Stop avoiding DMs: your guide to non-salesy outreach

'DMs are just for pushy salespeople.' Wrong! Here's why genuine conversations in your inbox could be the missing piece in your lead generation puzzle...

I get it, pitching your services and asking for calls feels uncomfortable when you're approaching a stranger. And no-one likes receiving salesy DMs. So instead you slip into DM paralysis and end up sending none at all.

But in reality, a strong DM game can be game-changing for your business. I avoided the DMs for years. Who was I to interrupt someone's day and what on earth would I say to them? Then I leaned in, and just last night I was at an event that I was invited to off the back of a DM I sent to the business owner leading it last week. You never know where reaching out to people will take you!

Here's the thing - posting great content and engaging with other people's posts will only get you so far. It's very hard to build relationships from content and comments alone. It's much easier and more meaningful 1:1, and when the majority of interaction is online, that means getting busy in the DMs.

To me, DMs serve four purposes:

1. they help build relationships with prospective clients
2. they help build relationships with people who can refer you on to their network, or collaborate with you
3. they provide opportunities to have great chats with people who don't fit into either camp but who make the DMs fun, and
4. they're an easy way to keep in touch with people from your past (working) life.

All of which helps keep your pipeline flowing and you feeling good about keeping showing up.

So, how do you show up when salesy DMs give you the ick? By keeping this in mind ??

Don't approach the DMs looking to make a sale. Approach them looking to start a conversation.

Read that again. It's not about sales, it's about conversations.

People ultimately buy people. And who do you want to work with, the person who bombards you with long, sales-filled DMs and then a series of questions marks (Alex? ??? ????), or the person you can have a casual chat about sourdough with, leading to a chat about what you love about your business, leading to a chat about how you could work together? Exactly.

Of course not every DM will lead to a sales conversation. This is a numbers game. The more messages you send, the better you get, the higher the chance of interesting, ultimately lucrative conversations.

Here's how I inspire my clients to see DMs as part of their lead generation strategy:

1. Make it a habit > every time someone accepts a connection request from you, start a conversation (but give it a day or so).
2. Make it personal > people love a question based on their experience, so it's worth the time investment to look at their profile first and find something interesting to ask about
3. If you can't make it personal, make it casual > a simple 'how's your day going' beats 'I can get you 30 new leads by lunchtime, let's jump on a call' every day of the week.
4. Consistency is key > as with all things social media, the more consistently you show up, the easier it becomes and the easier it is to spot patterns in the DMs you send and the results you see. Test different types of messages and review what works best for your audience.

I've sent a lot of DMs in my time, and in my experience, there are two types of people when it comes to receiving a non-salesy message. Those who have zero interest in chatting to anyone they don't already know, and those who are more than willing to have a chat as long as they don't feel sold to.

For the first group, your content and your comments are your route to getting their attention.

For the second, the DMs are golden.

So, homework for this week - start building that DM habit. If this introverted, awkward Brit can do it, you definitely can too!

See you on the socials,

Alex

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