Having mutual friends doesn’t justify a connection

While I consider LinkedIn to be my favorite social network these days, it also tends to have the largest amount of spam. If you can filter out the spam requests the core feed is quite good, but the effort to filter out junk is slowly getting heavier all the time. Part of this is the fault of LinkedIn themselves, who promote paid features to help you spam more people more often.

For the side of spammers (or “cold marketers” if you want), finding excuses to reach out to new leads is an art that they continue to refine. Here are some I’ve received recently:

• I wanted to reach out and discuss the potential for a collaborative partnership.
• Hey Mickey, just saw your profile because of a mutual connection…
• Hey Mickey, I’m looking for mature marketing businesses…
• Hi Mickey, Are you open to use external partners for your software…
• Hey Mickey, I’m inspired to see your expertise in Digital Marketing…
• Hello Mickey , I came across your profile and was instantly drawn…

At the end of the day, you might think you have the greatest solution ever but that doesn’t justify cold outreach, mostly because everyone thinks they have the greatest solution. This leads to the old quote from Seth Godin says “…