LinkedIn for a sales head: connection requests, messages and posts that do not read as spam

A sales head's LinkedIn routine has three messages. The connection request names a real reason to connect. The first message gives something before it asks. The follow-up adds a new fact instead of repeating the first. Add one post a week drawn from a question your team heard. Twenty minutes on weekday mornings is enough, and the bigger share of that goes on choosing the right person.

What makes a message read as spam?

Spam is not about length. It is about who the message is for. A note that could be sent to anyone with the same job title says, plainly, that it was. The usual marks are: a pitch in the first line, a paragraph about the sender's firm, a request for fifteen minutes with no reason, and a second message the next morning.

The reverse is a message only this person could have received: it mentions a plant they opened, a tender they won, a post they wrote, or a problem common in their trade. You need one specific fact, and finding it takes two minutes on their profile.

The three messages

All examples below are hypothetical and use a made-up buyer. Replace the details; keep the shape.

1. The connection request (under 300 characters). "Namaste Rakesh Shah, I handle sales for a valve maker in Vadodara. I saw your post on shutdown planning at the Dahej plant. I work with maintenance teams on exactly that, so I would like to follow your posts."

It says who, why this person and what you want, which is only to follow. No pitch.

2. The first message, after they accept. "Thank you for connecting. Your point about ordering spares before the shutdown date matched what our service team hears every year. If a one-page list of the valves that usually need replacing at that stage would help, I can send it. No call needed."

It offers a useful thing and leaves the next step to the reader.

3. The follow-up, only if there is a reason. "I added the two actuator models that failed most often in our service log to the list. Sending it in case your team is planning ahead."

Send this only if you have something new. "Just checking in" is the one to avoid.

A daily routine that holds up

Keep a sheet with columns for name, company, date sent, accepted (yes or no), message sent, reply and next step. Without it, you will send the same person two openers. For a broader plan, see LinkedIn lead generation for B2B businesses.

What does a post from a sales head look like?

On one day a week, write a post from a question your sales calls raised: why a quote varies, how you decide a delivery date, what you check before you quote. Keep it to a short paragraph and leave out the pitch. For example:

A maintenance head asked me this week why two quotes for the same valve differ by so much. In my experience it is often the seat material or whether the test certificate is included. Ask both vendors for the material grade in writing before you compare prices.

That post helps a buyer even if they never call you, and it shows how you think before you ask for anything.

For example: a valve maker in Vadodara

This case is invented. A sales head at a valve manufacturer in Vadodara sells to maintenance and procurement teams at chemical plants. The sales head sends forty requests in two days using the same line, "I would love to connect to explore working together". Eleven accept; three reply; none lead anywhere. The next week each of them gets a brochure, and two people disconnect.

What went wrong is easy to see: the request has no reason, and the brochure arrives before anyone has asked. So the approach changes. Each morning the sales head picks five maintenance heads in plants within a day's drive of Vadodara, reads their last post, and writes a line that refers to it. The first message offers the one-page spares list.

Fewer people hear from the sales head, and in this made-up month roughly one request in six gets a reply. But the replies change. One maintenance head asks for a quote on a specific valve size, which turns out to be a size the firm does not make. Another says the plant buys through a distributor and names it. LinkedIn had looked like a way to reach buyers directly; it also showed who sat between the firm and them, so distributors go onto the target list.

When this routine does not fit

If your buyers are not on LinkedIn (a kirana distributor in a small town, a school principal), the routine will return little, and a phone call or a visit will do more. If your market is a few hundred named accounts, a sheet and a handwritten note per account is better than volume. And if nobody can answer a warm reply the same day, hold off until someone can.

Take care with claims in messages for regulated trades such as finance, insurance or health. Say only what you could say in a letter, and check wording with your own adviser or regulator, since rules differ by state and body and change.

Set up the sheet and send five

Tonight, open a sheet with the columns above and find five people on your own customer list who are on LinkedIn. Write down one specific fact about each, then send the five requests tomorrow morning and note who accepts. If you would rather have someone else run the routine, LinkedIn outreach and social selling is the service for it, and the marketing hub shows where it fits. When you want to plan the target list with us, tell us what you need.