therealmilsch

VP Sales & Deal Flow

Are BDRs getting older? QQ for my Director, VP, and C-Levels - Even my BDRs - Re: Cold Outreach

This isn't a "how can I get in touch with you better" post.

Being VP at a VC/Startup Accelerator, an Angel, and being in a "decision making" role (weird flex); I receive probably 40-50 LinkedIn invitations a week. The invites range from sales efficiency tools, outreach tools, LPs looking to fund our portfolio, marketing tools, financial advisors, etc. (Yes - I should probably change my titles and roles to receive less)

However, what I have noticed, is that there is an increasing number of bot accounts that these third-party LinkedIn outreach tools are using to send more connections and then subvert the rules of # of outreaches per account per week. They can become pretty obvious. They are AI-generated faces with blurred backgrounds, and if you look closely either their eyes, eyebrows, ears, or hair has some weird inconsistency. I.e. bot account.

Now - to the point of the post (sorry for taking on this boring journey) - I've noticed that I am receiving outreach from lots of older gents who are "managing directors," "co-founders," etc. o companies. When I respond to them, they then reply "great, let me get you set up with my CEO/Principle/etc." Like - you're reaching out, you clearly have experience from your profile, you seem to have been in the industry to be able to take a call with me and tell me what's going on, but then push me to a superior...

Wondering if this is the bot world taking over, or if times are that tough, that these gents on their boats and golf courses LI pics are resorting to BDR roles.

🔎 Prospecting

6

15 comments

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jefe

Arsonist

5

🍁

I haven't seen as many bots, but now I'm going to find myself closely inspecting the facial features of any new requests...

Sunbunny31

Politicker

3

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Yes! A fun new game on LI.

jefe

Arsonist

3

🍁

with no shortage of opportunities to play

therealmilsch

Executive

0

VP Sales & Deal Flow

They're everywhere! Especially if they are really really good looking (zoolander face)

SaaSam

Politicker

4

Account Executive

It's pretty popular these days for leadership to grant access to their LI to SDR teams in the hopes that messages from "directors, co-founders, CEOs" generate a better response. Especially when pregaming for a conference.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

2

🦊

I did not know this was a thing.

SaaSam

Politicker

1

Account Executive

It's slimy if you ask me but pretty popular.

champchamp

Arsonist

1

Certified Savage

I read about it lol. Im just a week into my new company so obviously cant ask an Executive for access to his LI yet but would definitely like to try this method.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

0

Sales Rep

Not surprised but never heard that!

Pachacuti

Politicker

3

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

I receive a large number of LI requests from people not related to my industry and often who are trying to sell me something. It’s getting to the point where I ignore many LI requests unless I recognize the name.

This is a badge of shame for LI since they are allowing this to happen.

therealmilsch

Executive

1

VP Sales & Deal Flow

Yeah - I attribute this to bad prospecting on the vendor's account (i.e. using SalesNav poorly) and these bot accounts. It's wild how many are out there.

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

TOTALLY agree with this!

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

I love that you have the ability to scope out the bot accounts haha!

I think this will get worse until it gets better. LI in making money so they are cool with it (to an extent) but they are pissing off the user base and there is only so much of that they community can take.

Who ever create the "next linked in" has a pretty solid blue print of what to do and what not to do.

saaskicker

Celebrated Contributor

0

Enterprise AE

Could be outsourced SDR with a vanity account to get your attention using titles such as "co-founder" -- the first start up i was an SDR at, we all had different plays on the CEO's name in our email, all our signatures were the CEO. i.e. firstname.initial@startup & firstinitiallastname@startup - looked like our CEO was prospecting & sending 1000s of emails a week. all meetings went to VP of Sales or CEO directly. response rates were pretty high. i don't condone this, but it worked....

therealmilsch

Executive

0

VP Sales & Deal Flow

must have been a great product 😆

in all seriousness though, makes sense. sometimes in greenfield products, it's hard to get a meeting if you aren't the co-founder or CEO.

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