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Outreach Published February 26, 2026

Getting started with LinkedIn outreach at scale

Launching outbound on LinkedIn can feel overwhelming. Here’s how to start with the right setup so you can scale without hitting limits or burning out your team.

Tom Gray

Tom Gray

Co-founder, Flow AI

Professional workspace with laptop
  • How I split social selling into four repeatable steps
  • Why founders should pair visibility with direct outreach
  • Where I keep scripts and cadences for the team

Social selling is not posting quotes every day. For B2B founders, it is a loop: look credible, watch for intent, start small conversations, follow up like a serious operator. I still run this loop myself.

Start with a profile that stores trust

Before I lean on outbound, I make sure my profile answers three questions in ten seconds: who I help, what we do, and why I am not a random vendor. Founders underestimate how often people check the profile after a DM.

I keep one clear line in the headline, a plain-English about section, and proof that we work with real customers. No jargon wall.

Pick signals you will actually use

I pick two or three signals I will check weekly, not twenty I will ignore. Examples: someone commented on a problem we fix, a company posted hiring for the role we sell to, or a peer intro said they are evaluating tools.

Those signals become my warm list before I touch anyone cold. If you want the list-building side in more detail, our founders page lines up how we think about founder-led pipeline without a big SDR bench.

DM with a question, not a speech

I open with the same two beats that Step 4 of the Outreach Playbook shows in the screenshots: a short “Hey [Name]” compliment that proves I looked, then the qualifying question from Step 3 (“How's [goal] going? Is it going well?” with the goal filled in for their world).

I am not pitching in the first message. I am checking if the problem is live, using the exact examples in that doc so my team and I speak the same language.

Keep a light rhythm you can hold

Founders quit social selling when the plan needs two hours a day. I block thirty minutes twice a week for comments and DMs, plus my 10-minute pipeline pass. That is enough if I stay consistent for a quarter.

When the motion works, we layer tooling so replies do not live in one founder's head. Until then, discipline beats more software.

Read the Outreach Playbook next

If you want the full system in one place, start here: Read the Outreach Playbook. It is the same doc we use with customers.

If you want help translating it to a tiny GTM team, book a demo and I will walk through it.

Frequently asked questions