The LinkedIn Outreach Playbook

Personalised requests are where our acceptance rate comes from. In the flagship playbook's words:

Short, about them, no pitch, no link. On a free account you get five notes a month, so if every request carries one you'll need a Premium plan (chapter 7).

Once someone accepts, we often send a personalised one-to-one voice note. It takes 30 to 45 seconds, proves you are a real human who looked at their profile, and opens a relaxed dialogue.

We get really good traction from voice notes. We set a reminder to do them a few times a week, and they're never longer than about 45 seconds. They touch on a pain we think might be relatable. It's very soft: not an invitation for a coffee, just “does this relate?”, plus a mention that we post lots of content about sales. It's been a really nice way to break the ice.

You can even say it in the voice note: I just want to let you know I'm a real person. There's so much AI out there now. Rather than see that as a challenge, use it as an advantage, and be the person who stands out with good-quality outreach.

So many people just aren't doing this, so it can make you stand out. We'd highly recommend giving voice notes, or even videos, a go as part of your outreach. The best way to get good at them is to be consistent, so allocate time slots. We block out 9:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and each do 10 to 15 voice notes. It takes 10 to 15 minutes, and then we get on with our day.

You can start on a free account. What you pay for is more personal notes, Open Profile, InMail and, with Sales Navigator, a prospecting tool.

Our rule of thumb: if your requests carry a personal note, and ours do, five a month runs out on the first morning, so you'll want a Premium plan. Sales Navigator earns its price once you're searching for prospects and saving lists every day.

We run LinkedIn outreach for B2B teams through their own profiles, in their name, alongside cold email and cold calling, and nothing goes out without their OK. If you'd rather we ran it, book a call and we'll show you what it would look like for you.

The full playbookThe Outbound Playbook: LinkedIn, cold email and cold callingWhere LinkedIn sits beside cold email and cold calling, what each returned for us, and the UK rules for all three.

Who wrote this

Chris May

Co-Founder, JumpLead

Twenty-plus years in sales: ten of them leading sales teams and five leading a business, most recently as Managing Director of graduate-jobs.com. He has run straight new-business desks through to account-managed teams, and co-founded JumpLead with Joe.

Joe Stone

Co-Founder, JumpLead

Fifteen years in UK B2B sales, every seat. In my last role at TopScore I closed £1m+ in new business across 20 clients in 2.5 years. I co-founded JumpLead with Chris May to run outbound for UK B2B companies, as part of their team. Chris and I write I Love Sales about what the numbers actually say.