You will be able to write a first message that continues the conversation rather than starting a sale.
Siew Mei, the practice manager, accepted Wei Ling's connection request on Thursday. Wei Ling waited, kept commenting on her posts, and on Monday sat down to write the first message. She got as far as "Hi Siew Mei, thanks for connecting, I wanted to share a bit about what we do" before deleting it, because every version she wrote ended up as a pitch.
That's the trap of the first direct message. You know what you want: a meeting. So everything you write bends towards it. The message that works does the opposite. It's about them, and it carries on the conversation you were already having.
Your first message should feel like the next line in a conversation the two of you already started in public, so mention that conversation and then add something useful to it.
"Useful" can be a resource or a question. A resource might be an article that goes further into the topic you discussed, a checklist your company publishes, or a short explanation you've written. A question might be one that follows naturally from what they said in public.
Wei Ling's message, in the end, read like this: "Hi Siew Mei, after our chat about front desk staffing I remembered a clinic I worked with that sorted out rescheduling calls by letting patients move appointments themselves. They found most patients were fine with it once the option was in the reminder text. How do your patients reschedule at the moment, mostly by phone?"
It picks up their thread, adds a small real example, and ends with a question about her clinic. There is no product name, no link to a demo and no request for a call.
Arjun's first message to Marcus, the new father: "Hi Marcus, you asked about emergency funds under that post on new-parent budgets. One thing I often see couples miss is that the right amount changes when one parent takes extended leave. Are you and your wife both back at work now, or is one of you still on leave?" Again, something useful, then a question about his situation.
Most people read direct messages on their phone, often between other things. A message that needs scrolling feels like work, and work gets put off until later, which often means never.
So keep the first message short. As a rough guide, if it fills more than the screen of your phone, cut it. Two or three short paragraphs at most. Before you send it, read it once on your own phone.
Cut anything that's about you: your title, your company's history, your product's features. They can see all of that on your profile, which you rewrote in module 1 for exactly this reason.
The question at the end of your message does a lot of work, and the wrong question undoes the rest. "Do you need a booking system?" or "Are you looking at insurance at the moment?" asks them to admit to a buying need in a direct message to someone they barely know, and almost nobody does that.
Ask instead about their situation. How do you handle this now? What's that like in your clinic? Is one of you still on leave? These questions are easy to answer, they show interest in the person, and the answers tell you whether there's a problem you could help with. It's the same kind of open question taught in lesson 3.2 of Sales foundations, Open questions that get people talking, used in a message instead of a meeting.
If their answer describes a problem you help with, you've earned the right to suggest a meeting, which is the subject of lesson 4.3, Suggesting the meeting without the hard sell. If it doesn't, you've still had a pleasant exchange with someone in your market, and that has value of its own.
Many first messages get no reply. People are busy, the message arrived at a bad time, or they simply don't want a private conversation right now. None of these mean you did anything wrong.
If they don't reply, leave it. Send one follow-up at most, and only if you have something new to add: a relevant article, an answer to a question they asked in public, a change in their world you noticed. "Just following up on my last message" adds nothing and reads as pressure.
Wei Ling sent her follow-up to a different practice manager two weeks later, when that manager posted about a staff shortage: "Saw your post about the front desk being short this month. That sounds hard. The rescheduling idea I mentioned might take a few calls off their plate." That was her last message unless the manager replied. Keep engaging in public, though; a later comment of yours may restart things naturally.
Go back to the three people you sent connection requests to in lesson 4.1, When to move from comment to direct message. For each one, note the thread you shared in public, and think of one useful thing you could add.
In the activity below, you'll draft a first message for each of them that continues the public conversation and ends with a question about their situation.
Draft first messages for three new connections that continue your public conversation and end with a question about their situation.
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