember, not everyone on LinkedIn is the same.
There are two kinds of people on LinkedIn:
Active Users: These are the folks always posting and chatting. With them, take your time. Build rapport. Ask questions about their business. Get to know them.
Casual Users: Some, like many data leaders or engineers, have a profile but rarely check it. They're mostly there for job hunting. So, long chats? It's not going to work. They might not even see your message for weeks!
That’s something I learned at Castor, the majority of data leaders are casual users of LinkedIn.
Monica and I chatted about this on the podcast. She changes how she talks to people based on how often they're on LinkedIn.
Myth 3: "There's only one right way to prospect on LinkedIn."
Truth?
LinkedIn is like a Swiss Army knife. There's more than one way to use it.
In my early days with LinkedIn, I only used it to send 1 message and that’s it, and that was a mistake.
Because I was only using cold emails and the phone.
Here's what you can do on LinkedIn:
Get referrals.
Follow up.
Ask questions to get information.
Send content to your prospect inbox.
Invite your prospect to your LinkedIn events.
Point your prospect to your email.
You can send images.
Voice notes.
Videos.
Even GIFs.
And here's a golden nugget: Devesh, a guest on my show, has this 6-message sequence. Guess what? He gets replies 30% of the time. That's huge!
Every time you come across a "golden rule" on LinkedIn or anywhere else, take a step back.
Ask yourself: Who's saying this? Why? A ton of advice on LinkedIn comes from folks selling to... well, other sellers. But what works for them might not work for you. It's not one-size-fits-all.
And when a big company shouts, "Cold calling is dead!"? Don't just take their word for it. Ask for the facts.
Because there are companies like Cognism that grew to $50m ARR, mainly through cold calls and their hard-working SDR teams.
So, there we go. Thanks for reading.
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Happy prospecting!
Elric
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