LinkedIn Sellers: Be Upfront & Honest With Your Intentions.

Somewhere along the way people started believing the idea that it was disrespectful to reach out directly and put your offer in front of a total stranger. So people stopped being up front and transparent, and instead have adopted this bizarre indirect and—frankly—very dishonest approach to selling. Instead of being up-front and transparent about their intentions, they adopt an approach that seeks to be friendly and non-threatening. An approach which, ironically, telegraphs that they are going to pitch you.

I’m sure you get ton of these in your inbox. Here’s a message I recently received: Hey James. I’d love to connect. Don’t worry, no sales pitches! I like to use LinkedIn as it was intended, to be of value and build relationships. Are you open to connecting here on LinkedIn?

I completely empathize with the mindset and intention of the person who sent this, but there is no honesty or transparency here. Obviously they want to pitch. Obviously they want to sell me something. The fact they don’t just lead with that is completely dishonest.

But this is what’s being taught and celebrated in 2025—especially on LinkedIn.

If you spent a few minutes scrolling your feed each week, you will no doubt encounter posts intended to ridicule or shame people who have sent a clumsy pitch. This is what keeps people trapped, but we’ll get to that in a moment. My intention is not to shame outreach, it’s the opposite. It’s to recalibrate our relationship with outreach and reorient it towards its true intention.

Here’s my thesis in one sentence: people don’t hate pitches, they hate bad pitches.

Most people get stuck because they fall for the social narrative that pitching itself is inherently bad. Nothing could be further from the truth. Are there people who are fundamentally against being solicited? Yes. But I would argue that, especially on LinkedIn—and especially if the pitch they received is thoughtful and relevant—a person should celebrate great pitches rather than shaming them.

The problem is that hardly anyone knows how to pitch well.

So what’s happened in response is that a new type of indirect “non-pitch” has taken over, where people pretend to be your friends only to pitch you later—usually in a very clumsy and awkward way. This is a total violation of honesty, transparency, and dignity. When you do this you’re treating the other person as a means to an end rather than as an autonomous human being who can make choices.

Indirect pitching is inherently manipulative because it attempts to to bypass the volition and preferences of a prospect and removes—or significantly hinders—their ability to make an informed decision.

In defense of the people who use this approach, they probably think they are doing the ethical and noble thing. But there is a phenomenon in sales and marketing where we interact with a simulacrum of a person (i.e. a “prospect”) instead of just treating them like a person; the way we would want to be treated.

If we zoom out just a little bit, we will see that any attempt “connect” with someone or “pitch” someone indirectly is a contradiction in terms. Feel to ignore this part if you’ve never seen the movie but I’m always reminded of the scene from the Matrix where Morpheus is teaching Neo to fight and he says: “Stop trying to hit me and hit me.” This is exactly the same mistake that most people make when they’re trying to sell. Rather than actually connecting with a prospect, they pretend to connect with the prospect. And that’s why this approach yields such terrible, terrible results.

The type of client you want to work with will absolutely appreciate a high quality, relevant, well researched pitch. Anyone who responds negatively to that is not someone you want to work with anyways.

So the next time you try and delay your pitch or try to generate rapport before pitching I would urge you to reconsider.

Just be up-front and direct. Your prospect will thank you and you will experience much, much better results.