If you read my article "Your LinkedIn Feed Is Lying to You," you'll understand why using social selling is crucial.

Personalized lead magnets, direct messages, and strategic engagement are essential for closing more deals in 2025.

Buyers are overwhelmed and their behavior has changed. Trust is lacking, and competition is tougher than ever.

So, how can you stand out?

You need a strategic social selling system powered by AI to save time while maintaining a personal touch.

Here's a quick reminder from that article.
We also discussed how to create clear offers that convert and why having one strong offer is important.

You can read that edition here.
A clear, compelling offer is vital for any business.

In today’s edition, I will share with you how to create qualified lists of people who are your target audience.

Here is how you can achieve that…

Qualified Prospect Mining (The Right Way)

Before you even think about reaching out to anyone, you need to understand exactly who you're targeting. (YOUR PROSPECT AVATAR)

Here are the criteria you MUST nail down:

Role: What's their job title/position? I
Industry: Which sector are they in?
LinkedIn Activity: Are they posting, commenting, engaging?
Lead Gen Pain: What's keeping them up at night?
Their Offer: What are they currently selling?
Dream Outcome: What do they really want to achieve?
Beliefs: What do they think about their industry/challenges?
Emotional Drivers: What motivates them to take action?

Here's an example from one of my target lists:

Solo consultant or coach, 6-12 months into their business, earning ~$2K-$5K/month, frustrated by inconsistent lead flow. They've tried LinkedIn and DMs but feel stuck, spammy, or invisible. They're ready to invest in a clear, non-cringe system to generate qualified calls and close $5K+ clients without bait PDFs or freebie seekers.

See how specific that is?

Now you can think about how to build your list

They are 2 ways…

The Inbound Approach:

Method 1: Mine Your Current Network

Start with people already connected to you.

Here's the process:

• Export your LinkedIn connections

• Filter connections by role criteria

• Use AI to scrape their LinkedIn profiles

• Connect that data with your AI agent to validate if they're qualified according to your ICP criteria

Method 2: Content Engagement Mining

If you have traffic on your posts, manual processing is exhausting.

Here's what you do:

• Export all people who engage with your content

• Scrape their LinkedIn data with AI

• Validate with your AI agent against ICP criteria

• Go even further: export only the comments and validate with AI tools

• Quote their specific comments in personalized outreach

Method 3: Dream Client Network Expansion

Already working with your dream client? Cool.

Now search their 1st degree connections (which are your 2nd degree connections) and refer to the mutual connection.

Use phrases like: "I know [mutual connection], I just had an online coffee chat with them last week."

This creates instant credibility and trust.

Why this works so well:

You're searching your dream client's network - their peers, their competition. If they're a good client, they have good relationships with their peers. That's your opportunity.

Method 4: Competitor Content Mining

Go into your peers' content and see who engages.

Your competition can't serve ALL the people.

Here's the clear signal that people like that topic. This is your chance to scrape those leads and qualify them.

The Outbound Approach:

Method 1: Sales Navigator Search

• Search according to your ICP criteria

• Use tools like Folk to scrape any LinkedIn search

• Check LinkedIn activity signals (who's actively posting/commenting)

• Focus on the active users

Method 2: Google Search Scraping

Pull lists from Google searches related to your industry/niche.

Method 3: Apollo Database Mining

Use Apollo to find prospects based on company size, role, industry, etc.

The Critical Success Factor

Whatever approach you use, NEVER skip the basics.

Understand exactly who you're targeting.

Example: In the last 4 months, I only focused on the affiliate marketing industry and people from there.

Now that I'm pivoting into a new industry, I'm building new lists.

My offer is flexible for many industries, but when I start searching for people who want to buy, I need to divide them into different groups/categories.

The Warm-Up Process

Once you have your qualified list, your next step is to start engaging with their content (if they're active).

If they're not active, go to their profile and see where they comment. Reply to their comments there.

Remember the spectrum:

There's a range from Stranger → Trusted Advisor.

The only way to move someone from stranger to trusted advisor is by spending time with them or giving them value.

Most companies reach out to cold people who don't trust you. Then you have to work SO hard to get them to trust you before they'll buy.

It's stupid.

But if you reach out to someone connected to someone you know, and you say "Oh, you know [person], I just had coffee with them last week. I saw you're literally down the road" - immediate trust.

It's as if you got a referral. That's why referral deals are so easy to close.

Here's what you need to understand:

LinkedIn is NOT cold email.

LinkedIn is an extension of YOU.

It's a networking platform where you can message your ideal clients 24/7, some online, some not.

You can start networking from your couch instead of driving to in-person events.

The key to making it work:

Don't treat it like some faceless cold email system where you send canned pitch template messages.

Build relationships. Share value. Have real conversations.

Your Next Steps:

1. Define your ICP using the criteria above

2. Choose your approach (inbound/outbound or both)

3. Start building your qualified lists

4. Begin the warm-up process through engagement

Coming up in Edition 3:

I'll show you the exact engagement strategy that turns cold connections into warm conversations without being salesy or weird.

Plus, the specific DM templates that get 50%+ response rates.

Power to you,

Sabahudin "anti-spam" Murtic

P.S.

Remember: with technology and education available now, you don't need anyone else. You can literally do this yourself. And when you do it yourself, you control the quality and protect your reputation.