I frequently get bad salespeople on LinkedIn. They assume that because I have a company profile attached to my personal profile I own the company and I am rich and need their services. Ha!
They copy and post and approach me like I am a high roller. I tell them straight up that I am a sole proprietor and that they are wasting their time. This has increased over time and today I had two people approach me.
Now in the past, a professional salesperson would qualify their audience and then give a customized pitch. I’m getting mass pitches without being qualified. These people are just taking guesses that I am interested in. What a failure rate they must have.
I am not an expert salesperson but I wouldn’t contact people who didn’t have the money and the need for my service. To do anything else would be a waste of time and energy. I wish that we could further define the kind of InMail messages we get. I know it’s always a bad sign that if I accept anyone with the word sales in their profile header I will usually regret it.
That is what happened today. I accepted it and sure as shooting, in a few minutes I had the copy and paste job. What a waste of time for everyone.
Listen if you are prospecting on LinkedIn do us all a favor and try to verify that your prospect has the means and need for your service. If you don’t we will stop accepting or responding to you to let you know you have wasted your time.