InMail when the invite sits

LinkedIn only lets you message people you're connected to. So a buyer who never accepts your invite never hears from you. That's a lot of good accounts going quiet for no reason.

Stage 1 now has a second way in.

How it works

Stage 1 sends the invite and holds the first message until they accept. Five days with no accept, it looks for another route.

Email comes first, when your email is connected and Stage 1 has their address.

Then InMail. The first message goes straight to their LinkedIn inbox as an InMail, paid for with the credits on your Premium or Sales Navigator plan.

No credits left, and it waits for the accept.

Your credits, your cap

Premium comes with a handful of InMails a month. Sales Navigator comes with more. Stage 1 starts from what your plan includes and counts each one it sends.

Set your own number under Settings, Sending, InMails per month. Set it to 0 and InMail is off.

When it starts

Stage 1 waits for the accept only after it has seen one come through on your account. That's how it knows invites are being tracked. From then on, every unaccepted invite gets the five-day clock.

Why it matters

The people worth reaching are often the ones who don't accept invites from strangers. A CIO with a full inbox, a VP who keeps their network tight. An InMail with a real hypothesis in it reads very differently from a connection request.

It's the answer, too, when your company won't let outside tools connect to your work email. LinkedIn becomes the whole channel, and InMail fills the gap.

For what to put in that first message, see lead with a hypothesis, not a pitch. For the invite before it, see a note on every invite.