In 2010, Forrest Fenn let everyone in on a little secret: he’d hidden a treasure chest brimming with over a million dollars’ worth of gold and artifacts in the Rocky Mountains. He slipped some clues into a poem named “The Thrill of the Chase” for anyone daring enough to search. Around 350,000 adventurers took up the challenge until the treasure was finally found in 2020. Fenn announced the big news but kept mum about the exact spot or the identity of the finder.

Likewise, many financial professionals are constantly scouting for those standout clients who can be game-changers for their business. LinkedIn has the tools to help you spot them, provided you know how to use the clues. It’s about identifying the right prospects, learning the art of messaging them effectively, and building those crucial connections.

First, The LinkedIn Cold-Messaging Prospecting Opportunity

As you might expect, age plays a factor as well. The younger demographics report higher receptivity.

Combining the relatively small percentage of financial professionals using this approach with affluent investors’ openness means there’s a large prospecting opportunity. Let’s review an effective process for finding ideal prospects on LinkedIn.

Second, Search For Ideal Prospects

LinkedIn helps you find opportunities by enabling you to search for people who meet certain criteria. From CPAs to executives, to business owners, to people changing jobs, you can achieve highly targeted results. You’ll want to think of your ideal prospect in LinkedIn searchable terms. Where do they live? Where do they work? What is their job title? Did they attend a specific university? You get the idea. You’ll use these criteria to craft your search results.

The following are a few examples of our favorite searches. Use these as a starting point, but get creative with searches that are focused on your ideal client profile.

• Find Career-Transition Prospects*
  
  You can find people in between jobs by searching for terms like:
  

• Find Business-Owner Prospects
  
  LinkedIn is fertile ground for the business community. To increase the accuracy of your results for business owners, you may want to upgrade to a paid version of LinkedIn. This will enable you to narrow your filter by number of employees and avoid the “owner” who is self-employed.
  

• Find Executive Prospects
  
  LinkedIn is the preferred social network for business executives:
  

• Find COI (Centers of Influence) Prospects
  
  There are endless ways to search for COIs. Here are some we’ve found most effective:
  

• Find Physician Prospects
  
  More doctors are on LinkedIn than you might think. Look for these terms:
  

*Notice we put phrases like “new position” in quotes because we’re searching for an exact phrase. Enter it with quotes in LinkedIn.

Third, Making Connections

After running a search, it’s time to connect. But is it worth the time to personalize the request? According to our research, 24% of the affluent respondents said a personalized invitation to connect increases their likelihood of accepting, and 32% said they were unsure.

In our opinion, you should always try to personalize your request. Nothing turns people off more than receiving a general message that says nothing about themselves or why they should connect with you. Do your homework and reference a commonality, and give your prospect context around why connecting makes sense.

Craft A Powerful Message Sequence

There is no perfect script. While some templates may work from time to time, an effective LinkedIn messaging strategy is much more involved. A great message is personalized and tailored for your ideal prospect.

Also, a great messaging campaign doesn’t stop with just one. You’ll need a sequence of messages to send your prospects.

The following is a framework to help you craft your message sequence. It’s a formula I refer to as the “7 Cs.”

The 7 Cs Framework To Craft Your Personalized Connection Request

1. Open with a Commonality
   
   Take the time to read their profile and find common ground. This might be a mutual connection, alma mater, former employer, charity, etc. By the way, it’s never a bad idea to include commonalities in your actual search to speed up the process. For example, if you served in the military, instead of simply searching for business owners, you might search for business owners who also served in the military. Thus, you would open up your dialogue with that commonality.
   
   


2. Check out your prospects
   
   LinkedIn profiles, their posts, and any blog articles they may have written. Let them know you enjoyed their article, and ask them a question about their article. Question: Does my message reference a commonality? (Mutual connection, school, hobby, charity, etc.) 
   
   Even though they accepted your connection request, you’re messaging someone you don’t know. Tell them why you are reaching out to them specifically. For example, you may reference that you specialize in working with clients who are in their profession.
   
   Question: Is it clear to my prospect why I’m messaging them?
   
   


3. Keep it Conversational
   
   We can all smell a copy-paste job from a mile away. Your message must come across as authentic. Ditch the financial jargon and don’t try to be too formal. In fact, we see higher response rates on messages that are really informal.
   
   Question: Does my message sound natural when I read it aloud?
   
   


4. Be Concise
   
   Less really is more. Messages with paragraphs of perfectly crafted text appear inauthentic, can look overwhelming, and appear “salesy” to your prospect. Our knee-jerk reaction is to hit the “delete” button. LinkedIn’s messaging feature is more like a chat feature. Think more text message and less formal email.
   
   Question: Does my message feel long and complex or more concise, like a casual chat?
   
   


5. Have one clear Call-to-Action (CTA)
   
   Your CTA must be clear, and there should only be one. Asking your prospect to do multiple things makes you look disorganized and only confuses them. That said, you do want to include an “ask” of some sort. You might ask your prospect a simple question to start the conversation, ask permission to send them a valuable resource, or request a brief phone call. Regardless, just pick one.
   
   Question: Does my message have one clear CTA?
   
   


6. Make a Compelling Offer
   
   This goes hand-in-hand with your CTA. It may go without saying, but your offer should be tempting. If you’re asking someone to have a phone call with you, you'd better sell them on why it won’t be a waste of their time. If you offer them a helpful resource, let them know the benefits they’ll receive and the feedback you’ve received from others.
   
   Question: Is my message enticing?
   
   
   
7. Don’t Forget to Check In
   
   It’s rare that you’ll receive a response from your first message. Most of the time, you’ll need to follow-up with your prospect multiple times before you get a response. Just remember to be brief, and try not to be a nuisance. Look for additional ways to add value and engage them. Ideally, you will have determined your message sequence prior to sending your first message.
   
   Question: What will I say in my second and third messages, and when will I send them?