Today I’m going to share some of the most pathetic sales attempts in history from folks on LinkedIn. Then, I’ll share a much better way. Lazy, untargeted, generic sales pitches DON’T WORK. Here are a few other things that don’t work:

1. Thirst traps – I don’t care what you look like and I can tell when an image has been faked.

2. Your first message is all about you – what YOU want, what YOU sell, blah blah blah. I don’t care about you. (and neither do your prospects.)

3. No message at all or worse, the default LinkedIn message on connection requests.

4. Complimenting me on how brilliant I am, how my work is astonishing and how badly you want to be friends. (See #1 above)

5. Doing ZERO due diligence to at least ACT like you did more than the absolute minimum.