The LinkedIn DM Strategy That Gets Decision-Makers to Say YES (Without Sounding Salesy)

Welcome back to the Good Girls Get Rich podcast. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. Let’s talk about the truth that no one is saying out loud: if you're not using LinkedIn DMs strategically, you are leaving opportunities — and let’s be real, income — on the table.

#GoodGirlsGetRich 

We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at [e-mail].

 

About The Episode and Highlights:

In Episode 311 of the Good Girls Get Rich podcast, I’m taking you deep into the art and soul of messaging decision-makers on LinkedIn in a way that feels authentic, confident, and effective. If you've ever stared at someone’s profile thinking "Wow, I’d love to work with her…" — and then totally froze, not knowing what to say — you're not alone. That hesitation? That fear of sounding like a spammy bot or a desperate sales pitch? We’re tossing all of that out today.

This isn’t about cold-pitching. This is about relationship-building. It’s about showing up in a way that positions you as a thought leader, not just another profile trying to “pick their brain.” It’s about LinkedIn messaging that opens doors, lands speaking gigs, builds partnerships — and yes, secures those dreamy high-ticket contracts.

So let’s walk through the exact LinkedIn DM strategy I use (and teach in my She's LinkedUp programs) to create business magic through intentional connection.

 

Why LinkedIn DMs Are Your Hidden Goldmine

You’ve probably heard me say this before, but it bears repeating: LinkedIn DMs are the most valuable piece of real estate in your entire online business.

Yes, visibility is important. Your profile needs to shine. Public content and PR get you noticed. But money doesn't come from likes and views. It comes from conversations.

Your DMs are where real decisions get made. When you stop viewing LinkedIn as just another social platform and start treating it like a curated networking event for powerhouse women — that’s when everything shifts.

But here’s the catch: how you message matters. A lot. Because most people are doing it wrong.

 

What Makes a Great LinkedIn DM?

Let’s get something straight: no one — and I mean no one — wants to read a long-winded pitch from a stranger. And no one’s jumping on a 30-minute call just because you dropped into their inbox saying you can help them scale to seven figures.

So, what works?

• Keep It Personal and Purposeful
  Start with something real. Mention a podcast they were on, a post they made, or a mutual connection. Let them know this message is meant specifically for them — not a mass blast.
  Example:
   “Hi Sarah, I just listened to your interview on the Good Girls Get Rich podcast. Your take on redefining success for women over 40 hit me hard — I’ve been having that same conversation with my own clients lately.”
  That’s not just a message. That’s a bridge.
• Explain Why You’re Reaching Out — Briefly
  This isn’t the time to outline your entire service suite. Just share why this feels like the right connection.
  Example:
   “I work with women in transition who are looking to step into more visible leadership roles, and your work really aligns with that. I thought it might be worth connecting.”
  

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:10):
Karen, hello, hello, and welcome to the good girls
get rich Podcast. I'm KarenYankovich, and I am going back
to my roots with this episode.We are talking today about the
LinkedIn DM strategies that getsdecision makers to say yes. And
I bet, if you've ever opened upLinkedIn, you saw somebody you'd

(00:32):
love to work with, right? Andthen you immediately freeze
trying to figure out what tosay, because you know that
there's all kinds of weird, coldpitching happening out there,
right? All kinds of bots sendingall these crazy messages to
everybody, and you know youdon't want to be one of those
people, and I know you don'twant to be one of those people,
because you listen to the show,right? And if you listen to the
show, then, then you understandthe value of showing up

(00:53):
authentically, right?
So if you, if you do that, ifyou open up your browser and you
open up LinkedIn, and you'relike, Okay, I really want to
connect with this person. Whatthe heck do I say? You are not
alone. You are not alone. Andthat's why we're doing this
today. This is because here'sthe thing, we can do this
without being pushy. We can dothis without being pushy. It's

(01:13):
about stepping into a powerfulpresence and stepping into a
place where you can invite theexact right people into your
world. I can tell you that Ihave said many times, probably
many times on this show, butcertainly many times across my
life and my business, that myLinkedIn DMS is the most
valuable piece of online realestate I have in my business. It

(01:36):
is where almost all of thebusiness is happening for real
right? It's where almost all thebusiness is happening. It's so
so, yes, we want the visibilitythat we get on LinkedIn, and we
want the visibility that the PRbrings, that we talk so much
about on the show and in ourshe's linked up world. But the
real magic and the real moneyhappen in those conversations,

(01:58):
not just the visibility. Soremember that you're not
bothering these people, right?You're on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is
virtual networking. I like it'skind of like going to a
networking meeting, right? Witha bag over your head, right?
You're you're at a networkingmeeting. You're on LinkedIn,
you're at a virtual networkingmeeting. The bag off your head,
and talk to people, right?Because if you're offering
value,

(02:20):
I promise you that the decisionmakers you want to talk to, they
love that clarity, they lovethat confidence, and they love
that perhaps you have solutionsthat they want to hear about,
right? But you have to have theconfidence to take that to the
next step. Take that to the nextstep. So, you know, there's,
there's so many, there's so manythings that we could talk about

(02:43):
here, right? Remember that whenyou DM someone on LinkedIn,
there's two different ways to dothat, right? There's the DM in
your first degree network,
which is my preference almostalways, to to reaching out to
people. But you can also useLinkedIn in mail, which you
know, you know if we're if we'recomparing InMails and LinkedIn

(03:06):
DMS, LinkedIn DMS wins handsover fist in my book. But if
it's somebody that you're notconnected to, or hasn't accepted
your connection request, or forwhatever reason, a connection
isn't in the cards for you, youcan use a LinkedIn in mail. And
the response rate of LinkedIn inmails is can be over three times
higher than a cold email thatgoes to their inbox, right?
These both go to their inboxes,their email inboxes. So, you

(03:30):
know, first choice for me wouldbe a direct message to a first
degree network. But if, forwhatever reason, you are not
first degree connected withsomebody and it's important that
you reach out, then by allmeans, use an InMail and and you
have the ability to reach themthree times more likely than if
you were just regularly going toemail them, make sense. So let's

(03:52):
talk a little bit about, like,what the framework of this, of
this message might look like.And I will say that we want this
to be short and sweet. No one isreading your books. No one is
reading your novels. No one wordwants your your lead magnet. Yet
they don't know you. You haven'tlike you want to just, you want
to just kind of open the doorgently, right? So you want a

(04:15):
short, personalized opener. Isthere a short, you know? Is
there a connection that you havein common that made you want to
reach out to this person. Isthere a recent post you saw that
maybe you commented on, and youcan say, Hey, I just saw your
post about this. You might haveseen my comment, or maybe you
saw them, you know, you heardthem interviewed on a podcast,
or you saw them on a TV spot, orwhatever. Right reference that I

(04:38):
just heard your interview on thegood girls get rich podcast. I
loved your take on blah, blah,blah, right? And I love the
conversation you and Karen had.So start with that kind of like
a hook, right to get to let themknow that you're not sending the
same message out to 400 people,and that you are truly and
warmly reaching out based on aspecific.

(05:00):
A thing that you saw, that youloved what they did. Does that
make sense? And then, as I feltas in my head, I'm thinking, I'm
rambling right now, so don'tramble. Okay, the next thing you
want to think is, you don't wantto ramble. Just quickly explain
why you're reaching out. Youknow, maybe just language like,
Hey, I work with this type ofpeople navigating this type of

(05:20):
challenge, and thought maybe weshould be connected, or we're
already connected. So I thoughtmaybe there would be a
conversation worth having. Okay,so as I'm saying this, you may
want to take some notes ifyou're not driving, or come back
to this and take some notes, orgo into the show notes, and
you'll see all this there andthen. But edit it for brevity,
right? Like, edit it forbrevity, I am talking through

(05:40):
this, so it's going to sound alot longer than than it will be
when you send the message out,okay, and then make it an easy
yes. Make it an easy yes. In myshoes, linked up program, we
teach 15 minute initial calls.It's a lot easier to get
somebody to say yes to a quick15 minute call than a half hour
call. First of all, and it maynot even be on this first pitch.
It may not even be time to askfor that call. It may, you know,

(06:03):
you could say, if that feelsaligned, I'd love to hop on a
quick call and explore somestrategies, right? That, that,
that maybe we can collaborateon, right? So you want to kind
of create this into apossibility, not a pitch. You
may, you know, I like to leaveit my, my favorite way to leave
this is, can I, you know, wouldyou be interested in hearing

(06:25):
more about this, something likeintriguing, you know, we just
made some changes to our she'slinked up program. I know we've
talked about you joining us inthe past. It's a really good
time to have this conversation,because we've got some relaunch
bonuses. Do you want? Would youlike to hear more, right?
Something like that. So, sorather than telling them all the
things you want to tell them inthis first thing, get them to

(06:45):
say yes, give them somethingthat's an easy yes to respond
to. You could use voice notes onthis. You can use video notes.
If you use your cell phone, youcan do a quick little video in
the DMS, and then just send themthe video. Right now, I will say
that first of all, voice notesand videos certainly make you
seem more human. So I do likethem generally, but there are

(07:07):
definitely things I don't loveabout them. I mean, I can think
of right at this moment in time,a few videos I've gotten from
people that I haven't watchedyet, because when I got them, I
wasn't in a place to watch itright, like you're whatever,
you're in a meeting or you're ona call or whatever, if they had
given me a short note, I wouldhave been able to respond
already, but because I have tostop what I'm doing and listen,
and I'm not always in a place todo that, sometimes the videos

(07:30):
and the audios are not a goodidea. So again, use it
judiciously. It's just, I'm justgiving you my personal
experience with it. I love them,but I also recognize that
sometimes it poses me a littlebit in responding, because I
can't listen to it when I getit, and if I had just seen it, I
would have been able to respondmore quickly, right? So, so use

(07:51):
those DM use those voice notes,use those video the video
opportunities in the DMS, but bemindful of the fact that it may
take a while. It might take alittle bit longer for people to
get back to you. Here's thething. What we want to do is we
want to be doing this in a waythat you're bringing your heart
and your energy to thisconversation. Okay, your energy

(08:12):
leads the way before your wordsever do. If you're showing up
from a place of Pick me, pickme, pick me, it lands very
differently than when you showup like the the wealthy woman,
with the wealthy woman mindsetthat you are and that you have.
And if you're not sure if youhear that and you're like, Ah, I

(08:34):
know you think I have thisconfidence, Karen, but I don't
really have it yet. Borrow mine.I can't tell you how many people
have said to me, I heard yourvoice in my head, Karen, and I
either stopped talking and letthem talk, or I doubled the
number that I was going to togive them. Right for the quote,
borrow my confidence. You arewelcome to it. I would love for

(08:56):
you to have it. Because here'sthe thing,
this isn't really fake it tillyou make it. But there is a
reality in that sometimes youhave to bring the confidence
when you're not always feelingit right. And you might have
heard me talk about on the showhow my background has was in
technology, and I was often theonly woman in the room in a in
the technology industry back,you know, 2030, years ago. It's

(09:18):
not that I didn't always knowwhat I was talking about. I
sometimes I would have to saythings like, I don't know. Let
me get back to you on that,right? It takes confidence to
say that. Or I'd say, Sure, wecan do this. We could do that.
Or I know a little bit aboutthis and a little bit about
that. And I distinctly rememberwalking out of a meeting with a
colleague one time who looked atme and said, Do you know any of
that? I was like, No, I don't,but we're gonna figure it out

(09:39):
now. Now we gotta figure it out,right? So I don't want you to
bullshit people, right? Thatmight sound a little bit like
bullshit. It's not. It's aboutknowing that you need to be
confident. If I didn't think Icould figure it out, by the way,
I would have said absolutely notright, like I am never going to
step into something that I don'tI'm not fully confident that I
can handle I was fully confidentthat I knew I could figure it

(09:59):
out.
Does that make sense? And thatthe confidence I want you to
bring to these DMS. I want youto bring the confidence of, hey,
like, I think there's a realopportunity in this
conversation.
Are you interested? Just really,really lean into that
confidence. Really lean intothat confidence. And here's the
thing I can tell you that I havehad, I have landed big, fat,

(10:26):
juicy clients in the DMS withoutever getting on the phone with
them. Sometimes it leads togetting on the phone with them,
right, corporate contracts orpodcast bookings, right? These
are the kinds of things that canhappen when you approach the DMS
like a networking conversation,not like a pitch fest. Do you
see the difference there? Do yousee the difference there? So
there's a couple things you wantto avoid. You want to avoid

(10:48):
long, rambling intros. You wantto avoid asking for things,
especially without context. Youwant to avoid sounding overly
formal or robotic. Okay? Andhere's a really important thing
you need to be in it if you aregoing to use these DMS with this
confidence that I'm talkingabout here, then please, please

(11:10):
turn your notifications onLinkedIn on your phone so when
somebody responds, Yes, I wantmore, you can get on it and
you're not ghosting them,because four days go by before
You look at your DMS again,right? If you want your LinkedIn
DMS to be the most valuablepiece of real estate in your
business, and you want to beresponsive on that, right? You
want to be responsive to thepeople that are answering you.

(11:35):
So you have to, you can't, youcan't go in once a week. You
can't go into LinkedIn once aweek. You have to be responsive.
LinkedIn is the only socialmedia platform that I have the
notifications on on my phone.It's the only one and I have it
on, because if somebody saysyes, I want to be able to jump
right back into thatconversation and not wait till
tomorrow or the next day, right?So you want to make sure that
you're not ghosting people.People are. You know, I'm just

(11:58):
thinking of a conversation I hadwith a client earlier today,
where she started going intothis whole long story about how
somebody didn't respond to her,and it was all about her. And I
was like, Hold on hold on holdon you know, it's probably not
about you, but we think it is.When people don't respond to us
right away, right? They get allthis. We're giving them the
opportunity to come up with allthese crazy reasons why this
wasn't a good idea, right? Sostay on it when it is a good

(12:19):
idea. All right. So remember theframework here in this is you
want to hook them. You want tobridge it with something like
explaining why you're reachingout without rambling. And then
you want to make you want togive them some type of an invite
with an easy Yes, right? Sometype of an invite with an easy
yes, please take imperfectaction here. Open up LinkedIn,

(12:39):
right now, pick one person youwould love to connect with and
send them some version of thismessage. Don't overthink it,
right? If you need to have myhead, my voice in your head,
please do. Okay, please do.
Take imperfect action. Do thisoutreach. There is nothing, I
mean, I have, especially in this2025, market, where everybody's

(13:01):
scrambling to figure out where,how and where marketing is
working. This has it worked backwhen I was doing tech in, you
know, I don't even know to tellyou the year, right? Or the year
2000 it worked then that thespecific, the imperfect
outreach, genuine outreach, andit works now. People like to

(13:21):
hear from other people. Okay?You want to do this in a in a
very soulful, heartfelt,confident way. Does that make
sense? Okay? So I want to dropjust a couple of statistics here
for you before we wrap this up.LinkedIn in males have an
average response rate of 18 to25%

(13:43):
way higher than the one to 10%average for cold emails, way
higher. Shorter messages giveyou better results. Under 400
characters have a 22% higherresponse rate than longer
messages. And here's a cool onethat I did when I did research
for this episode that I did notknow, but I can tell you that I
blocked two hours now on mycalendar for every Thursday,

(14:07):
because one of the statisticsthat I found is that prospects
are more likely to respond toLinkedIn outreach messages on
Thursdays, Saturdays have thelowest response rate. So in
addition to doing that outreach,go into your calendar, put an
hour block an hour everyThursday for LinkedIn outreach.
Just do it. Just do it right,and then you have that hour
there. Okay, you have an hourthere. And the last stat I want

(14:29):
to share with you is thatmessages that that reference a
shared group or a mutualconnection, or I heard you on
that podcast, will increase yourresponse rates by up to 21%
okay, so if you're planning yourmessage accordingly, like, Don't
overthink this. Don't, don't.You know it's so easy to say,
well, it's not Thursday. I can'tsend a DM No, no, no, please
send your DMS whenever you want.I don't want you to. This is

(14:51):
about imperfect action. Put thathour on every Thursday, but
still reach out on those otherdays. Right? Remember, this is
not about being salesy. It'sabout making genuine.
Genuine connections that canlead to meaningful
opportunities, right? Genuineconnections that can lead to
meaningful opportunities. Theseare all the kinds of things that

(15:11):
we do in our she's linked upprogram. We have got so many
we've just revamped the wholeprogram. We've got so many new,
amazing tools in this program,and the goal truly is to connect
you, to build a network aroundyou of the most valuable people,
so that you're spending lesstime for more with more bang for

(15:34):
the time that you're spending onthis business getting stuff. I
don't want you to spend a lot oftime. You can if you're looking
at the video, you can see backhere, I have an a sign that
says, ease. I'm all aboutbuilding more ease into your
into my business, and that'swhat I share with you as well.
If you want to know what itlooks like to get some help,
then grab a spot on ourcalendar. Go to Karen Yankovich
com, slash call, and we'll askyou a couple questions. If we

(15:56):
think that
we it's something we can helpyou with, we will book a call
with you, and the calls arecompletely, you know,
complimentary. And we'll chat,and we'll, we'll let you know a
little bit about the program.We'll learn a little bit about
you. We'll see if there's a fit,and if there's a fit, we can,
we'll continue the conversationand tell you what it looks like.
Honestly, I am so picky, pickyin the way, that if it's I don't

(16:16):
think it's a good fit, I'm goingto tell you, I'm not looking to
put square pegs in round holes,right? So if you're intrigued by
all of this, and if you want acommunity around you of people
that can help you with your DMS,or, you know, if you get
somebody responds you're notsure what to say, you can jump
into our community and say,Okay, this great opportunity
came up. What do I say? We'rethere to help you, right? But it
all starts by booking a call onthe calendar at Karen

(16:38):
yankovich.com/call
alright, I have more of theseLinkedIn episodes coming up for
you in the next couple of weeks,so make sure that you subscribe
to this show and leave us areview if you think this was
really valuable, and we'll seeyou back here next week with
another episode.