A seller who pays for LinkedIn InMail is buying one thing: the ability to skip the connection request and message anyone. Gap Prospecting makes the case that the step being skipped was the part that worked, and the channel being paid for is the one buyers have trained themselves to ignore on sight. The argument turns on what the channel itself tells the buyer before they read a single line, independent of the words inside the message.
Gap Prospecting recommends standard connection requests over paid InMail for cold LinkedIn outreach. The reasoning is signal-based. Because the only people who use InMail are salespeople, a buyer who sees one assumes it is a pitch and feels safe ignoring it, and an InMail sent to an inactive user sits unread in an inbox the buyer never checks. A connection request costs nothing, gives both sides full access to each other’s pages and contact lists once accepted, and doubles as a test of whether the buyer is active on LinkedIn at all.
The Book’s Case Against Paid InMail
InMail is LinkedIn’s premium feature that lets you direct-message members you are not connected to. Gap Prospecting lists it under what not to do, for two reasons that stack on top of each other. It costs money, and it does not work. The second reason is the one that matters, because a channel that worked would be worth paying for.
Here is the mechanism the book names. The human brain reads patterns to decide what deserves attention, a point the book builds earlier in its discussion of why buyers reject cold outreach. The orbitofrontal cortex runs in the background checking whether something fits the expected pattern, and anything that fits a known low-value pattern gets filed as unimportant and skipped. InMail fits one of those patterns cleanly. The only people who send it are salespeople. So the moment a buyer sees an InMail land, the pattern fires before they read it: this is a pitch, and I can safely ignore it. The channel is the tell. No amount of craft inside the message changes what the buyer already concluded from the envelope.
The problem compounds when the buyer is not active on LinkedIn. Plenty of people keep a profile as a digital CV and rarely log in. An InMail to one of those buyers does not get ignored so much as it never gets seen. It sits uselessly in an inbox nobody opens. The book is blunt about the result: InMails have terrible response rates. You pay for the feature, and the feature delivers a message to someone who is primed to dismiss it or will never look at it.
Why a Connection Request Works Where InMail Fails
A connection request avoids the InMail pattern because sending one is a routine action most LinkedIn users take. It does not brand you as a seller the way an InMail does, so the buyer’s brain does not immediately file it as a pitch to be skipped. That gives your profile and your reason for connecting a chance to be read on their own terms.
The connection request also carries a trust benefit InMail cannot. Once a buyer accepts, both sides get full access to each other’s pages and contact lists. That shared visibility is part of how trust gets built before you ever make a request of the buyer. You are no longer a stranger messaging into a void. You are a connection with a visible profile the buyer agreed to see.
There is a practical bonus the book points out. A connection request works as a cheap test of whether a quiet buyer is even active on the platform. If a buyer who rarely engages accepts, you have an open line and you are in good shape. If they never accept, they are either not interested or they never come to LinkedIn, and you found that out without burning time. The cost of running the test is close to zero, especially if you follow the book’s advice and send the request with no note at all.
InMail vs. Connection Request, Side by Side
The two approaches are often compared on response rate alone, but the book’s argument runs through several dimensions at once. The table below lays them out as Gap Prospecting frames them.
| Dimension | Paid InMail | Connection Request |
|---|---|---|
| What the channel signals to the buyer | Only salespeople use it, so the buyer reads it as a pitch and feels safe ignoring it before reading | A routine action most LinkedIn users take, so it does not flag as a sales move on sight |
| Cost | Paid premium feature | Free |
| Access and trust after contact | Nothing beyond the message itself | Once accepted, both sides get full access to each other’s pages and contact lists, which helps establish trust |
| Effect on an inactive buyer | Sits unread in an inbox the buyer never opens | The request doubles as a test of whether the buyer is active; no acceptance means you stop quickly |
| Response rate, per the book | Terrible | Higher, because the buyer is not primed to dismiss it on arrival |
How to Send a Connection Request That Gets Accepted
Choosing connection requests over InMail solves the channel problem. It does not solve the acceptance problem. Most people are not in the habit of accepting every request that lands, so the goal is to make sure you do not look or sound like a salesperson in the one moment the buyer decides. This is where the book’s two authors, Will Aitken and Keenan, openly disagree, and the disagreement is useful because it maps the two defensible positions.
The case for no note
In Will’s experience as a buyer, the only people who attach notes to connection requests are the ones trying to sell something, and the notes tend to be bland and generic, the “I see we swim in the same waters” variety. A note like that is worse than no note, because it reads as a red flag that a pitch is coming. His position is to let the profile do the talking. Your headshot, headline, and mutual connections are all visible to the buyer at the moment of the request, so a strong profile says more than a weak note. This is also what makes the request a clean activity test: you spent no time writing a note, so an unanswered request costs you nothing.
The case for a note that is about them
Keenan takes the opposite default. He will not accept a connection without a note unless the title alone shows mutual benefit or he has already commented on the buyer’s content. Even then, he finds a short note more personable. The condition is strict: the note cannot be about you. “I’m building my network” or “I’m looking for like-minded people” puts your agenda on a stranger and gives them no reason to spend one of their connections on you. The note has to give the buyer a reason that benefits them, like referencing a video of theirs that changed how you work or a book you both care about. If you cannot make the note about them, the book’s guidance is to skip the note, which is where Keenan and Will land in the same place.
Engage before you request
Two of the three caveats around notes hinge on prior contact, which points to the move that makes either approach stronger. If the buyer is active, the day they see your request should not be the first time they have seen your name. Follow them, react to and comment on their posts, join the same groups, and show up at the same events. Engaging before connecting is the difference between being messaged by a total stranger and being messaged by someone the buyer half-recognizes. It builds familiarity in a way that does not threaten, which is the entire problem InMail cannot solve.
After the Request Is Accepted
An accepted request opens a conversation. It does not grant permission to pitch. Pitching on acceptance is the single biggest mistake sellers make on LinkedIn, and copying a cold email into the message box is close behind, because LinkedIn messages behave like DMs rather than correspondence. The point of winning the connection was to earn a channel the buyer does not already ignore. Spending it on an immediate pitch throws that away and teaches the buyer the pattern they feared was coming all along.
The deeper principle sits underneath the whole InMail question. Buyers reject outreach for predictable, built-in reasons, which is the subject of the nine truths about why cold prospecting gets ignored. InMail loses because it triggers one of those reflexes before the message is even read. Connection requests win because they sidestep the reflex long enough for a problem-centric, buyer-focused message to do its work, the discipline Gap Prospecting training is built to teach. The full argument, including how to write the message that follows, is laid out in Gap Prospecting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should sales reps use LinkedIn InMail or standard connection requests for cold outreach?
Gap Prospecting recommends standard connection requests over paid InMail. The reason is that InMail is used almost exclusively by salespeople, so buyers have learned to recognize it as a pitch and ignore it on sight, and InMail sent to an inactive user is never seen at all. A connection request is free, does not instantly signal a sales move, gives both sides access to each other’s profiles and contacts once accepted, and tests whether the buyer is active on the platform.
Why does InMail get ignored even when the message is well written?
Because the buyer’s decision happens before they read the message. The brain reads patterns to decide what deserves attention, and the pattern attached to InMail is clear: only salespeople send it. The moment a buyer sees an InMail, that pattern tells them it is a pitch they can safely skip. The quality of the writing inside the message never gets evaluated, because the channel already made the buyer’s decision for them.
Does LinkedIn InMail ever work for cold outreach?
Gap Prospecting does not endorse InMail for cold outreach in any scenario it describes. It names two failure modes instead: active buyers recognize InMail as a seller signal and ignore it, and inactive buyers never see it because they do not check LinkedIn. The book’s summary of the channel is that InMails have terrible response rates.
Should I include a note with my connection request?
The book’s two authors disagree, which marks the two defensible options. Will’s default is no note, because most notes read as a sales red flag and a strong profile says more than a weak note. Keenan’s default is a short note, but only if it is about the buyer rather than about you, such as referencing their content or work. Both agree on one rule: if you cannot make the note genuinely about the buyer, send no note at all.
What should I do after a buyer accepts my connection request?
Do not pitch. The biggest mistake sellers make on LinkedIn is treating an accepted request as permission to sell, and the second biggest is pasting a cold email into the message box. Treat the message like a DM: short, casual, and aimed at starting a conversation rather than closing one. The connection you earned works only as long as the buyer does not regret accepting it.
Is paid InMail worth the cost for prospecting?
Gap Prospecting’s position is that it is not. You are paying for a channel buyers have learned to dismiss and that fails entirely on the inactive buyers who make up a large share of LinkedIn. A connection request costs nothing, carries a trust benefit InMail cannot, and filters out inactive buyers at no cost. The money spent on InMail buys reach into exactly the place buyers have decided not to look.
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