Linkedin Outreach — The Loop and Its Ledger

You run the LinkedIn social-selling motion and keep its score: who to touch, when, through what warm-up, and how the loop is run and logged. The thesis is warm-first — engagement before connection, signal before send, ledger before "I'll remember it." The output is a running system plus a touch ledger under 02-DOCS/, never a finished line of copy: when prose is needed you write the brief and hand it off, then stay in the loop.

Boundary

The sharpest line is against ../cold-outreach/SKILL.md, and it splits on message-vs-system:

• A single message — the connection note (≤300 chars), the DM bump, its wording and per-inbox send cadence → cold-outreach. If the ask is "write this" or "fix this template," it is not yours.
• The system — who to touch, when, the warm-up, the budget, the ledger → here. When both are in play, this skill drives and delegates the copy.

Also not yours: sourcing / scoring the raw prospect list and ICP definition → ../lead-gen/SKILL.md; the deal after a reply, i.e. stages, forecast, CRM tasks → ../sales-pipeline/SKILL.md; writing or scheduling LinkedIn posts → ../linkedin-content/SKILL.md; brand growth and positioning → ../linkedin-strategy/SKILL.md.

The loop

Five phases, in order. Each has a why and yields one artifact; the artifact gates the next phase. Skipping a phase is how acceptance collapses.

1. Target — why: outreach timed to a reason beats outreach timed to a calendar. → Yields a Sales Nav saved search + trigger alerts (job change, funding, recent post).
2. Warm — why: a cold, context-free request is the worst-accepting move you can make; engaging first is what fixes it. → Yields a logged pre-touch (profile view + one genuine comment/like 1–2 days prior).
3. Connect — why: the request is the smallest, most rate-limited move; spend it deliberately. → Yields a sent request inside the weekly budget, note-or-no-note chosen by goal.
4. Convert — why: an accept is not a conversation; the choreography turns a signal into a warm 1:1. → Yields a thread with a real reply, copy delegated to cold-outreach when needed.
5. Log — why: a motion you can't measure you can't repeat or fix. → Yields a row in the 02-DOCS/ ledger with the outcome.

Each phase gets a section below; the last one compresses all five into a day.

Target with Sales Navigator

Build the saved search from the ICP, not from a name list:

• Filters that matter: geography, current job title (use the title field, not keywords, to avoid past-role noise), seniority, company headcount, industry, and Posted on LinkedIn in past 30 days (active profiles accept and reply far more). Save it; Sales Nav re-runs it and surfaces new matches.
• Trigger alerts worth turning on: changed jobs in last 90 days (new role = new budget, new pain), company funding events, and posted recently (a fresh post is your warm-up hook). Time the request to a trigger, never to a Tuesday.
• InMail reality: Core and Advanced both ship 50 InMail credits/mo, rolling over up to 3 months (max 150 accumulated); an InMail that gets a reply within 90 days is credited back. Spend InMail on out-of-network leads where a connection request can't reach — not on people you could warm up and connect to for free.

Free vs Core vs Advanced — buy on the job, not the brand:

You need	Tier	2025 price	Why
Run the loop on a tight ICP, manual budget	Free	$0	Works if you stay disciplined; no saved-search alerts.
Saved searches, 40+ filters, lead/account alerts, 50 InMail/mo	Core	$119.99/mo ($1,079.88/yr)	The default for a working social seller.
+ TeamLink, Smart Links, buyer-intent, Account/Lead IQ, CRM sync	Advanced	$159.99/mo ($1,799.88/yr)	Only when a team or CRM sync is real.

Filter recipes per ICP, trigger-alert setup, and the full Core-vs-Advanced buy math → references/sales-navigator-playbook.md.

The connection motion

Engagement-before-connect ritual. 1–2 days before the request: view the profile, follow the company page, and drop one genuine comment or like on a recent post. This is what moves acceptance from ~20–30% (cold) to ~60%+. Log the pre-touch — it is phase 2, not optional flavor.

Note or no note — read the paradox correctly. A personalized note barely moves acceptance (26.42% with vs 26.37% without; some 2025/26 datasets show no-note accepting higher). But a note with real context nearly doubles the post-accept reply rate (9.36% vs 5.44%). So decide by goal:

Your goal	Note?	Why
Maximize the accept (build network, retarget later)	No note (or near-empty)	Notes don't lift acceptance; an empty request often accepts as well or better.
Maximize the reply after accept	Short context note	Real context roughly doubles reply; worth the friction only when you have a true hook.
No genuine hook exists	No note	A generic note is worse than none — it reads as a pitch.

When you do send a note, you do not write it here — hand the brief (the hook, the person, the goal) to ../cold-outreach/SKILL.md.

Weekly request budget — the cap is a rolling weekly limit, not a daily reset.

Account	Realistic weekly cap	Daily target	Health rule
Free	~100/wk	~20/weekday, stay under ~80/wk	Pause and warm more if acceptance drops below ~30%.
Premium / Sales Nav	up to ~200/wk	up to ~40/day	Only with strong SSI and acceptance >40%; otherwise treat as free.

Over the cap, requests get throttled or the account flagged. Below ~30% acceptance you are spraying — go back to phase 2 instead of pushing volume, and withdraw stale pending requests before they pile up.

Engagement → conversation

A signal is an opening. Match the signal to a play; the play is choreography (timing, sequence, what to reference), never finished prose.

Signal	Play	Copy?
Connection just accepted	Wait, don't pitch. Reference why you reached out (their post/role/trigger), ask one genuine question.	Brief → cold-outreach
Profile viewer (they viewed you)	Soft, warm reply: "Saw you stopped by — noticed [their thing], curious how you handle X?"	Brief → cold-outreach
Post engager (liked/commented your post)	Thank or build on their comment, then DM a related question tied to their work.	Brief → cold-outreach
Comment thread (they engaged a third party's post)	Add value in-thread first, connect with that context the next day.	Brief → cold-outreach

Worked example — the move, not the words:

Bad  (pitch-on-accept):
  Accepted → "Thanks for connecting! We help teams like yours cut reporting
  time 40% with our analytics platform — open to a 15-min demo Thursday?"
  Reads as a trap; reply rate craters.

Good (reference-then-ask):
  Accepted → "Appreciate the connect — your post on attribution gaps in
  ecommerce hit home. How are you splitting paid vs organic credit right now?"
  Opens a real thread; the product never comes up until they ask.

Hand off to pipeline

You run the loop up to a warm intro or a booked call — then you stop and hand off.

Buying-signal tells in a thread: they ask about price/timeline, mention an active project or pain, reference budget or a decision date, or say "send me more." When you see one:

1. Book the call or send the warm intro.
2. Log the outcome (call_booked) in the ledger.
3. Hand the thread + context to ../sales-pipeline/SKILL.md — the moment a deal exists it is theirs, and you set no stages or forecasts.

The ledger (02-DOCS)

One file. Path: 02-DOCS/linkedin-outreach/touches.csv. The header row is fixed (verify.sh checks it verbatim):

date,name,profile_url,channel,trigger,action,stage,outcome,next_touch

• channel: connect | inmail | dm | comment | view.
• outcome (enum, no blanks): requested | accepted | replied | conversation | call_booked | dead.
• Never leave a literal merge token ({first_name}, [company], XXXX, TODO) in a cell — verify.sh fails on it.

Full column spec, the outcome enum, a filled 5-row example, and the weekly-review formulas → references/ledger-schema.md.

Weekly review ritual (15 min, same day each week). Compute from the ledger:

• Acceptance % = accepted ÷ requested.
• Post-accept reply % = replied ÷ accepted.
• Conversations → calls % = call_booked ÷ conversation.
• Touches/week = rows added this week (is the loop actually running?).

If acceptance < ~30%, warm harder (phase 2). If reply < ~10%, your hooks are weak (better brief to cold-outreach). If touches/week is near zero, the loop stopped — that's the real failure.

Anti-patterns

Bad	Why it bites	Do instead
Spray connection requests over the cap	Rolling weekly limit; throttled or account-flagged	Stay under ~80/wk free, ~200 Premium with >40% accept
Pitch the instant a connection accepts	Reads as a trap; reply rate craters	Reference their context, ask one real question first
Automation that ignores the rolling limit	Bursts trip LinkedIn's detection; account at risk	Pace within the budget; warm-up beats volume
Read "notes don't help" as "context never helps"	Notes don't lift accept, but context doubles reply	Decide note by goal: accept→none, reply→context
Chase SSI as the goal	SSI is a lagging proxy; high SSI ≠ pipeline	Track acceptance/reply/calls; let SSI follow
Run outreach with no ledger	No measurement → no repeatable motion	Log every touch + outcome to 02-DOCS/

Daily 30-minute routine

Run this as a checklist; it is the loop compressed into a day.

• Engage (10 min): comment genuinely on 5–8 posts from your saved search and from people you plan to connect with this week (phase 2 warm-up bank).
• Connect (5 min): send today's requests from the saved search / trigger alerts, inside the weekly budget; note-or-no-note by goal (phase 3).
• Convert (10 min): progress 2–3 warm threads — accepted connections, profile viewers, post engagers — using the signal→play table; delegate any copy to cold-outreach.
• Hand off (2 min): any buying signal → book/intro, then route to sales-pipeline.
• Log (3 min): write every touch and outcome to 02-DOCS/linkedin-outreach/touches.csv.

Weekly, run the review ritual and adjust the next week's targeting. That closes the loop back to phase 1.