Starting a conversation on LinkedIn with a complete stranger in a way that feels natural and not spammy is one of the biggest challenges I’ve found my clients face when trying to find new leads on the platform, but it really doesn’t have to be. So long as you focus on really trying to add value to your clients and talk in a way that is yourself, then you’re going to have a lot of success and you’re going to start generating a lot of high-quality business leads.

My name is Ryan Caswell and I help B2B professionals generate new and high-quality leads on LinkedIn, and today I wanted to go through, just quickly, some of the high-level concepts you want to go through when generating or reaching out to your ideal clients and complete strangers on LinkedIn in a way that will feel non-spammy, and generate high-quality business leads for you and your business. Now, I’ll also include a link below the video for some actual real-world examples with connection rates and engagement rates that I’ve seen in the past work really, really well. But in this video, I just wanted to go through some of the core concepts that you want to follow when reaching out to complete strangers on LinkedIn.

So I like to think of this in two parts, first of all, you have your connection message. So, reaching out to a complete stranger and convincing them to want to connect with you and join your network. And then once people have connected, it’s a matter of how do you then get engagement? How do you progress that conversation in a way that lets people understand the value that you can provide enough to want to get on a call, have a meeting, and eventually work together? Now, for everything that you do in your messages, there’s two key things that you’re really going to want to focus on and I’ll write them on the board because they are important. I don’t know where I can fit them. Let’s say you’re going to want to focus on, I’ll put it in two, something called WIIFM, what’s in it for me? What value are you going to provide? What value is there in engaging with you?

People are busy and you are at the bottom of their priority list, you’re a stranger who’s reached out to them. So you need to really quickly demonstrate what kind of value you can provide in dealing with them. Not the services you provide, but the value that your services generate, and the second thing you’re going to want to concentrate on is don’t propose on the first date. So what I mean by this is you’ve just reached out to someone, they’ve never talked to you before, they’ve never met you before, don’t go straight for trying to have a coffee meeting or book an appointment. Just start with something small, try and add some value to them, send them a resource that will help them out, or something that requires the minimal effort to them. That initial first very easy step, make it as easy as possible, that’s going to start them to learn more about you. To know you and then to like what you do, and to be able to build that trust enough to want to engage with you, talk with you, have a meeting. So let’s quickly talk about the connection messages. I ran out of space, that’s all right.

Now the connection message on LinkedIn, you can really have two approaches. You can have a very passive reaching out to network approach, which has a very effective connection rate. But because it is a little more passive, it does require a bit more nurturing, a bit more time involved in you, once people connect, to build those relationships and progress those to calls. I suggest people who don’t have an unlimited, essentially, supply of leads on LinkedIn and need to be very careful with each and every single lead, is to have, I guess, a more passive, less aggressive approach and just try and connect with more people. That way you grow your audience with the right leads, and they’re going to have visibility when you post content, and you can slowly build that relationship over time.

Now for people who have really strong value propositions, have a huge audience, can really focus on an engaged segment. You can be a little bit more forward in your connection message and go straight to the value you provide and the reason for wanting to connect. Now, this sometimes leads to a lower connection rate, but it really sets the tone of the conversation very well. So the idea of this, even though you get a lower connection rate, is the conversation is set on the right path and it really limits the amount of time that you need to put in for every single person, every single conversation, and increase your ROI when you start looking at your time involved in this. So once again, I said I’ll include a link to some good examples below that have got really good connection rates. So you can actually have a look at some real-world examples.

Next is, once people actually connect with you, you’re going to want to start engaging with them. So the key here is, and something that I’ve found really effective is just to thank people for connecting with you. And just quickly in one sentence or less, just tell them what you do, the value you provide, your key value proposition, which is probably, if you’ve read my article on how to optimize your profile, which I’ll include below as well, is basically your headline. It’s, “I help who accomplish, solve what, with my services.” So just thank them for connecting, let them know what you do, and suggest if they’re ever interested in talking, to reach out and have a chat. Now, this is very powerful because, for those who are interested, it puts the ball in their court. It’s a polite way to basically get people to look at your profile and reach out to you if they feel the need to connect.

Which is why it’s so important that your LinkedIn profile is optimized before you do anything with regard to lead generation and that it’s very focused on the thing that you’re trying to connect and add value with regard to. Now, if you’ve reached out to connect with someone, you’ve thanked them for connecting, and you still haven’t heard anything back, now this is where you want to try and get some more visibility, some more touchpoints in, and try and really add some value. Once again, we’re not trying to propose on the first date, I’m not telling them to book a meeting with us, have a coffee with us. Remember how busy people are, and you’re at the bottom of their priority list. So try and think of a way that you can add value for them that is really easy for them, but is also really high value. So, can you do a quick audit of their security system if you’re in IT? Can you offer them a great resource on how to optimize something in their business, if you’re in management consulting?

Just something that, once again, is high value, but very easy for them to implement, have a quick read of, and start to get the idea of what you do and the value that you add. And remember, it does have to be good, if it’s not good, then you might as well just not send anything. So do put some time and thought into how you can genuinely add a lot of value in that second message. A good point of reference is that it should almost be so good that you think, “Should I be giving this away for free?” And then that’s probably enough in terms of messaging. You can get extra touchpoints in if you haven’t heard from them, through your content marketing and establishing yourself as an expert, and the value that you add by putting out quality content on the platform. And like I said, I’ll put a link to some really good real-world examples below this video. I encourage you to check it out and have a go at doing it yourself, and the most important thing here is that every industry, every person, every individual, every profile is different.

Now, the only approach that will work is one that applies what you’ve learned and reviews it, and reiterates it. So, if you think you’re just going to get it perfect the first time around, make sure that you come in with a different attitude of trying things, measuring it, and trying different things if you don’t get any results and more of what’s working. The scientific approach will always, always help you get better results, and it’s super critical with regard to lead generation on LinkedIn. So that’s it, I hope that this video’s been helpful for you, if you have any questions, just leave a comment below. I’d love to hear them and answer anything you need help with. So, I’ve been Ryan Caswell, from b2bleads.com, B2B Lead Generation with LinkedIn. Have a great day everyone, cheers.