Connect With Any Prospect on LinkedIn With Ease Using This 3-Step Friendly Leader Method

LinkedIn is supposed to be about forming connections with like-minded colleagues and industry leaders plus growing your brand. So why is it that every day we get more and more spam in our LinkedIn inbox?

It should go without saying that spamming your potential connections isn’t the way to make friends, but here we are. Please don’t spam people that you’re trying to connect with.

So how do you go about making these connections? Well, if you want to build real relationships, you have to stand out from the crowd of over-eager sellers and inbox heroes. And it may sound daunting, but I’ve got a strategy to share with you that’ll make it easy-peasy.

I call it the Friendly Leader Method.

Three steps that will help you stand out from the crowd, get people to accept your connection requests, and make those people want to talk to you.

Step 1: Find The People You Want to Connect With

Make your job easier by only reaching out to people who you want to engage with. You’re looking for quality of connections over quantity.

People who make it a habit of posting, sharing, and engaging with others’ content on LinkedIn are the easiest to connect with using the Friendly Leader Method. Find people who are actually posting by using LinkedIn Sales Nav or by manually scrolling through people’s profiles.

Look at the people you’re going after — on your list of prospects, industry partners, etc. —, go to their profiles, and look at what they have going on in their activity section to see what they’ve been up to most recently. Once you’ve found a profile that’s active and you want to interact with, find pieces of content that they’ve posted or that they’ve commented on recently and engage with that. Ideally, you want to leave a handful of comments on their content before sending a connection request so that when your request goes through, they’re more likely to recognize you.

Step 2: Engage With Their Content

Engaging with their content can start with something as simple as reacting to their post or comment with a like, clap, heart, or whatever’s appropriate. But what you really want is to engage with content in a meaningful way.

Comments like “Great post, Joe!” are pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel, but something that actually provides insights into what you found valuable about the post will definitely catch “Joe”s attention.

And your contribution can be anything that you believe will add value to the post — including a different perspective or a question that you have after reading what the author has to say. Try to make your comment at least 1 – 3 sentences. 

If your target isn’t posting, then go and see if they’re an active commenter themselves. If they are, then engage with those comments. Remember to peruse the Activity section of their LinkedIn profile to make finding their comments and contributions easy on yourself.

By engaging with people through their posts and comments, we make them familiar with us before we reach out directly. This way, when you show up in their LinkedIn Connection Requests, they go “Oh yeah, it’s that person who just commented on my post.” People are way more likely to respond to connection requests from people they feel are engaging with them.

Step 3: Send A Custom Connection Request

I know that you want to connect with them, but in order for them to see your incredibly thoughtful comment, you need to give them time. Wait 1 – 3 days before you send a connection request. 

The exception is when they actually notice your comment and respond to it quickly. If that happens, then you can go ahead and send the connection request. 

When you are ready to send that connection request, mention one of their posts or something personal on their profile. 

Here’s a template you can leverage:

Hi Joe – I enjoyed your [post or comment] on [Insert topic of post or comment you engaged with]. If you’re up for it, let’s connect.

And if they aren’t posting content or engaging on other people’s content, find something on their profile that stood out to you or something timely about their company. Then, mention that in the connection request. 

Pretend like you are talking to this person face-to-face. 

Don’t worry about reinventing the wheel — your custom message doesn’t have to be your magnum opus. Remember to KISS: keep it simple, sales-friends!

And that’s all she wrote!

Making meaningful connections on LinkedIn is as simple as:

1. Leave a solid comment on at least 1 recent post
2. Wait 1 – 2 days (or enough time for them to see your comment)
3. Send a personalized connection request.

With these three easy steps, I guarantee that you’ll get more connections on LinkedIn and kick off those relationships with a better, warmer start.

Now it’s time to put the Friendly Leader Method to the test (did I forget to mention there’s a test?).

Connect with me on LinkedIn for LinkedIn tips and tricks.

Don’t forget to follow up with a custom connection request. And if you’re looking for more social selling strategies, check out the DBTV series, The Sales Funnel.

Be sure to connect with me and Demandbase on LinkedIn!