Proper LinkedIn Communications: Make Sure You Read My F—ing Profile BEFORE You Write Me

This is going to be more of a quick rant, than well-designed blog post.

If you send me (or anyone) a LinkedIn message, be it from InMail, or a message because you want to connect, or a message because we have connected in the past, make sure that you have read my LinkedIn profile.

Seriously!

I know many professional colleagues on LinkedIn will agree that for us – time is a premium. We have schedules, projects to complete, and often times, we also are parents with kids and have family obligations.

When I receive a message from someone, before I read it – I always check my history to see if that person has looked at my profile over the last few weeks.

If you have not looked at my profile – your credentials and motivations are already suspect, and you are one step closer to being reported to LinkedIn as “Spam.”

The reason why this is a rant, and less of a standard blog post, is because this post is far more reactionary. I normally spend time to outline my thoughts, and conduct research, if needs be, to make sure what I write is clean, accurate, logical, and tells a compelling story. This post is very spur of the moment.

Because after receiving a few messages today, all of which were from people who did not look at my profile, and sent me completely irrelevant requests / invites, and a solicitation to partner with my business to help another person make money (I get a few of those every month), I have to go on the offensive.

For anyone who may read this, please don’t send unsolicited messages to people without first understanding who they are, or properly qualifying them for whatever you are selling or proposing. I get that it takes more time, but if you are not willing to spend 1 to 2 minutes to read about me and my business, why on earth am I going to attend a meeting you are organizing, or schedule a call with you, or outsource anything to you?

For those of you who receive these kinds of unsolicited messages, I recommend you do the following:

1) Call the sender out. Tell them that they did not look at your profile and take time to get to know you before they pitched you.

2) Tell them you are going to report them to LinkedIn as “spam,” in 7 to 10 days and block their account. By giving them 7 to 10 days, you accomplish two things: a) you give them time to read your profile and apologize, and b) you guarantee that they will actually receive your message – whereas blocking them and declaring them as “spam” right away will most likely mean they never see your message.

3) If you’re not interested in an apology, or any future communication, make sure you are unambiguous in your email reply. Tell them, “Do not contact me, or anyone in my company again.”