It’s gotten to the point where I don’t accept any of the invitations I’ve received if I haven’t just met the person face-to-face. Just today, I got an invitation from someone who looked interesting: great background, interesting career path, and he had connected with people I know. So I accepted his connection request.

Not 30 minutes later I got the following sales pitch:

Janet, Quick question-

What would it mean to you to have complete Mastery over your Mindset? The truth is, this will be different for each individual, and is completely dependent on their unique life story and goals.

Here’s what it looked like for some of our clients:

– A professional athlete put an end to their 30-year suicidal ideations in just 7 sessions

 – A real estate investor raised 1.3 million dollars after 1 session

– A Financial Advisor increased their closing rate by 25% in 3 sessions

If you could achieve radical change in just 2 sessions…And a complete transformation in less than 5… Would it be worth your time to try the first session for FREE? Let me know what day/time works best for a Complimentary Mindset Coaching Session!

Is this approach still working these days? I have no idea. But this person, who seemed like an impressive, successful coach, was obviously sold on trying out this approach by a digital marketing team or person who promised the sun, moon, and stars.

All I can say is: I’m tired of this, and I bet a lot of other people are, too.

Whatever happened to reaching out to expand your network to:

• Have an interesting conversation?
• Learn about other industries?
• Collaborate on projects?

I’m shaking my head (smh) over this. And, if you’ve spent any time on LinkedIn, I bet you are, too.
Here’s my advice to anyone who’s thinking of engaging a company to do this for them.

DON’T.

I sent a nastygram back to this person (meaning, his social media manager) saying I had thought he wanted to connect and have a conversation. I didn’t volunteer to be spammed and sold. And then I un-accepted his invite. We are no longer connections.

This means that, as his team continues this practice of spamming outreach, at least MY connections won’t think that I’m connected to this person myself, in any way.

The world of digital marketing is changing quickly. This type of approach on LinkedIn may have been brilliant two or three years ago. But its time has come and gone, thanks to everyone who sold this process, encouraging others to jump on the bandwagon and spam the world.

If you’re ready to do some real outreach for your marketing, let me know.

In the meantime, don’t give up on LinkedIn because of these bad characters. It’s a good place to stay informed, and to inform others of what you’ve been up to.

Not sure how to use your LinkedIn profile, or company page? Let’s have a conversation. Trust me, I won’t try to convince you that this type of activity is at all worthwhile.