The exact LinkedIn strategy I used to book 9 demos in 3 days WITHOUT Sales Navigator

So I made a mistake with my cold email set up and got my account flagged by Google LOL.

Thankfully there's LinkedIn.

I did a very quick research over maybe 24 hours to arrive at my initial LinkedIn approach and thankfully, that worked almost instantly and this is WITHOUT having to pay for Sales Navigator and without using chrome extensions like Apollo. (these can defo help optimise things but I'm just getting started so didn't want to have to work around a tool just yet)

So here's my 4-step approach which I'll go into detail further down

1. Find relevant prospects.
2. Send them an invite with a note.
3. Respond/ Follow up
4. Book a call

Bonus Step: Find out how to NOT get suspended

More important than HOW to get leads on LinkedIn is to be ABLE to get leads and that starts with understanding LinkedIn's definition of spammy behavior. I do not want my LinkedIn to also get suspended.

What I've learned is roughly you shouldn't be sending more than 20 new connection requests in a day. You should do your own due diligence to find out what number you're comfortable with.

Step 1. Find relevant prospects.

The annoying thing with LinkedIn is once it notices that you're behaving like a salesperson, it starts limiting the number of accounts you can see with a search. I initially could see way more accounts and then later just 3 with the rest paywalled by a Sales Navigator upsell.

So I had to get creative with finding prospects. I can't just find people based on their job titles anymore.

I found that what did NOT have a limit is searching for posts that contained a keyword. So I searched for posts that mentioned "Facebook Ads" and "ecommerce" which are relevant to my SaaS.

I would then try to qualify the profiles that showed up and send invites to the right ones.

A caveat: This limits your prospects to people who are actively posting on LinkedIn. As I'm writing this though I realised you can probably also look at people who liked a post. But alternatively, if this doesn't work for you, you might have to bite the bullet and just sign up for Sales Navigator.

2. Send an invite with a note

The note is key here. Here's the exact template I used to get around >40% of people accepting my invites, and a good number responding to my message.

"Hi {name}, I'm looking for {category} experts to give me some feedback on this new {product category} I'm building. Could I get your quick thoughts on this?"

You can change expert to something else like "Top 1% {field}." Point is to flatter them and ask for something light like getting feedback.

3. Respond & Follow up

Most will respond positively and you then need to book a call. Your message should just say "Awesome, can I book some time with you tomorrow?"

Worry about the exact time later when they say yes or suggest another day.

I've had some actually ask to jump on a call in that exact moment.

For those who DON'T respond but accepted your invite, I recommend you send a gentle nudge saying "Hey just checking in again if I could get your thoughts on so and so"

4. Book a call

Once they are interested, suggest a time and jump on that call!