Find your next customers on LinkedIn, from people already showing they need you
Replies instead of silence: how to find the people already asking for what you sell, and the message that turns them into calls.
On this page 7 sections
Most outbound starts with a list: a few hundred people who match a job title, one pitch, and a lot of hope. Most of them don't need you this month. Plenty never will. That's why a cold pitch usually gets a reply from somewhere between 5 and 15 people in a hundred.
Meanwhile, every week, people in your market say out loud that they have the problem you solve. They comment on a competitor's post. They start a new job and inherit a mess. They post a job ad for the team you help. They write "how is everyone handling this?" and wait for answers. Nobody is hiding. Most sellers are just staring at the list.
Write to those people instead, with something useful rather than a pitch, and the numbers flip. Founders in outbound who made this switch have published reply rates of 25 to 40%, and one reported 56% with the exact opener in part 4. This blueprint is the whole method: who to look for, the signals, where to find them, what to write, and a daily routine. Fair warning: done by hand, it eats your whole day, and plenty of what you find still won't fit. The agent that does it all for you comes in the last section.
1. Write your buyer down first
Signals tell you when. Your buyer tells you who. Get the who wrong and the best signal in the world just finds you more people who will never buy.
So before you look at a single profile, write four lines:
- Who. The two or three job titles that sign for what you sell, or push hardest for it. Not ten.
- Which company. Size, industry and region where you're genuinely useful, not every company that could pay.
- The moment. What has usually just happened when someone needs you. A new hire, a new target, a growing team, a tool that stopped coping.
- Who to leave alone. Customers, investors, partners, your old employer.
For a made-up sales training company:
Who: founders who still sell, and first Heads of Sales Company: B2B software, 10 to 80 people, UK and US Moment: just hired their first reps, or just raised and need pipeline fast Leave alone: current customers, investors, our own partners
Then one rule decides the rest:
| What you see | What you do |
|---|---|
| Good fit, two or more signals | Reach out today. |
| Good fit, one strong signal | Reach out this week, if it's one of the top three below. |
| Good fit, no signal | Wait. Keep them on a watch list until something happens. |
| A loud signal, poor fit | Let it go, however warm it looks. |
2. The seven signals that mean now
A signal is something a person or their company does in public that makes this week a better time to write than last month. These are the seven worth watching, strongest first.
Engaging with a competitor's posts
They comment on or react to posts from a company you compete with, or the tool you'd replace. They're looking at your category right now.
- Look for
- Comments over reactions. Someone who typed a question is further along than someone who clicked.
- Watch out
- The competitor's own staff, partners and other vendors react too. Check the profile before you count it.
Posting or commenting about the problem you solve
They write about the pain in their own words: a complaint, a question, a "we tried everything" post, or a comment under someone else's. They said it themselves.
- Look for
- The words your buyer uses for the problem, not the name of your category. People post "our reps spend all week building lists", not "sales intelligence".
A new role in the last 90 days or so
New leaders review what they inherited and fix it in their first few months. After that, budgets and habits settle and the door quietly closes.
- Look for
- The start date on their profile, not the date of the announcement post.
Hiring for the team you help
A job post for the team you serve means budget, growth and a gap, all at once. A company hiring its first reps is about to need pipeline.
- Who to write to
- The hiring manager or the team's lead, not the recruiter.
Fresh funding
Money usually arrives with a plan to grow, and the plan gets made in the first few weeks after the news.
- Watch out
- Everyone else reads the same news, so their inbox fills fast. Pair it with another signal, and lead with that one.
Following or engaging with your company page and posts
They already know your name, which makes them warm. On its own it's a weaker "now", because people follow pages for all sorts of reasons, from curiosity to job hunting.
- Look for
- A good fit who engaged more than once, or engaged and also shows one of the signals above.
Attending an event on your topic
They registered for, spoke at or posted about a conference, webinar or meetup on the problem you solve. They're spending time on it.
- Watch out
- People attend events for many reasons. Treat it as the second signal, rarely the first.
Stack them. Two signals from different rows beat one loud one. A new Head of Sales who also commented on a competitor's post this week is a today. A stranger who liked one post is a maybe.
3. Where to find them by hand
All of this is already public. You don't need to buy a list, just a few bookmarked searches and the habit of checking them.
| Signal | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Competitor engagement | Each competitor's company page, then Posts. Open the recent ones with real activity and read the comments first. Click the reaction count to see everyone who reacted. |
| Posts about the problem | Type the phrase in the search bar, choose Posts, set Sort by to Latest, then bookmark that results page (the link keeps your filters). Keep three to five bookmarks. Read authors and commenters. |
| New role | Search posts for "starting a new position" plus your buyer's title. Then check the start date on their profile. |
| Hiring | Search Jobs for roles on the team you help, with Date posted set to Past week. Look for "Meet the hiring team" on the post; if it's not there, find the team's lead. |
| Funding | The funding news your market reads, plus a post search for "raised" or "seed round" with your industry. Then find your buyer's role at that company. |
| Your own page and posts | Who engaged with your last few posts, and your company page's new followers if you're an admin. |
| Events | Event pages on LinkedIn, posts using the event's hashtag, and the speakers' posts before and after. |
Keep one simple sheet: name, profile link, company, fit, the signals you saw, and the dates you invited, connected, messaged and heard back. It stops you writing to the same person twice.
4. What to write, and when
Finding the right person is half of it. The other half is not wasting it in the first message.
Step 1: a connection request with no note
A note from a stranger reads as a pitch before you've said hello. A plain request from someone in their market reads as normal LinkedIn.
Step 2: the first message, the day after they accept
- Name the moment, not the click. Mention their new role, the team they're hiring, or the topic they've been writing about. Never "I saw you liked my post". Nobody enjoys being told they were watched.
- One line on why you. What you help people like them with, in plain words. No feature list.
- Offer something useful, and ask first. A checklist, a teardown, a short guide. "Happy to send it over? Just reply YES" beats "can I show you a demo?", because it costs them nothing to say yes. This is the opener founders have reported more than half of people answering.
- Under 60 words. No link. The link goes in when they say yes, not before.
Hi [first name], [the moment in one line: congrats on the new role at X / saw you're growing the sales team / you've been writing about Y]. I help [who you help] with [the problem, in their words]. I put together a short [checklist / guide / teardown] on [the topic]. Happy to send it over? Just reply YES.
Filled in, for the same made-up company:
Hi Sam, congrats on stepping into the Head of Sales role at Kestrel Labs. The first few months usually mean building pipeline while hiring at the same time. I help small sales teams find buyers who are already looking. I put together a short guide on outbound for the first 90 days. Happy to send it over? Just reply YES.
Step 3: when they say yes
Send it the same day, with one line on the part most useful to them, and one real question about their situation. Now you're in a conversation, not a sequence.
Step 4: one useful follow-up, one polite close, then stop
If there's no answer after about three days, send one follow-up that adds something new: a specific tip, an example, a better question. Never "just following up" or "bumping this".
Hi Sam, one thing from the guide that matters most in month one: hire your second rep only after the first has a repeatable week. Happy to share how to size that, if useful.
If that gets nothing too, a short, warm close a few days later is fine. Then stop.
No worries if now's not the time. Good luck with the new team, Sam.
Step 5: the moment they reply, everything else stops
Answer what they actually asked, in two or three sentences, like a person. Offer one easy next step, once. Your calendar link belongs in the conversation only after they've shown real interest, by asking how it works, what it costs or whether it fits.
Step 6: a new signal later is a new conversation
Someone who went quiet months ago just started a new job, or their company just raised. That's a fresh reason to write. Lead with the new moment, never "circling back".
5. Keeping your account safe
Your LinkedIn account is the asset. Protect it first.
- Work up to about 100 connection requests a week on a settled, active account, spread across the weekdays. Never more than about 25 in a day.
- A new or quiet account starts lower, around 35 a week, and builds up over several weeks of clean sending. A sudden jump in activity is the pattern most worth avoiding.
- Withdraw invitations nobody answered after about three weeks. Do it in small batches, oldest first, never hundreds at once. A long pending list helps no one.
- Never let a browser extension click and send for you. It fires actions from your logged-in browser on a timer, which is exactly the pattern to avoid.
- If LinkedIn warns you or shows a limit, stop for a few days and come back slower. Retrying at the same speed is how a warning becomes a restriction.
- Write like a person. Every first message has a line that only fits that one reader. If you could send it to a hundred people unchanged, rewrite it.
6. The daily routine
Copy it into your notes or calendar. Set up once, then work through it every weekday. Replies always come first.
FIND YOUR NEXT CUSTOMERS ON LINKEDIN: THE ROUTINE ONCE, BEFORE DAY ONE [ ] Write your buyer: who, which company, the moment, who to leave alone [ ] List 3 to 5 competitors, and the tools you replace [ ] Bookmark 3 to 5 post searches in your buyer's own words [ ] Start one sheet: name, link, company, fit, signals, dates EVERY WEEKDAY [ ] Replies first: answer everyone who wrote back, like a person [ ] Send what you promised to everyone who said YES [ ] Your own posts and page: who engaged since yesterday [ ] Competitors' recent posts: read the comments first [ ] Your bookmarked post searches, newest first [ ] Today's extra source: Mon hiring, Tue new roles, Wed funding, Thu events [ ] Fit check: drop anyone outside your buyer, however warm [ ] Fit plus two signals: connection request today, no note [ ] First message to yesterday's new connections: under 60 words, no link [ ] One follow-up to anyone quiet for 3 days, with something new EVERY FRIDAY [ ] Withdraw invitations older than 3 weeks, oldest first, in small batches [ ] Count the week: requests, accepted, replies, YES [ ] Drop the search or source that found nobody who fit, try a new one [ ] Stay under about 100 requests a week (lower on a new account)
Run it for two weeks before you judge it. The first week mostly teaches you which searches are worth keeping.
7. Get the replies without losing your day
Everything above works by hand. It's also a sales rep's full-time job: by hand it eats your whole day, and you still end up chasing people who don't fit. FOUND does that job from your own LinkedIn account: you open it to people already showing they need you, checked for fit, with the first messages written.
Every day it screens hundreds of people and hands you the 20 to 40 who fit, each with the signal that makes now the right time. That's the whole day of searching and sorting, done before you open it.
- Warm leads every day, without the searching. It watches every signal on this page except events, and each one is checked about once a day. When the signals bring in few, it can also look for people in the same seat as your best customers. Those leads have no signal, and each one is marked as a lookalike so you can decide.
- Only people worth talking to. Everyone a signal finds is checked against the buyer you describe, on their headline and then with a full read of their profile.
- Messages that get answered. It writes by part 4's rules: connection requests with no note, a first message that names the moment and never the click, under 60 words, no link, checked before it goes out. Every message is yours to edit, including a "reply YES" offer like the one above.
- Your account kept healthy. Nothing goes out in the first 48 hours after you connect. A new account starts at 35 invitations a week and only steps up after two clean weeks, to 125 a week at most, and it never sends more than 25 invitations in a day.
- No awkward double-texts. A reply stops everything queued for that person, on the spot.
- You stay in charge. Nothing sends until you switch it on, and review mode holds every invitation and message until you approve it, with room to edit first.
See your first real leads before you pay. Then it's $69 a month, less than one day of a sales rep's pay. Or talk to us first.