--- title: "The LinkedIn Cold DM Bible" author: "Matthew Lakajev" url: "https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/14/the-linkedin-cold-dm-bible" --- --- ## The Room Said Zero When I taught this on a call last week, I asked the room a simple question. "How confident are you that cold DMs work? Scale of 0 to 10. Just put it in the chat." Heather Brown -- a government consultant based in Wellington who works with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education -- said zero. Zero. That's where most people are. And I get it. I genuinely get it. You've sent DMs that got ignored. You've received DMs that made you cringe. You've had some random dude slide into your inbox with a paragraph about his "done-for-you system" and you thought, mate, I don't even know who you are. You've read some blog post that told you cold outreach is dead and you thought, yeah, that tracks. So you stopped sending them. Or you never started. Here's the thing, though. You're not wrong that most cold DMs don't work. You're wrong about why. --- ## Your Family House Beats MrBeast Let me ask you something. Do any of you guys watch MrBeast? You know how he's got the craziest videos where he's like, I just went on a $1 billion yacht? So imagine you've got two photos side by side. The first one is MrBeast reviewing a $10 billion house on Mars. You probably can't get a better hook than that, right? I can't think of a more attention-grabbing hook than MrBeast reviews $10 billion house on Mars. Impossible. But the other photo is just your family house. The one where you grew up. Two photos next to each other. Which one would your eyes go to? Your family house. Every single time. This is the difference between tribal recognition and using really good hooks. Your brain fires off things that are memorable to you and have a lot of meaning to you. It doesn't matter how crazy the hook is -- you'd still look at your family house. You'd still look at your family house. And so that's why recognition beats everything else. That's literally how cold DMs work. Not by being clever. Not by having the best subject line. By making someone's brain go, "Holy shit, that's me." --- ## The Worst Advice on LinkedIn Now, here's something that's gonna sound kind of contrarian. Everyone says don't pitch in the first DM. You've read that, right? I asked the room, and pretty much everyone had read that same advice somewhere. The reason most people say don't pitch in the first DM is because it's quite difficult to construct a first DM that is a good pitch. That's it. That's the only reason. They've just never learned how to do it well. So instead of teaching people how to write a great first message, the industry just said, "Don't bother." And everyone accepted it as gospel. I reckon that's one of the most damaging pieces of advice floating around LinkedIn right now. Because it stops people from ever learning the skill. You just avoid it entirely, tell yourself DMs are spammy, and then wonder why all your leads come from posting content 5 days a week and hoping someone books a call. That's a load of shit. --- ## 100% Reply Rate I one-shot booked a call with 5 people. Collectively, they're worth $500 million. Combined, they've got over 10 million followers. And every single one of them replied. 100% reply rate. One replied in 2 minutes. Another gave me his personal phone number. Another came back and said "fuck yeah, let's do it" within 3 hours. These are real messages I sent. Not templates. Not hypotheticals. Not some screenshot from 2019 that I'm still dining out on. These are DMs I sent recently, to real people, who actually responded. You'll see every single one of them in this book -- the full screenshots, every line, with the exact psychology behind why each one worked. --- ## Tacos, Tuesday Night, $68K Oh, and one of them? I didn't even send it myself. I wrote it for a mate over tacos on a Tuesday night at SoCal in Neutral Bay. He had 4 weeks free between gigs and needed to close some deals. So I sat down with him, pulled up the 10 people he wanted to message, wrote his first 2 messages, and said, "Just send it." Week and a half later, he'd used the same approach, closed 4 clients. $68,000. And the ironic thing? He's a content coach. A guy who literally teaches people how to make content -- and he booked all of it through cold DMs, not content. Which is kind of hilarious if you think about it. --- Pretty much every single large podcast or large deal I've ever done in my life has come through a cold DM or a reach out. It's never through content. Genuinely. The biggest podcasts I've been on. The partnerships that actually changed everything. The deals that changed the trajectory of my business. All of it started in someone's inbox with a message they weren't expecting. Not a funnel. Not a webinar. Not a 47-step email sequence. A DM. And I reckon that's super counterintuitive to what most people think works. But it's been true for me over and over and over. --- ## The Shift Remember Heather? The one who said zero? By the time we got to the end of that call, she was building her own DMs live. Pulling in tribal language from her world -- the All of Government panel, the Wellington public library that was closed for 7 years from an earthquake and just reopened. She was getting it. But here's the moment that really stuck with me. On the afternoon session, Brooke Flint -- a buyer's agent in Sydney -- told me straight up: "I feel dirty in DMs, I can't even do them. It's like I'm annoying people or something." I hear this all the time. And I reckon most of you reading this feel the same way. By the end of that same call, Brooke said: "Matt, that was freaking awesome. I realized that there was so much to it, no wonder I didn't like it." That's the shift. She didn't suddenly become a different person. She didn't flip a confidence switch. She just realized that the reason DMs felt gross was because no one had ever shown her how to do them properly. There's actual structure to it. Layers. Psychology. A real process. And once she saw it, it stopped feeling dirty and started making sense. That's what this book is. The thing no one ever showed you. --- ## Your Brain Already Decided Here's a quick science drop for you. In 2006, researchers at Princeton -- Willis and Todorov -- proved that people decide whether to trust you in 100 milliseconds. One-tenth of a second. They published it in *Psychological Science*: "First Impressions: Making Up Your Mind After a 100-Ms Exposure to a Face." One hundred milliseconds. Your prospect's brain made the call before they finished reading your first line. Before they got to your offer. Before they saw your credentials. Before any of that. Their brain already decided. That means every single word in your DM is either building trust or burning it. There is no neutral. There is no "it was fine." It either landed or it didn't. And right now, yours aren't landing. Not because cold DMs are broken. Because yours are. --- Cold DMs aren't dead. Yours are. --- *Next: Chapter 2 -- The Psychology* --- ## One-to-One Hits Different Here's the thing about content. Content is one-to-many. You write a post, you put it out into the world, and you hope the right people see it. It's a broadcast. You're standing on a stage yelling into a crowd. DMs are one-to-one. Same tribal framework from Chapter 1 -- that same "holy shit, that's me" recognition -- but delivered directly. Privately. To one person. And that changes everything about how the brain processes it. Think about it. A LinkedIn post lands in a feed alongside 50 other posts. Your brain is in scroll mode. Scanning, filtering, swiping. But a DM? That lands in someone's inbox with your name on it. It's a conversation. It's personal. The brain switches from broadcast mode to relationship mode. Completely different wiring. You know how you go overseas and you bump into someone you haven't seen in 10 years and you're like, what the fuck? How are you here? That moment -- that feeling of serendipity -- is one of the most powerful emotional triggers a human being can experience. Your brain lights up. You're open. You're present. You're not guarded at all. Creating serendipity is one of the strongest things you can do in a DM. That's the whole point. You're not blasting a pitch to a list. You're creating a moment where someone opens their inbox and feels like running into an old mate in a foreign country. That feeling of "how did you know that about me?" That's the target. That's what makes someone stop scrolling and actually read. --- ## The Three Gates When someone opens your DM, there's a pre-verbal scan that happens in about 100 milliseconds. Their brain runs through three gates before they've even processed a single word. **Gate 1: Is this real?** Not a bot. Not a VA. Not copy-pasted. **Gate 2: Is this for me?** Not a template. Not something that could've been sent to 500 other people. **Gate 3: Is this safe?** Is this person about to sell me something? Am I going to regret opening this? Three gates. Fractions of a second. And if you fail any one of them, the message is dead. They've already swiped away. They didn't read your credentials. They didn't see your offer. They didn't get to the part where you're genuinely trying to help. None of that mattered because you failed the entrance exam. This isn't just a feeling, either. Ambady and Rosenthal proved in 1993 that people watching 30-second silent video clips of teachers predicted end-of-semester ratings with striking accuracy. Thirty seconds. No words. No content. Just a thin slice of behaviour and the brain had already decided (Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R., 1993, "Half a Minute: Predicting Teacher Evaluations From Thin Slices of Nonverbal Behavior," *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, 64(3), 431-441). People don't need your whole pitch. They only need a thin slice -- and they'll decide in seconds. --- ## Your Words Are Instructions Now here's where it gets kind of wild. When you describe a specific scene in a DM -- a real moment, a real place, something that actually happened -- the reader's brain doesn't just read it. It builds it. Their brain physically reconstructs the scene you're describing. It's involuntary. They can't help it. Pulvermüller showed in 2005 that reading action words like "kick" or "grab" activates the same motor cortex regions used to physically perform those actions (*Nature Reviews Neuroscience*, 6(7), 576-582). Your words aren't metaphors to the brain. They're instructions. And Zwaan and Radvansky found that readers construct mental "situation models" as they process text -- meaning every sentence in your DM is an architectural blueprint. The reader's brain has no choice but to build what you describe (*Psychological Bulletin*, 123(2), 162-185). This is super important as well. So when you write a DM that mentions a specific podcast episode, a specific conference hallway, a specific moment you both shared -- you're not just reminding them. You're forcing their brain to rebuild that entire scene. The room. The sounds. The feeling of that moment. All of it floods back before they've even finished your second line. They're not reading your DM anymore. They're reliving something. Later in this book, I'll show you a DM where four words about a podcast made a $180M founder reply instantly. And another where a mention of a hotel lobby turned a 3-minute chat into a $68K deal. The specificity is what does it. Every time. --- ## Progressive Yes Here's a concept I reckon most people miss entirely. Progressive yes. When someone reads a well-written DM, they don't get to the end and then decide. The decision already happened as they were reading it. Each line deposits a tiny bit of trust. Each sentence earns a small "yes" in the reader's head. And by the time they reach your ask, saying yes is just the path of least resistance. It's not a decision at the bottom -- it's an accumulation from the top. Edwin, one of the guys on the call, nailed it. He said: "Each and every sentence either added depth or value." That's it. Every line earns its place or gets cut. This is the foot-in-the-door technique. Freedman and Fraser proved it in 1966 -- homeowners who agreed to a tiny request (a small sign in their window) were 4.5 times more likely to agree to a massive request later (a huge sign on their lawn). 76% compliance versus 17%. A small yes paves the road to a big yes (*Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, 4(2), 195-202). Your DM isn't one big ask. It's a series of micro-yeses that stack on top of each other until the final yes is just... obvious. --- ## Mum's Dinner Plate I always think about this with my mom. When I go to my parents' house for dinner, my mom puts the plate in front of me, and I just eat. I don't think about it. I don't weigh up my options. I don't sit there going, hmm, is this the right meal for me right now? Should I compare this to three other dinner options? No. She puts the plate down, and I eat. That's it. That's what you're trying to create with a DM. A situation where they just go... yes. Where the reply feels like the most natural thing in the world. Where NOT replying would actually feel kind of weird. Because once someone starts agreeing with you -- once they've nodded along to your first line, your second line, your third line -- their brain becomes committed to the trajectory. Cialdini's commitment and consistency principle is real as well. The moment someone replies "yeah that's interesting," they've placed a psychological bet on you. And the brain hates folding. Festinger called it cognitive dissonance back in 1957 -- we'll do almost anything to stay consistent with a position we've already taken. So you're not trying to convince them at the end. You're building a plate of food so good they just pick up the fork. --- ## The Free Coke Effect There's one more piece to this, and it's super important. Reciprocity. When someone gives you something unexpected -- something genuinely useful, with no strings attached -- your brain creates a debt. You didn't ask for it. You didn't sign up for it. But now you feel like you owe them something. Regan proved this in 1971. Participants who received an unsolicited Coca-Cola from a stranger bought twice as many raffle tickets from that person -- even if they didn't like them. A free Coke from someone you don't even like doubled compliance. That's how deep this runs (*Journal of Experimental Social Psychology*, 7(6), 627-639). And it gets even better. Kunz and Woolcott in 1976 sent Christmas cards to complete strangers. Random people. Never met them. A significant number sent cards back to people they had literally never heard of in their lives (*Social Science Research*, 5(3), 269-278). That's how powerful the "I owe you" instinct is. It overrides logic. It overrides the fact that you don't know the person. Now imagine what happens when you send someone a genuinely useful, specific, relevant gift in a DM. Not a pitch. Not a "hey let's hop on a call." An actual thing that helps them. Something that would take them hours to do themselves. Something they didn't even know they needed. That's the reciprocity engine. And it's running in the background of every great DM you'll see in this book. You give first. You give something real. And the brain does the rest. --- The key to marketing is don't make it look like marketing. And the key to DMs? Same thing. You're not trying to book a call. You're trying to get a reply. The reply IS the win. Everything else follows. --- *Next: Chapter 3 — The Grid* --- ## It's Not the Words Most people think the problem with their DMs is the words. It's not the words. It's where the words land. I'm going to show you a grid. A 2x2 matrix. Two axes. And once you see it, you won't be able to unsee it. Every DM you've ever sent -- every DM you've ever received -- fits into one of four quadrants. And only one of them works. ![trust-quadrant.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/trust-quadrant-TwKnkT.png) --- ## Two Axes, Four Quadrants Here's how it works. The horizontal axis is **Specificity**. On the left, you've got generic -- could apply to anyone in any industry. On the right, you've got specific -- this is about a particular problem, a particular situation, a particular thing they're dealing with. The vertical axis is **Personalisation**. At the bottom, it's for a stranger -- could be sent to literally anyone. At the top, it's for *them* -- this message could only have been written for this one person. Two axes. Four quadrants. And where your DM sits on this grid pretty much determines whether it gets a reply or gets ignored. --- ## Bottom-Left: VA Spam This is where 99% of LinkedIn DMs live. "We are a full-service digital agency specialising in web development, SEO, social media management, and brand strategy. We help businesses scale their online presence with data-driven solutions..." You've got one of these in your inbox right now. Probably three. You didn't read it. You never read them. Nobody reads them. Generic AND for a stranger. It was written by someone who doesn't know you, about something that could apply to anyone, and it was clearly sent to 400 people at once. You can feel it. Your brain processes it in about half a second and goes: spam. Delete. When I showed this grid on a coaching call, Vladimir -- a fashion consultant -- said: "Everything I've read says you don't want to pitch in the first DM, but this kind of turns it on its head." And he's right. The advice "don't pitch in the first DM" exists because most people's pitches are VA Spam. The answer isn't to stop pitching. The answer is to stop being in this quadrant. --- ## Bottom-Right: Door Knocker This one's sneaky because it feels more personal. But it's not. "Hey Matt, I noticed you're a founder -- I help founders grow their revenue using our proven framework." Cool. You used my name. You identified that I'm a founder, which took you about two seconds. And then you hit me with the same pitch you send to every founder on LinkedIn. This is the Jehovah's Witnesses quadrant. They knocked on your door, they might even use your name. But they're delivering the exact same message to every house on the street. It's the solar panel salesperson. "Hi, we noticed you have a roof." Yeah, mate. Everyone has a roof. That's not personalisation. The message itself could go to anyone. And your brain knows it. --- ## Top-Left: Fortune Cookie Now this one's interesting because it actually feels nice to receive. "I've been following your work and it's really impressive. Would love to connect." It's positive. It's warm. And it achieves absolutely nothing. This is the Chinese restaurant fortune cookie. You crack it open after your sweet and sour pork, the little slip of paper says "You will have 10 blessed years," and you go, oh that's nice. And then you eat the cookie and forget it existed. It could have been sent to anyone. There's nothing in the message that proves they actually understood your situation or have anything specific to offer. It's flattery without substance. Fortune Cookie DMs make people feel good for about 4 seconds. They don't start conversations. They just... exist. --- ## Top-Right: Unclogged Toilet This is where you want to be. This is the whole game. Let me tell you a quick story. A plumber came to our house to fix the kitchen sink. Standard job, right? But while he was under there, he noticed the shower drain in the bathroom was slowly backing up. My wife's hair, right? Classic. He didn't say anything. He just unclogged it. Without being asked. I came back, the sink was fixed, the shower was draining properly, and I was like -- this is amazing. I didn't even know I had that problem, and he just... solved it. I would've paid double. I told everyone I knew about that plumber. That's what your DM should feel like. Specific AND for them. You identified a real problem they have -- maybe one they don't even know about yet -- and you showed up with something useful. Not a pitch about your services. Not a generic compliment. An actual thing that helps them, specifically, right now. The Unclogged Toilet is in the top-right because it requires both axes to be maxed out. It's specific to a real problem, and it could only have been sent to this one person. That combination is super rare. Which is exactly why it works. --- ## The Formula Here's how I think about it as a formula: `Specificity x Subculture Fluency x Usefulness - Pressure` Specificity means you're talking about their actual situation. Subculture fluency means you speak their language -- their world, their problems, the terminology that makes them go "oh, this person gets it." Usefulness means you're bringing something to the table, not just asking for something. And then you subtract pressure. Every ounce of "book a call" or "are you available Tuesday?" energy you inject into a cold DM reduces the trust you just built. --- ## The KPI Here's the only question you need to ask yourself before you hit send. If you were on the receiving end of this message -- would you be *glad* you got it? Not "would they book a call." Not "would they reply." Would they be genuinely glad they opened it? That's a really, really different bar. Most people write DMs hoping for a reply. I want you to write DMs that make people glad they opened their inbox. That's the KPI. Would they be glad? --- ## The Test And here's the fastest diagnostic I've got. Read your message one more time and ask yourself: could this have been sent to anyone else? If the answer is yes -- even slightly -- rewrite it. If you swapped out the name and the company and it still made sense, it's not an Unclogged Toilet. It's a Door Knocker at best. Probably VA Spam with a name merged in. The Unclogged Toilet only works if it could only have been sent to one person. That's the standard. That's the bar. One person. --- ## The Offer Viability Gate Here's where most people screw up the Unclogged Toilet. They try to unclog a toilet that doesn't exist. You've done the research. You've found something specific. You've written a message that feels personal. And the thing you're offering? Nobody wants it. Not because the DM was bad -- because the gift itself fails a basic market reality check. Your gift has to pass four gates. I call this the Offer Viability test. OV = D x C x O x P. It's multiplicative, not additive. If any one of these four is a zero, the whole thing is dead on arrival. **D -- Latent Demand.** Are they already looking for this outcome? Not "would this be useful if they thought about it." Are they already searching for it, complaining about it, or paying someone else to solve it? If the demand doesn't already exist, you're not unclogging a toilet -- you're installing plumbing they never asked for. **C -- Category Belief.** Can they instantly place what kind of thing you're offering? "I'll audit your LinkedIn funnel" -- they know what that is. "I'll help you find alignment in your leadership capacity" -- what the hell is that? If they can't place it, they can't price it. If they can't price it, they can't accept it. Even for free. **O -- Outcome Observability.** Can they imagine success? Can they see what "done" looks like? "I found 3 things on your landing page that are killing your conversion rate" -- they can picture that. "I'll help you feel more confident in your messaging" -- invisible. Unmeasurable. Dead. **P -- Payment Normalisation.** Is this something people expect to pay for? Would it be weird to receive for free? A LinkedIn audit from someone who clearly knows their stuff? Normal. A "mindset alignment session" from a complete stranger? Weird. Super weird. If any of those four is a zero, it doesn't matter how good the other three are. Zero times anything is zero. Dead before it lands. --- ## You Can't Copy-Write Your Way Out Everyone talks about making irresistible offers. Cool. But an irresistible offer for something nobody's already looking for is just a really well-packaged thing no one wants. Offer viability comes first. Then you make it irresistible. You can't copy-write your way out of a non-viable offer. You can't niche your way out of it either. If your gift doesn't pass all four gates, I don't care how beautifully written that message is. It's not going to work. --- ## Your Actual Job So here's your job. Your job is to unclog their toilet. And if you don't know what their toilet problem is -- that's the research, not the DM. --- *Next: Chapter 4 -- The Three Types* **Not All DMs Are Created Equal** --- ## Three Levels, Three Plays Not every DM starts from the same place. And once you understand that, you stop treating every message the same -- which is the mistake I see people make over and over and over. There are three levels. I call them intent signals. And they change everything about how you write your message. --- ## Level 1: Opted In This person already raised their hand. They downloaded your lead magnet. They signed up for your workshop. They joined your community. They're in your world, and they know it. This is your highest conversion rate. Every single time. If you're going to start sending DMs today -- right now, this afternoon -- start here. These people literally gave you their email or clicked a button that said "I want this." They've already done the hard part for you. Most people skip straight to cold outreach and wonder why it feels like screaming into the void. Start here. Seriously. --- ## Level 2: Engaged This person hasn't opted in, but they've shown up. They liked your post. Left a comment. Viewed your profile. They're warm. They know your face. They've seen your name. But warm isn't hot. Warm means they're aware of you, not that they're ready to buy. And so the DM needs to be more specific. You can't just say "Hey, saw you liked my post!" That's lazy. What you do with Level 2 is reference the exact thing they engaged with and connect it to something in their world. "You commented on my post about niche pricing -- I had a look at your profile and noticed you run a consultancy doing X." You're bridging the gap between "I've seen your stuff" and "you've actually looked at mine." Level 2 needs specificity. That's what separates a reply from an ignore. --- ## Level 3: Cold Never interacted. Never seen your content. Don't know you exist. Complete stranger. This is where most people think DMs don't work. They're wrong. It just requires more layers. I sent cold DMs to Level 3 people -- complete strangers -- for most of mine. The Ali Abdaal DM. The John Barrows DM. These weren't people who'd liked my posts or signed up for a webinar. They had no idea who I was. 100% reply rate. So let me be super clear about something. --- ## What the Levels Actually Change Here's what most people get wrong. The level doesn't define whether they're interested. All three levels book calls. All three levels close deals. The only thing that changes is how many layers your DM needs. Level 1 needs fewer trust signals because they already raised their hand. You can be more direct. Fewer moves. Level 3 needs more. More tribal recognition. More specificity. More proof that you've been in their world. More reasons to reply to a stranger. That's it. It's not a question of "will they reply." It's a question of how much work you need to put in to earn that reply. The structure I'm going to show you in the next chapter gives you the exact layers to stack -- whether you're messaging someone who downloaded your PDF yesterday or someone who's never heard your name. --- ## AI and Cold Signals And here's the thing -- with AI, Level 3 isn't even really cold anymore. You can understand signals people already have even if they've never interacted with you. Their posts. Their about section. Their company news. The podcast they were on last week. The hire they just announced. You can make assumptions. Even if you're only 70% confident -- or even 20% -- you still send the DM anyway. Because it doesn't fucking matter. The worst case is they don't reply. The best case is they say "fuck yeah, let's do it." That's the actual risk profile. No reply vs. new client. And people sit there paralysed because they're not sure if their research is right. Mate, send it. You're not proposing marriage. You're sending a message. AI lets you research someone in 90 seconds who would've taken you 30 minutes two years ago. You can pull their language, their priorities, the exact words they use to describe their business -- and write a DM that sounds like it came from someone who's been in their world for months. Even at Level 3, you can make it feel like Level 1. --- ## The Math Let me do some quick maths. You send 5 DMs a day. Every day. That's 25 a week. 100 a month. You book 1 out of every 20. That's 5 meetings a month from cold DMs alone. If your close rate is 30%, that's 1--2 new clients a month. From typing. In your underpants. At your kitchen table. Tell me that's not worth 15 minutes a day. And those numbers are conservative. My clients regularly do better than 1 in 20 once they've nailed the structure. But even if you're average, the maths still works. 5 a day. That's it. --- ## Quality Over Volume Now, someone's going to read those numbers and think, "Right, so I should blast out 50 DMs a day and 5x the result." No. No, no, no. I could send 15 messages in 15 minutes, or I could send 1 message in 15 minutes that's 20 times better. I'm taking the one. Every single time. Because a shit DM doesn't just get ignored. It burns the bridge. You get one chance to show up into their world, and if you waste it with a copy-paste template, you're done. That contact is cooked. Write the one. Make it count. --- ## Everyone Starts as a Stranger At some point, every relationship starts cold. Every conference. Every podcast. Every deal. Someone had to go first. The ironic thing? My mate -- the one I wrote the DM for over tacos at SoCal -- he's a content coach. For content people. He didn't even do it through content. He closed $68K in DMs alone. A guy who teaches content creation, booking all his clients through cold outreach. Which kind of tells you everything you need to know. --- ## The Science In 2004, researchers Burger, Messian, Patel, del Prado and Anderson ran a study at Santa Clara University. They published it in the *Journal of Experimental Social Psychology*: "What a Coincidence! The Effects of Incidental Similarity on Compliance." Here's what they found. When people discovered they shared an incidental similarity with a stranger -- same birthday, same first name, same fingerprint type -- compliance with a request nearly doubled. Not because the similarity was meaningful. Because it felt like a coincidence. The brain went, "Hang on, we've got something in common," and that was enough to change behaviour. Perceived coincidences create instant connection. Your job is to find -- or create -- those coincidences in every DM. The shared industry. The mutual connection. The niche detail only someone from their world would know. It doesn't have to be real serendipity. It just has to feel like it. --- ## Show Up in Their World You don't have to be from their industry. You don't have to know them. You don't need a warm intro or a mutual friend or a shared history. But you have to show up into their world. --- *Next: Chapter 5 -- The Architecture* ## 3 Layers, 7 Moves --- ## There's a Sequence Every cold DM you've ever sent -- the ones that worked and the ones that got left on read -- walked through a sequence. Most people just don't know there IS a sequence. There is. 3 layers. 7 moves. That's the whole architecture. Every DM I've ever sent that booked a call, landed a podcast, or started a partnership ran through these same 7 moves. And every DM I've seen fail -- from the 1,800+ founders I've coached -- broke down because one of these 7 was weak or missing. --- # LAYER 1: GET THE GATE OPEN All we're doing with Layer 1 is just get them to READ it. Not reply. Not book a call. Read. That's it. If they don't read it, nothing else matters. Your perfect offer, your unclogged toilet -- useless if they never get past the first two lines. Layer 1 has three moves. --- ## Move 1: Tribal Recognition Signal that you're from their world. Use language that only an insider would know. When I demonstrated this on a call, I told Ceyhun -- who plays League of Legends -- that I downloaded Wild Rift, played Sana mid, rushed mid, won, and deleted the app. His response? "Send a Stripe link." Meaning: take my money. The rest of the room had no idea what I was talking about. They were like, what the hell are these two on about? That's tribal recognition. The words meant nothing to anyone else. But to Ceyhun, it meant everything. You either know what Sana mid means or you don't. It's kind of like CrossFit calluses. You shake someone's hand and feel those rough patches across the top of their palm. You know. Instantly. This person is from my world. You can't fake the callus. It's physical proof of shared suffering. Same thing in a DM. When you use someone's tribal language -- the words they use inside their community, not the words you'd use to describe it from the outside -- their brain lights up with recognition before they've even processed what you're saying. And here's a small one that people miss: first names. When I wrote "3x calls in Black Belt with Taki" in a DM, that first name -- Taki -- is an insider signal. If you know who Taki is, you're in the room. If you don't, you're not. First names are tribal shorthand as well. --- ## Move 2: Honest Naming Name the awkwardness. "We've never met." "I know this is kind of weird." "Totally a cold DM." Why would you volunteer that? Because liars don't. Liars slide in smooth. Liars pretend you're already mates. Liars skip right past the elephant in the room and hope you don't notice. When you name the weird thing, you're doing the opposite of what a spammer does. And the brain picks up on that instantly. There's real science behind this as well. In 1966, Aronson, Willerman, and Floyd ran a study known as the pratfall effect -- *Psychonomic Science*, 4(6), 227-228. A highly competent person who makes a small blunder -- spills a coffee, trips on stage -- is rated MORE likable than one who doesn't. Not less. More. But only if they've already demonstrated competence. If a bumbling idiot spills coffee, nobody's charmed. If a clearly capable person does it, people go, oh sick, they're human. Your "I know this is kind of weird" moment isn't weakness. It's a trust accelerator -- but only because you've already shown you know your shit through tribal recognition and specificity. The pratfall effect needs competence first. Then the vulnerability lands. --- ## Move 3: Specificity in THEIR Words One detail. Just one. Proving you've actually been in their world. Not your words -- THEIR words. Their language. Their references. In 1989, Bell and Loftus ran a study on eyewitness testimony -- *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, 56(5), 669-681. Witnesses who included trivial but specific details -- "there was a mustard stain on his shirt" -- were judged significantly more credible than those who gave accurate but vague accounts. The mustard stain had nothing to do with the crime. But the brain treats specificity as proof. If you can recall that level of detail, your brain goes: this person was there. Same thing in a DM. "$42K MRR in 90 days" beats "I help businesses grow" every single time. Jas, a photographer in Canada, rattled off on the call: "APS-C sensor, full-frame mirrorless, Sony a7R Mark IV, Kodachrome, Portra..." I was like, dude, this is really good. That's tribal language. You either know those words or you don't. And if someone dropped that in a DM to a photographer, that photographer would read the whole message. Guaranteed. Because their brain would go: this person is from my world. --- # LAYER 2: EARN THE REPLY The gate's open. They're reading. Now you need to give them a reason to actually respond. Layer 2 has three moves as well. --- ## Move 4: Inside-World Proof This is proof that lives inside THEIR world. Not your LinkedIn bio. Not your follower count. Something they can verify in 30 seconds without leaving their ecosystem. "3x calls in Black Belt with Taki." If you're in that world, you know what Black Belt is. You know who Taki is. You could verify it by asking around. That's inside-world proof. Compare that to: "I've coached 1,500 founders." That's external proof. It lives on MY profile. They have to trust ME to believe it. Inside-world proof is different -- they don't have to trust you at all. They just go verify. If I said I'm Gold 5 in League of Legends, it shows I've invested something to actually be in there. It's verifiable, it signals commitment, and it lives inside the world of the person I'm talking to. External proof says: trust me. Internal proof says: go check. --- ## Move 5: The Unclogged Toilet This is the keystone. The big one. If you get this right, you can be average at everything else and still book the call. If you get this wrong, you can nail all six other moves and still hear nothing. 80% of the work is right here. The Unclogged Toilet is about identifying a problem they already have but haven't named yet -- and showing them you know how to fix it. Like a plumber who came to fix your sink, noticed the shower backing up, and unclogged it without being asked. But here's where most people screw it up. They try to unclog a toilet that doesn't exist. Your toilet has to pass the OV test. Offer Viability: D x C x O x P. Multiplicative, not additive. **Latent Demand (D):** Are they already looking for this outcome? Not "would this be useful" -- are they already searching, complaining, or paying to solve this? If the demand isn't there, your DM is dead before it arrives. **Category Belief (C):** Can they instantly place what kind of thing you're offering? "A LinkedIn audit" -- clear. "An alignment session" -- what the hell is that? If they can't place it, they can't value it. And if they can't value it, they can't say yes, even to something free. **Outcome Observability (O):** Can they imagine success? Can they see what winning looks like? "I'll show your team how to turn LinkedIn into a lead engine in 75 minutes" -- that's visible. "I'll help you find clarity" -- invisible. **Payment Normalisation (P):** Is this something they'd expect to pay for? Sounds weird for a free gift, but it matters. If you're offering something that feels strange from a stranger -- "mindset session," "energy work" -- the brain rejects it. If you're offering something they'd normally pay for, like an audit, the brain goes: why is this free? That's curiosity. That's a reply. If any of those four equals zero, the whole thing collapses. Doesn't matter how good your DM is. OV gates everything. Azoora, a chartered accountant on the call, nailed this. She identified that food bank charities in New Zealand have a $50K tax restructuring problem they don't know about yet. Demand? Every charity needs their tax right. Category? Tax restructuring -- instantly legible. Outcome? $50K saved. Payment normalised? Chartered accountants doing tax work is about as normal as it gets. That's an unclogged toilet. --- ## Move 6: The Gift This is what you're actually handing them. And it follows three rules. **1. Unexpected.** Not a PDF. Not a template. Not some automation sequence they've seen 400 times. **2. Useful.** Actually useful. To them. Right now. Not "useful in theory." Not "useful if they had time to implement a 12-step process." Useful today. **3. Optional.** They can take it or leave it. No "but first, book a call so I can give it to you." No "reply YES to get access." It's just... here. The way I think about it: not a recipe. The food is done. You're not giving them instructions on how to cook. You've already cooked. Here's the plate. Eat it or don't. Could be a Loom video auditing their funnel. An intro to someone they need. A free rewrite of their landing page. Flying to their city and buying them lunch. Whatever it is -- it's done, it's useful, and it's theirs. In 1971, Dennis Regan ran the free Coke experiment -- *Journal of Experimental Social Psychology*. Participants who received an unsolicited Coca-Cola from a stranger bought twice as many raffle tickets from that person afterwards. Even if they didn't like them. A free Coke from a stranger doubled compliance. Imagine what a genuinely useful, personalised gift does in a DM. --- # LAYER 3: REMOVE FRICTION They've read it. They're interested. Now don't fuck it up by making it hard to say yes. Layer 3 has one move. Just one. But it's the one most people butcher. --- ## Move 7: The Permission Close "If not, totally sweet." "Would you be keen?" "Just let me know." Zero pressure. You're handing them the decision and saying: this is yours. Meanwhile, in my gut, I was like, please respond, please respond. But the message? Nonchalant. Breezy. Like I've got a hundred other things happening. Here's why this works at a brain level. In 1966, Jack Brehm published *A Theory of Psychological Reactance* (Academic Press). The core finding: when people feel their freedom is threatened, they push back. Hard. Even if they wanted to say yes, the second they feel pressured, their brain flips to resistance mode. "Totally fine if now's not the right time" hands them back their autonomy. And autonomy is everything. Ryan and Deci's self-determination theory -- *American Psychologist*, 55(1), 68-78, published in 2000 -- showed that autonomy is one of three fundamental psychological needs. When you satisfy it, people move toward you. When you threaten it, they run. Anuj on the call said it perfectly: "The permission close gives them the feeling of control." Exactly. That's exactly what it does. Fewer words to say yes = more yes. "Would you be keen?" is a one-word answer. Don't ask them to commit to a 45-minute strategy session. Just ask if they'd be open to it. --- --- ## It's a Diagnostic, Not a Template These 7 moves aren't a template. You don't fill in the blanks and hit send. They're a diagnostic. When a DM doesn't work -- when it gets left on read, when you hear absolutely nothing -- one of these 7 is weak. Maybe your tribal recognition was off. Maybe you named a toilet that doesn't exist. Maybe your gift had strings attached. Maybe you pushed too hard at the close. Find the weak move. Fix it. Resend. --- *Next: Chapter 6 -- Ali Abdaal* --- I sent a cold WhatsApp DM to a man with 6.8 million YouTube subscribers. He replied in 2 minutes. --- ## The Target Ali Abdaal is one of the biggest creators on the planet. Former doctor turned full-time YouTuber. 6.8 million subscribers. Author of ![IMG_7891.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/img_7891-I4CGO8.png) ![IMG_7892.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/img_7892-F9fWVo.png) *Feel-Good Productivity*. Runs a $5M+ per year business across Part-Time YouTuber Academy, Productivity Lab, the Deep Dive podcast. I'd never met him. Never spoken to him. Never DM'd him. Never been in the same room as him. Zero prior interaction of any kind. The only thread connecting us was that we were both members of Boardroom -- a high-level paid mastermind. That's it. That was the whole thing. --- ## The Setup I was scrolling through Boardroom and I saw Ali's thread about launching a new program. Something clicked. I went and checked out his LinkedIn. And I could see it immediately -- his team needed LinkedIn lead gen and they didn't have it. Now, this is where the OV thinking kicks in, right? Before I typed a single word, I already knew this would land. LinkedIn lead gen for creator businesses? Massive latent demand. Instantly understood category. "Turn LinkedIn into a lead engine" is a visible, tangible outcome anyone on his team would get. And his team would absolutely pay for this kind of thing. Demand, clarity, outcome, purchase intent -- all fives across the board. I knew it was a yes before I hit send. The only question was whether the DM itself was good enough to carry the offer through. --- ## The DM Here's the exact message I sent. Every word. Every typo. Exactly as it went. > Hey Ali, what's up. We've never met, but my name is Matt Lakajev and we are in Boardroom together > > A couple of weeks back I was following your thread re you launching your new program. > > Then I went and checked o it your LinkedIn as that's my thing (weird I know lol) > > I was wondering... I've done 3x calls in Black Belt with Taki coaching everyone on booking sales calls and closing deals on LinkedIn. > > I've booked 5,000 calls myself and coached 1,500 founders. > > I reckon I'd be able to show your team how to turn LinkedIn into an insane lead engine in 75 mins > > Would you potentially be open to that in exchange for you potentially assisting us? > > I know this is kinda weird and out of the blue, but I went through your profile and I know how I can make you win massively. > > This is me speaking so show I know what the hell im talking about lol -- [YouTube video link] > > If not, totally sweet > > Just let me know --- ## The Reply Ali replied in roughly 2 minutes. > Hey! Thanks for reaching out > > Yessss would love to turn LinkedIn into a better leads machine Two minutes. From a bloke with nearly 7 million subscribers. To a cold message from someone he'd never met. --- ## What Happened Next I didn't chase. He said he was slammed -- launching a new cohort of students, then heading to Palm Springs. I just said "happy to do when you get back" and left it. No follow-up. No nudge. No "just circling back." Nothing. Weeks later, Ali came back to me. Not the other way around. He'd gone and watched my LinkedIn training inside the Black Belt portal on his own. Then he sent me this: > Bonjour, finally got around to watching your LinkedIn training... It's SOO GOOD. Would love to chat about how we can help each other. The dynamic completely flipped. I started as the cold outreach sender. Ali ended up pitching me the partnership. Sit with that for a second. --- ## The Observation When I broke this DM down on a teaching call, a bloke named Ray picked up on something that most people miss. The honesty IS the hook. He was right. And that's where this whole thing starts. --- ## The Breakdown Let's go through it line by line. ### "We've never met, but...we are in Boardroom together" This one sentence clears two gates at once. Move 2 -- honest naming -- and Move 1 -- tribal recognition. Both in one hit. "We've never met" is doing something that most people would never do in a cold DM. It's admitting the awkwardness. Volunteering the gap. A scammer would never say "we've never met." A spammer would pretend you're old mates. Only a genuine person names the absence of a relationship. And then immediately: "we are in Boardroom together." One word -- Boardroom -- reclassifies the entire message. Ali's brain shifts from "unknown stranger" to "fellow member of a community I chose to be in." That's a completely different frame. It's lateral, not vertical. Not fan-to-celebrity. Peer-to-peer. Two people who independently paid to be in the same room. Two gates. One sentence. Done. --- ### "Following your thread re launching your new program" Move 3. Snowflake specificity. This isn't "I love your videos." Any random person off YouTube could say that. This references activity inside Boardroom. A specific thread. About a specific launch. Something only a fellow member would know about. Ali's brain processes: this person has been paying attention to my actual moves, not just my public content. That's the difference between flattery and recognition. --- ### "Weird I know lol" Move 2 again. And this is where the science gets kind of interesting. In 1966, a researcher named Elliot Aronson ran an experiment -- the pratfall effect. Here's what he found: a competent person who makes a small blunder -- spills their coffee, trips slightly, acknowledges something awkward -- is actually rated MORE likable than someone who appears flawless. "Weird I know lol" is a pratfall. I'm acknowledging that yes, I went and stalked your LinkedIn profile, and yes, that's a bit odd from a stranger. But by naming it before Ali can feel it, I discharge the tension. Like releasing pressure from a valve. The awkwardness was going to exist whether I acknowledged it or not. Owning it takes it away. Three words and a "lol." That's all it took to turn a potential cringe moment into a trust signal. --- ### "3x calls in Black Belt with Taki" Move 4. Inside-world proof. This is the line that separates this DM from every other cold pitch Ali's ever received. The proof doesn't live outside his world. It lives inside it. Black Belt is part of the community Ali belongs to. Taki Moore is a figure they both know. "3x calls" is specific and verifiable -- Ali could check this in 30 seconds. This isn't "I've been featured in Forbes" or "I've worked with 50 companies." That's external credibility. This is embedded authority. Proof that already exists inside the walls of Ali's own ecosystem. The brain processes this completely differently. It's not "some outsider trying to get in." It's "someone who's already inside." --- ### "Show YOUR TEAM how to turn LinkedIn into an insane lead engine in 75 mins" Moves 5 and 6 together. And there's a subtle thing here that most people would miss. It's not "show YOU." It's "show your TEAM." That one word lowers the status gap massively. I'm not positioning myself as someone who's going to teach Ali Abdaal -- a man with nearly 7 million subscribers -- how to do something. I'm offering to train his team. His team gets the capability. He gets the result. Low personal exposure. Low ego risk. And then: 75 minutes. Not "a multi-week engagement." Not "an ongoing consulting arrangement." Not some vague "let's jump on a call." Seventy-five minutes. Specific. Short. Fits in any calendar. The energy calculation compresses to almost zero. Ali's brain runs the maths -- how much time, how much effort, how much calendar shuffling -- and the answer comes back: barely anything. --- ### "Would you POTENTIALLY be open... in exchange for you POTENTIALLY assisting us?" Move 7. And this line changes the entire power dynamic. "Potentially" appears twice. Each one adds a layer of softness. This isn't "can we set this up." It's not even "would you be open." It's "would you potentially be open." Maximum optionality. Zero pressure. Zero obligation. Just... exploring the idea. But the real magic is "in exchange." Two words that collapse the status gap from "unknown person asking a celebrity for a favour" to "two professionals exploring a trade." I have something you want. You have something I want. Let's swap. That's not extraction. That's exchange. And it positions me as a peer, not a fan. --- ### "If not, totally sweet" Move 7 again. The zero-pressure exit. Here's the thing about this line. When someone feels completely safe to say no, they become far more likely to say yes. Because the yes is genuine. It's not extracted through guilt or obligation or that weird social pressure where you feel like you have to respond because someone wrote you a novel. "Totally sweet" eliminates the last risk bucket -- social risk. There's no awkwardness if Ali says no. The exit is clean. And that clean exit is precisely what makes the entrance so easy. --- ## The Big Picture So let's zoom out for a second. Every single line in that DM was doing multiple jobs simultaneously. The honesty built trust. The shared community created context. The inside-world proof collapsed the "is this person legit?" question. The exchange framing collapsed the status gap. The specificity made it impossible to ignore. The pratfall made it human. The zero-pressure close made saying yes feel safe. And then I didn't chase. I didn't follow up. I just let the message do its work. Weeks later, Ali came back and pitched me a partnership bigger than anything I'd originally proposed. That's what a well-constructed cold DM does. It doesn't just get a reply. It shifts the entire dynamic so that the other person starts selling themselves on working with you. That's not a trick. That's what happens when every line earns the next one. --- ## The Template: The Shared Community + Exchange DM Use this when you share a paid community, mastermind, or alumni network with someone you've never spoken to. The shared context does half the work for you. Frame it as an exchange, not an ask. **Variation:** This works for any shared tribe -- an industry conference, a Slack group, a cohort program, an alumni network. The specifics change. The key stays the same: exchange framing that collapses the status gap between you and the person you're reaching out to. --- *Next: Chapter 7 -- John Barrows* ## Template: The Free Audit Gift DM I audited the outbound strategy of the #1 sales trainer in the world. He called it "the most insanely valuable video I've ever received." Then he sent ME his booking link. --- ## Who Is John Barrows? ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.26.13.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-26-13-16nzHk.png) ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.26.26.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-26-26-8jIJ1J.png) ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.26.33.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-26-33-tRfXz4.png) ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.26.41.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-26-41-ioYqIi.png) ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.26.48.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-26-48-yyMf3j.png) John Barrows. If you don't know the name, you've never Googled "how to sell." Around 406,000 LinkedIn followers. Forbes Top 30 Social Salespeople. CEO of JB Sales. His teams have trained the sales forces at Salesforce, Google, LinkedIn, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Slack. Twenty-five-plus years in B2B sales. When enterprise companies need their sales teams to stop being shit at outbound, they call John Barrows. He is, by pretty much any measure, the most recognised B2B sales trainer on the planet. ## Why This One Was Personal And my very first sales training video on YouTube -- back before I knew anything, back when I was just a kid trying to figure out how selling worked -- was John Barrows. Genuine fandom. Not manufactured. Not "I've been following you for a while" when really you Googled them twenty minutes ago. I actually watched his stuff. I learned from his stuff. That matters for what comes next. --- ## The Setup Here's the situation. I'm on LinkedIn one day, and I go check out John's profile. Because that's what I do. I look at LinkedIn profiles the way a mechanic looks under a bonnet -- I can't help it. And I saw that it sucked. Not his content. Not his reputation. His LinkedIn funnel was broken. No email capture. No newsletter funnel. Leads were dropping off. The #1 sales trainer in the world had a LinkedIn presence that was leaking opportunities everywhere, and he had no idea. ### The Unclogged Toilet This is what I mean when I talk about the Unclogged Toilet. John Barrows didn't know he had a problem. He teaches outbound to Salesforce and Google -- why would he think his own outbound had gaps? But I could see it. Because this is what I do all day. ### Offer Viability The Offer Viability behind this gift was perfect. A LinkedIn audit for a B2B sales trainer? Latent Demand -- D equals 5. He's already in the world of leads and funnels. Category Belief -- C equals 5. He knows exactly what a LinkedIn audit is. Outcome Observability -- O equals 5. "Here's exactly what's broken and here's how to fix it" -- you can picture that, you can measure it. Payment Normalisation -- P equals 5. He'd absolutely pay for LinkedIn consulting. Five across the board. But here's the thing. I didn't just DM him and say "Hey John, your LinkedIn's broken." That's not how this works. Different industry. No shared community. No mutual connection. Cold LinkedIn DM. Just me and a plan. The plan was the decoy pitch. --- ## The Decoy Pitch Strategy I pitched John on being a guest on his podcast. That was my opening move. But it wasn't the real move. The podcast ask was the decoy -- it established credibility and opened the door. Here's what I sent: > Hey John, I've been a big fan of yours for a long time. > > Even more I started watching your sales masterclass content. > > And loved when one of your team said/matched on all channels is really hard to do. > > Reaching out to see if you'd be open to me being on as a guest... Notice what's happening. I'm not just saying "love your content" like every other fan DM. I referenced a specific moment from his sales masterclass -- and not something John said. Something one of his *team members* said. That signals I've consumed his world at depth. The ecosystem, not just the highlight reel. John pushed back. He was working on a new approach for his podcast. Fair enough. Most people would stop here, right? I didn't stop. Because the first ask was never the real ask. --- ## The Pivot This is where it gets good. > I'll tell you what -- if yourself or your team want, I'm going to audit your cold outbound strategy and send it to you for free. > > It genuinely won't take me long cause it's what I do all day... it'll probably take me 5-10 minutes for 6 months worth of value... would you be open to that? Read that line again. "5-10 minutes for 6 months worth of value." That line is doing four things at once. Casual competence -- "it's what I do all day" signals this is my baseline, not my ceiling. The value ratio is absurd -- 5-10 minutes of my time for 6 months of value on his end. Saying no kind of feels irrational. The disruption threshold is zero -- all John has to do is watch a video. No calendar, no Zoom, no social exposure. And "would you be open to that?" is a soft close. Not "when can we set this up?" Just: would you be open. Maximum safety. He said yes. --- ## The Loom Video Then I did the work. I recorded a full, personalised video audit of John Barrows' entire outbound strategy. His LinkedIn funnel. Where the leads were dropping off. Why his email capture was broken. What his team should change and how to change it. Specific. Detailed. Recorded. Not a template. Not a generic "here are 5 things you should do on LinkedIn." A recorded analysis that could not have been sent to anyone else on earth. Built for John Barrows. His strategy, his team, his approach. I didn't tell John I was good at LinkedIn. I showed him by finding genuine gaps in the outbound strategy of the world's #1 sales trainer. The medium was the message. Demonstration over declaration. Always. --- ## The Result March 7, 2024. John's response: > Hey Matthew, > > This is one of the most insanely valuable videos I think I've ever received and you're 100% right. > > Here's a link to find a time for us to talk: [his HubSpot booking link] The man who trains sales teams at Salesforce, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft -- the man who gets pitched in his inbox every single day -- called my video "the most insanely valuable video I think I've ever received." And then he sent me his HubSpot booking link. I never asked for the meeting. He self-initiated it. He chased me. That's The Flip. When your gift is good enough, the power dynamic inverts. My reply: > Awesome to hear and happy I could provide value > > Agree let's chat first and see where it goes > > I'm for sure not a specialist in YouTube haha > > Time locked in and looking forward to chatting :) --- ## The Play-by-Play Right. Let's pull this apart. ### The Podcast Guest Pitch (The Decoy) The podcast ask was never the point. It was a door opener. When he said no, it created the natural opening for the real value delivery. Not every DM is a single shot. Sometimes you set up a decoy to position the real ask. The decoy gets you in the conversation. The gift keeps you there. --- ### "5-10 Minutes for 6 Months Worth of Value" Move 6 -- The Gift. All three Gift Rule boxes checked. Unexpected -- John didn't ask for an audit. Useful -- genuine strategic insights he could act on immediately. Optional -- zero pressure, just watch a video if you want. Not a recipe. The food is done. "I could audit your LinkedIn for you" is a recipe -- an offer to cook. The Loom video is the finished meal on the table. Eat it or don't. It's already made. --- ### The Loom Video Audit This is Move 5 (Unclogged Toilet) and Move 4 (Inside-World Proof) firing simultaneously. I didn't say "I could help your LinkedIn." I showed him exactly what was broken. The video IS the proof. It doesn't describe competence -- it demonstrates it. If I can find gaps in John Barrows' outbound strategy -- the man who trained Salesforce -- then my methodology is validated at the highest possible level. The recipient doesn't have to "believe" the method works. The evidence is in their inbox. --- ### "I'm for Sure Not a Specialist in YouTube Haha" Status Calibration. After delivering something John called the most valuable video he'd ever received, I immediately grounded myself. I know my lane. I'm great at outbound and LinkedIn. I know what I don't know. Peer energy, not guru energy. "Haha" keeps it light. Not competitive. Not threatening. --- ### John Sending His OWN Booking Link The Flip. I never once asked John Barrows to get on a call with me. The quality of the gift created the pull. When your gift is good enough, they don't just say yes. They take the next step for you. --- ### The Handwritten Letter Here's a metaphor I use when I teach this on calls. If you receive a handwritten letter in the mail -- a real one, not a bill -- and it's really good and addressed to you, you read the whole thing. You don't skim it. You don't archive it. You read 100% of the letter. That's what this Loom video was. A handwritten letter in video form. The length doesn't matter when every moment earns its place. --- ## Template: The Free Audit Gift DM Use this when the recipient has a visible, diagnosable problem. When you can see something broken that they can't see themselves. The structure: 1. **Open with genuine recognition** -- specific reference to their work, not generic flattery. 2. **Initial ask (the decoy)** -- a reasonable, standard ask that opens the conversation. 3. **Pivot to the gift** -- "I'll tell you what..." and offer to do the work for free. 4. **Frame your casual competence** -- "It's what I do all day. Won't take me long." 5. **Deliver the finished work** -- a Loom, a video, a written teardown. DONE work, not an offer to do work. 6. **Humble close** -- acknowledge what you're NOT. Keep it peer-level. The gift doesn't have to be a video. Could be a written teardown of their funnel. A redesigned landing page. A competitive analysis with specific recommendations. The key is: FINISHED WORK, not an offer to do work. And keep it tight. My Barrows video was longer than it needed to be. One to two minutes is the sweet spot for a cold audit. You're not trying to deliver a full consulting engagement. You're trying to demonstrate that you see what they can't see. If you can't diagnose something specific from their public presence, this template isn't the one. Go back to the grid. Find their toilet. Then unclog it before they ask. --- *Next: Chapter 8 -- Frank Greeff* --- 170 characters. That's all it took. Frank Greeff built and sold Realbase for $180 million. Zero outside funding raised. He's now building Kinso AI, has 12 million monthly content impressions, co-founded Founders Table -- an exclusive network for Australian founders doing $10M+ in revenue -- and lives in Curl Curl on the Northern Beaches. He replied almost instantly: "Best 170 character pitch I've ever written. Lets do it!" Then he gave me his personal phone numbe ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.27.05.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-27-05-UTf7NS.png) ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.27.15.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-27-15-uVXEBI.png) ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.27.36.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-27-36-KM0Kn0.png) ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.27.44.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-27-44-9ey5vK.png) ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.27.54.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-27-54-eJkket.png) r. --- ## The Context Here's what I knew before writing a single word. Tom Nosk had been on Frank's podcast "Chew the Fat." Tom does Instagram coaching. I do LinkedIn. Parallel authority -- different platform, same game. So I already knew Frank's world included people like me. I just hadn't shown up in it yet. Frank moves fast. He's direct. He respects brevity and confidence above everything. If you send him a three-paragraph message full of pleasantries, he'll skim the first line and close the tab. He wants the point, and he wants it now. That shaped everything. Ultra-concise. No fluff. Confidence-forward. We're both in Sydney, too. I didn't actually know that when I sent the DM -- I thought he was in Brisbane for some reason. But the fact we were both on the Northern Beaches side of Sydney turned this from a remote thing into sitting across from each other in his living room. Here's something Brooke -- a buyer's agent in Sydney -- said when I walked through this DM on a teaching call. She said: "It just feels really easy. It almost begs you to say yes, the way it's written." And then she said something that kind of blew my mind: "It's an energy that you're like, oh, I want to know this person. Actually, it's how I found you -- when you were on that podcast." The cold DM created the podcast. The podcast created the inbound. Full circle. --- ## The DM > Toms pod was dope. Thought I'd connect. Also think I might potentially be a guest that would be valuable. My pitch in 170 characters -- No.1 lead gen expert in Australia and No.1 in the world on all social media, $3.5M/yr LinkedIn biz 100% organic, I can fly to you --- ## The Result Frank's reply came at 1:04 PM. Same minute I sent it. > Best 170 character pitch I've ever written. Lets do it! I said "LFG!" He said "Yewww." Then this: > Ive got a free spot on Monday 24th 9am or 11am. Filming happens at my home Curl Curl on the northern beaches. I said "Keen. 11am is great for me." The next day -- 4:10 AM -- Frank messaged me directly and offered to flick across a calendar invite. A founder who sold a company for $180 million didn't say "have your PA schedule with mine." He reached out personally. I drove to his house the following week. We filmed the podcast. And he came back for a second one. --- ## After the Yes After Frank said yes, I didn't just sit back and wait for Monday. I kept sending useful content. I showed Frank the Barley podcast episode -- something directly relevant to his world. He replied: "Epic!" I also mentioned the Chris Do one -- still waiting for that episode to drop. Frank said "Epic, sounds great." Most people stop the moment they get the yes. They got what they wanted, so they go quiet until the meeting. That's a mistake. The gift doesn't stop at the commitment. If you keep being useful after someone says yes, you're not a cold outreach person anymore. You're someone they actually want to talk to. That's how a one-off podcast booking turns into a second podcast. And then a relationship. --- ## The Play-by-Play ### "Toms pod was dope." Four words. That's the opener. "Tom" -- first name only. Not "Tom Nosk." Not "your recent guest Tom Nosk on the Chew the Fat podcast." Just "Tom." That's insider language. It signals I actually know who he is. "Pod" -- not "podcast." Casual. Peer-to-peer. The same way you'd say it to a mate. "Dope" -- Australian tribal language. In Frank's world -- startup founder, builds in public, heavy on Instagram and content -- this register is perfect. It's how his people talk. It tells Frank's brain: this person is from my world. And the most important part? It's specific. I named the exact piece of content. Not "love your stuff." Not "great content, mate." A specific reference to a specific thing. That's how Frank knows I actually consumed it. --- ### "My pitch in 170 characters" This is the structural move that made the whole thing work. The constraint IS the proof. Think about it. If you can compress your entire pitch into 170 characters, you understand your own value at a depth most people never reach. Compression requires mastery. The limitation itself demonstrates the skill. And for someone like Frank? This is crack. He respects brevity. He respects someone who can get to the point faster than anyone else in the room. When Frank read "my pitch in 170 characters," his brain went: this person respects my time AND they're confident enough to distil everything into one sentence. That's not just a pitch. That's a performance of competence. --- ### The 170 characters themselves Five proof points. One sentence. 1. **"No.1 lead gen expert in Australia"** -- geographic authority. 2. **"No.1 in the world on all social media"** -- global authority. Bold claim. But that's the point -- boldness IS the signal. Either you believe it or you don't. 3. **"$3.5M/yr LinkedIn biz"** -- revenue proof. You don't claim revenue figures unless they're real. Too easy to verify. 4. **"100% organic"** -- method proof. In a world full of paid ads, this stands out. It's also a values statement. 5. **"I can fly to you"** -- costly signal. Physical commitment. I'm willing to get on a plane to come to you. That's skin in the game. Each proof point does a different job. Geographic. Global. Revenue. Method. Commitment. Five trust deposits packed into one line. Zero fat. --- ### "I can fly to you" This is the one most people miss. Offering to physically travel to someone removes ALL friction. Frank doesn't have to go anywhere, coordinate anything, or rearrange his schedule around me. I come to him. Turned out I didn't even need to fly. We were both in Sydney. But the willingness to fly had already done its job. The signal landed even though the action wasn't needed. --- ## The Template: The Compressed Pitch DM Use this when the recipient moves fast and values directness. They respect brevity. They don't have time for your life story. Do your research first. Read their content. Understand how they communicate. Look at their last 10 posts and figure out whether you're writing to someone who wants detail and data, or someone who wants you to get to the damn point. Frank wanted the point. So I gave him 170 characters. **The variation:** The constraint frame works for any recipient. You can use "my pitch in one sentence." Or "the TL;DR." Or "the 30-second version." The specific format doesn't matter. What matters is the compression. Because compression signals confidence. If you can't say what you do in one sentence, you don't understand what you do. And the person on the other end can feel that. --- 170 characters. A reply in under a minute. A personal phone number from a founder who sold for $180 million. A podcast at his house in Curl Curl. None of it was luck. It was research, compression, and knowing exactly who I was talking to. Confidence. --- *Next: Chapter 9 -- Nathan Barry* Nathan Barry had already shared my LinkedIn Masterclass with 47,000 email subscribers before I ever sent him a message. The DM wasn't the first touch. It was the last. --- ## Who Is Nathan Barry? So here's who we're talking about. Nathan Barry is the founder and CEO of Kit - ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.28.20.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-28-20-loqBi0.png) ![CleanShot 2026-04-10 at 06.28.28.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-10-at-06-28-28-ReNjIu.png) - you might know it as ConvertKit. He bootstrapped that company from five grand to $45 million a year in annual recurring revenue. 58,000 paying customers. His platform powers the newsletters of Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holiday, Andrew Huberman. Some of the biggest creators on the planet run their entire email operation through his software. He turned down a Spotify acquisition. That's the kind of person we're dealing with. Not someone who's going to reply to a cold pitch because you had a nice subject line. Not someone who's sitting in his inbox going "oh wow, a stranger wants to meet for coffee, how exciting." This is a guy who gets pitched constantly and says no to almost everything. And he said yes to me. In about two minutes. --- ## The Context Here's what most people don't know about this DM. I didn't build trust with Nathan in the message. The trust was already there. It had been accumulating for weeks before I typed a single word. ### Content That Preceded the DM Nathan had already consumed my LinkedIn Masterclass -- "How to Make $100k/Month with $0 Ad Spend." Not only consumed it. He'd shared it with his 47,000-plus email subscribers. Two weeks before I ever reached out. My content was already circulating in his world. My work had preceded me. ### The Taki Moore Connection The other piece: Taki Moore. Genuine mutual connection. Taki's a coaching business expert -- someone both Nathan and I have known for years. Nathan had him on his podcast. I'd known Taki for a long time. Real relationship, not a manufactured name-drop. And here's what makes Taki even more interesting in this context. Taki coached Dan Martell -- the guy who wrote *Buy Back Your Time* and built SaaS Academy into one of the biggest coaching companies in the tech world. So Taki's not just a mate of Nathan's. He's the coach behind one of the most well-known SaaS founders on the planet. That adds another layer to the trust transfer. When you share a genuine connection with someone who operates at that level, it signals something about who you are without you having to say it. ### Real Timing And the timing was real as well. I was heading to the US the following week. Not "we should connect sometime." Not "I'd love to hop on a Zoom." I was getting on a plane. The Offer Viability was already validated before I opened LinkedIn. Nathan was interested in LinkedIn -- he'd shared my masterclass to his list. The demand wasn't something I had to create. It was already there. I just needed to show up. --- ## The DM > Hey Nathan, just watching your podcast with Taki. Man, what a G that dude is. I've known Taki for years now. > > I'm heading over to the US next week and would love to connect. > > Here's my shortest pitch of all time. > > I'm currently #1 in Australia and voted #1 for lead generation worldwide on social media. [Details about $3.5M/yr LinkedIn business, 100% organic, coaching founders etc.] --- ## The Result Nathan's reply: > Yep, to go super deep on this stuff He'd already shared my content to 47,000 people. He didn't need convincing. He didn't need a case study or a testimonial or a three-part email sequence. He'd already done the due diligence himself — two weeks earlier, when he consumed the masterclass and thought it was good enough to send to his entire list. The DM just gave him permission to act on what he already believed. --- ## The Play-by-Play ### "Just Watching Your Podcast with Taki" > "Just watching your podcast with Taki" **Created Serendipity.** Present tense. Not "I watched your podcast." "Just watching." Right now. Happening in this moment. That one word — "just" — makes this feel like a spontaneous thought, not a calculated outreach. Like I was sitting on the couch, watching the episode, and went "oh shit, I should message this guy." That's the energy. Organic. Real-time. Not rehearsed. Here's a science drop for you. In 1968, a psychologist named Robert Zajonc published a study in the *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology* called "Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure." What he found was dead simple: the more times someone is exposed to something, the more they like it. Doesn't matter if they don't consciously remember the exposure. Familiarity breeds preference. They saw your name on a post, then in a comment, then in their inbox — by the third touchpoint, you're not a stranger. You're familiar. And familiar feels safe. Nathan had already seen my name on a masterclass he shared to 47,000 people. By the time this DM landed, I wasn't some random bloke in his inbox. I was someone his brain had already categorised as "one of us." --- ### "Man, What a G That Dude Is" > "Man, what a G that dude is. I've known Taki for years now." This line is doing three things at once. First — genuine appreciation. "What a G" is not "Taki and I are business partners" or "Taki recommended I reach out." It's a real reaction to watching someone you respect. Organic. Not strategic. Second — trust transfer. Taki is someone Nathan respects. He had him on his podcast. Taki is also someone I've known for years. So the trust Nathan has for Taki partially transfers to me. If Taki trusts Matt, and Nathan trusts Taki, the transitive property of trust kicks in. Third — consistency signal. "For years" is doing work. Not "I just met Taki at an event." Not "we connected on LinkedIn last month." Years. That signals a real, long-term relationship. Stability. Someone who keeps people in his life. --- ### "I'm Heading Over to the US Next Week" > "I'm heading over to the US next week" Real timing. Not manufactured. Not "I'd love to grab a coffee sometime when you're free." That's the weakest shit in the world and everyone knows it means never. "Next week" is specific. It's a real window. I'm getting on a real plane. And it drops the disruption threshold for Nathan — he doesn't have to do anything special. I'm already coming to him. The opportunity is being created through my own action, not his. International travel is a costly signal as well. You don't fly to another country for a maybe. That confidence transfers. --- ### "Here's My Shortest Pitch of All Time" > "Here's my shortest pitch of all time" Same energy as Frank Greeff's 170-character DM. Compression equals confidence. The ability to pitch yourself in one sentence signals you understand your value so deeply you don't need a deck or a PDF or a 12-minute Loom to explain it. And by labelling it as a "pitch," I removed all ambiguity. No hidden agenda. No bait-and-switch. You know exactly what's coming. That's permission physics — safety goes up when people know what to expect. --- ### The Content Had Already Done the Selling > Nathan had already shared my content to 47K people This is the real move. And it didn't happen in the DM. It happened weeks before. My LinkedIn Masterclass had already been consumed by Nathan, evaluated by Nathan, and distributed by Nathan to his entire email list. He'd already endorsed my work. The DM landed into a brain that had already processed and validated my value. The DM didn't build trust from zero. It activated trust that was already accumulating. That's the compounding effect. My content was the first DM. The actual DM was the last step. Everything in between — Nathan watching the masterclass, deciding it was good enough to share, his audience engaging with it, the positive signal coming back — all of that was doing the selling before I ever hit send. This is the ultimate proof that content is embedded authority. Your work can precede you into rooms you haven't entered yet. Into inboxes you haven't opened. Into conversations you didn't know were happening. --- ## The Template **The Content Preceded DM.** Use this when your content has already landed in someone's world. The DM is the trigger, not the pitch. Here's the thing though — this doesn't require 47,000 email subscribers. That's not the principle. That's just what happened in my case. If someone has liked three of your posts, your content has preceded you. If they commented on something you wrote last month, your content has preceded you. If they shared your article in a Slack channel you'll never see, your content has preceded you. The variation is simple. Reference the specific post they engaged with. "Hey, saw you liked my post on [topic] — that actually reminded me of something I wanted to run by you." Now you're not cold. You're familiar. You're someone whose work they already consumed and reacted to. The DM becomes the natural next step in a conversation that was already happening in their head. **When it works best:** - Your content has already reached the person (likes, shares, comments, email forwards — any signal) - You have a genuine reason to reach out right now (not "sometime") - You can compress your pitch because your work has already done the explaining - There's a shared connection or shared world you can reference naturally **The structure:** 1. Reference something real and current (present tense, serendipity) 2. Establish a shared connection or shared world 3. Create a specific timing window 4. Compress your pitch — your content already did the heavy lifting --- The best cold DM is one where your work has already done the trust-building before you hit send. --- *Next: Chapter 10 — The Mystery DM* I didn't send this one. I wrote it for a mate over tacos at SoCal in Neutral Bay on a Tuesday night. He closed $68,000 in a week and a half. --- ## The Recipient The person on the other end of this DM -- I'm not going to name them. You'd recognise them. They're well-known in the brand, content, and coaching space. They'd just appeared on one of the biggest agency podcasts in the industry. Big following. Big reputation. The kind of person who gets pitched in their inbox forty times a day. And my mate -- a content coach and videographer -- had met them exactly once. Three minutes. Walking from a hotel at an industry event. Brief chat. Not friends. Not colleagues. Just two people who happened to be going the same direction for ninety seconds. That's the raw material this entire DM was built from. ## Why This Chapter Matters This chapter is the longest in the book. On purpose. Because this is the one where every single one of the 7 moves fires at maximum intensity. And more importantly -- it proves the framework is transferable. My mate doesn't have my audience. He doesn't have my reputation or my following. He doesn't have 106,000 LinkedIn followers or 1,800 coaching clients. He had a three-minute walk and a taco. --- ## The Night It Happened So here's how it went down. My mate works with one of the biggest coaches in the industry. Full-time. Video strategy, pillar content, full production -- that's his world. But his main client was about to go on holiday for four weeks. Which meant he had a window. We were at SoCal in Neutral Bay. Tacos. Tuesday night. Just catching up. ### The Dots Connect And I mentioned something. "Did you know [the recipient] just recorded a podcast episode with [podcast host]?" My mate put his taco down. "No way. I'm actually going to the gym with that same guy tomorrow morning at 6am." Sit with that for a second. Two dots. Connected in real time. Over corn tortillas. ### Offer Viability: Perfect Across the Board I knew right then that this was a 100% yes before we even wrote the message. Because the Offer Viability was perfect across all four gates. The recipient wanted to build a personal brand. That's Latent Demand — D equals 5. They weren't going to need convincing that this was something worth doing. The desire already existed. Video content and YouTube? Understood category. C equals 5. No one's going to scratch their head and go "what even is that?" They know exactly what it means. Six core pillar videos, lead magnets, brand mapping — that's a visible, tangible outcome. O equals 5. You can picture it. You can measure it. And here's the kicker. They'd already hired a videographer. Which means they were already spending money in this category. P equals 5. Payment normalised. No friction. D times C times O times P. Five across the board. I knew before we finished the tacos. We wrote the DM together that night, between bites. --- ## The DM > Hey dude, > > I was thinking about our chat walking from the hotel, I'm actually about to have a workout with [podcast host] tomorrow morning 6am, which reminded me of our chat. > > I've got 4 weeks free while [main client] is on holiday from this Saturday. > > I know you're keen on building a brand. > > If you wanted to start, I could fly to the US and do a week during the 4 weeks. > > We'd spend a day mapping your brand to build it out like [two well-known coaches]. > > Then we'll come up with you 6 core evergreen pillar YT videos, with lead magnets inc, and package them. > > I can do a few shoot days when I'm there to knock off some of pillar vids. > > I know you just hired a videographer, so they can be there as we go through the entire process to train them. > > Reaching out to a couple of other peeps, > > I've got Matt Lakajev locked in for an 8 hr pillar video on the 18 and 19th of April. Kinda like [top brand creator]'s 6hr How to build a brand video but for LinkedIn. > > I but wanted to hit you up first because I genuinely think you already have the camera presence and I'd be stoked to blow up your brand. > > Would you be keen? If so let me know and we can organise. --- ## The Result Three hours later. "Fuck yeah, let's do it." That was the reply. Three hours. My mate went on to close four clients total. $68,000 in a week and a half. From a framework he didn't build. Using principles he learned over tacos. --- ## The Play-by-Play Right. Let's pull this apart. Every line. Because this is the DM where every sentence is doing four to six jobs at once. ### "Our Chat Walking from the Hotel" > "Our chat walking from the hotel" **Move 1 + Move 2.** Mental imagery fires. The recipient's brain doesn't process this as a cold pitch. It reconstructs a specific moment — a shared memory. Two people walking from a hotel. That's an intimate tribe of two. You can't copy-paste that to fifty people. Shlomo, an email marketing expert on the call when I taught this, said: "I liked how you turned a 3-minute walk into a thing." That's it. That's the move. You don't need a deep relationship. You need a specific memory. A moment that only the two of you shared. Three minutes is enough if you make it vivid. --- ### "Workout with [podcast host] Tomorrow Morning 6am" > "Workout with [podcast host] tomorrow morning 6am" **Move 4.** Same world as the recipient. This person had just recorded a podcast with [podcast host] a week earlier. So when my mate drops that name — first name only — the recipient's brain goes: *this guy knows the same people I know.* And "6am" is doing work as well. It's a discipline signal. Motion. Execution. It's not "I follow him on Instagram." It's "I'm meeting him at dawn to train." Social proof delivered without trying. --- ### "4 Weeks Free While [main client] Is on Holiday" > "4 weeks free while [main client] is on holiday from this Saturday" **Real Timing + Carrier Trust.** This is a genuine window. Not manufactured scarcity. Not "I only have 3 spots left" bullshit. His client is literally going on holiday. The window is real. And naming the client — someone well-known in coaching — leaks social proof through context. You don't say "I work with big clients." You say "my client is on holiday." The proof is embedded in the logistics. --- ### "I Know You're Keen on Building a Brand" > "I know you're keen on building a brand" **Move 3 + Move 5 setup.** Seven words. That's all it takes. These seven words reflect back something the recipient said during a three-minute walk at an industry event. My mate remembered it. He held onto it. And now he's using it. This is recognition at the deepest level. Not "I saw your LinkedIn post." Not "I noticed you're hiring." It's: I heard the thing you told me you wanted. And I remembered. --- ### "I Could Fly to the US" > "I could fly to the US" **Costly Signal.** Not "hop on a Zoom." Not "I'll send you a Loom video." Fly. Internationally. You don't fly to another country unless you believe in the outcome. That confidence transfers directly to the recipient. --- ### "Build It Out Like [two well-known coaches]" > "Build it out like [two well-known coaches]" **Move 4 + Specificity.** First names only. Not "build you a brand like some of the biggest coaches in the space." Specific people. By first name. As colleagues, not trophies. On the call when I taught this, Nitin asked through the chat: "How do you balance name-dropping without ego?" This is how. You reference people by first name as colleagues, not as trophies. You're not saying "I know these people and you should be impressed." You're saying "here's the standard we're building to." The names are reference points, not flex points. --- ### "6 Core Evergreen Pillar YT Videos" > "6 core evergreen pillar YT videos, with lead magnets inc, and package them" **Move 6 + Specificity Stacking.** Six concrete things you're getting. Not "I could help with content." Not "I'd love to support your brand journey." Six. Videos. Lead magnets. Packaging. The specificity is doing the selling. When you stack tangible outcomes like this, the recipient doesn't have to imagine what they're getting. They can see it. They can count it. They can picture the YouTube thumbnails. --- ### "Knock Off Some of Pillar Vids" > "I can do a few shoot days when I'm there to knock off some of pillar vids" **Execution, not strategy.** This line bridges the gap between "here's the plan" and "here's me actually doing the thing." It's not a proposal. It's a production schedule. --- ### "Train Your Videographer" -- The Unclogged Toilet > "I know you just hired a videographer, so they can be there as we go through the entire process to train them" This is the line. This is the one that makes the whole DM work. **Move 5: The Unclogged Toilet.** The purest example in the entire book. The recipient didn't ask for this. He didn't say "hey, can you train my videographer?" He didn't even know he needed it. But reading this line, his brain goes: *holy shit, that's exactly what I need.* Because here's the thing — when you hire a videographer and then bring in a specialist for a week, what happens when the specialist leaves? The videographer is standing there going "what do I do now?" This line solves a problem the recipient hadn't articulated yet. It answers the question "what happens when you leave?" before it's even asked. And it passes every OV gate. Training a videographer they've already hired is latent demand. It's a clear category. It's a visible outcome. And it's something they'd happily pay for. That's the unclogged toilet. You walk into someone's house, notice a problem they've been living with, and just fix it. They didn't call a plumber. They didn't even know it was blocked. But now that it's flowing — they can't imagine going back. --- ### "Reaching Out to a Couple of Other Peeps" > "Reaching out to a couple of other peeps" **Abundance + Magnetic Polarity.** Six words that change the entire energy of the message. My mate isn't desperate. He's not sitting there refreshing his inbox. He's reaching out to other people as well. This creates natural scarcity without manipulation. It's not "only 2 spots left!" It's just... reality. He's busy. He's in demand. And he's giving you first shot. --- ### "Matt Lakajev Locked In" > "Matt Lakajev locked in for an 8 hr pillar video on the 18 and 19th of April" **Verifiable Social Proof.** Specific person. Specific duration. Specific dates. The recipient can check this in thirty seconds. It's not "I work with some big names." It's a calendar entry with my name on it. --- ### "Kinda Like [top brand creator]'s 6hr Video but for LinkedIn" > "Kinda like [top brand creator]'s 6hr How to build a brand video but for LinkedIn" **Reference Point.** Eliminates ambiguity. The recipient can picture exactly what they're getting because they've seen the reference. "But for LinkedIn" customises it to their world. Two words that turn a generic concept into something that feels built for them. --- ### "You Already Have the Camera Presence" > "You already have the camera presence" **Status Calibration.** This matters more than people reckon. My mate isn't saying "you need help." He's not implying the recipient is bad at something. He's saying: you're already good. I'm here to amplify what's already there. No power imbalance. No guru energy. Just a peer who sees what you've got and wants to help you do more with it. --- ### "Would You Be Keen?" > "Would you be keen? If so let me know and we can organise" **Move 7.** Lowest friction close in the book. No calendar link. No funnel. No "book a call at this URL." Just — let me know. Two words to say yes. That's it. --- ## The Scores RT scored 625 out of 625. A perfect 100%. All 7 Carrier Trust signals firing. Every single Gift Rule box checked. Every line doing multiple jobs. Ten-plus frameworks running simultaneously in a single message. This is the densest DM in the entire book. --- ## The Template **The Intimate Tribe + Stacked Deliverables DM.** Use this when you have even a brief shared moment with someone — and you can stack specific, tangible things on top of it. The key is finding the unclogged toilet. The thing they need but haven't asked for. **When it works best:** - You've had a real interaction with the person, even if it was three minutes - You have a genuine timing window (not manufactured scarcity) - You can offer multiple concrete things, not vague "help" - You know something specific about their situation that they didn't ask you to solve **The variation:** The "hotel walk" could be anything. A conference booth chat. A comment thread. A mutual friend's dinner. A conversation at an event. Any shared moment — no matter how brief — becomes the opening. You just have to remember it. And use it. --- ## Why This Chapter Matters Most I want you to really hear this. My mate doesn't have my audience. He doesn't have my reputation. He doesn't have my following. He doesn't have 1,800 coaching clients or years of cold DM data. He had a framework, a three-minute memory, and a plate of tacos. The fact that this DM — which I co-wrote but he sent — closed $68,000 in ten days proves something that changes everything about this book. It's not about who you are. It's about what you see. --- *Next: Chapter 11 — Your Turn* ## The Pattern Behind Every Win Go back through the five DMs. Ali Abdaal. John Barrows. Frank Greeff. Nathan Barry. The taco DM. Every single one -- I already knew 100% they'd want what I was offering. I wasn't guessing. I wasn't hoping. I wasn't crossing my fingers and hitting send and then refreshing my inbox like a maniac for three hours. The research and the offer viability work happened BEFORE the DM. Every time. The Offer Viability scores were through the roof ![CleanShot 2026-04-14 at 17.41.17@2x.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-14-at-17-41-17-2x-qdvHlB.png) ![CleanShot 2026-04-14 at 17.41.33@2x.png](https://library.sevenfigurecreators.com/u/cleanshot-2026-04-14-at-17-41-33-2x-RK94FC.png) before I even opened LinkedIn. D times C times O times P -- I'd already run it. I already knew the answer. The DM was just the delivery vehicle. That's the part most people get backwards. They sit down, open their laptop, stare at someone's profile for thirty seconds, and start typing. That's not a cold DM strategy. That's a lottery ticket with extra steps. --- ## The Research Is the Actual Work If you skipped to this chapter hoping for templates — go back. I'm serious. Go back to Chapter 5. Read the architecture. Read the 7 moves. Read how every single line in every single DM was doing three or four jobs at the same time. Because the DM is the last thing that happens. It's the tip of the iceberg. It's the thing you see. But underneath it? That's where the work lives. The research. The ICP knowledge. The offer viability. The understanding of what someone's world looks like before you show up in their inbox. That's the job. Writing the DM takes fifteen minutes. Knowing what to write takes weeks, months, sometimes years of actually paying attention. --- ## The Skill Files I put together a 20,000-word skill file that goes through and constructs this — step by step. Every framework, every scoring model, every move, broken down so you can build your own DMs from scratch. My clients are using it right now to book dozens of calls. If you want access: **[Join Seven Figure Creators](https://www.skool.com/six-figure-creators/about)** --- ## You Have to Go to Things ### Why Real-World Interactions Are Non-Negotiable Here's the thing that nobody wants to hear. DMs are impossible without real ICP interactions. Full stop. You cannot write a message that makes someone's brain go "holy shit, that's me" if you've never spent time around the people you're trying to reach. You can't unclog someone's toilet if you've never been inside their house. You need to go to events. Join communities. Have conversations. Sit in rooms where your ICP sits. Listen to how they talk about their problems — not how you think they talk about their problems, but how they actually describe them when they're frustrated and unfiltered and just venting to someone they trust. That's where the gold is. That's where the unclogged toilets live. ### The David Story David -- who sells to CHROs in Australia -- took two Ubers and sat in a doctor's waiting room on his personal hotspot to not miss the call where I taught this. That's the energy. Not "I'll watch the recording." Not "I'll catch up later." The bloke was sitting in a waiting room with his phone propped up against a magazine rack because he didn't want to miss a single minute. That's the kind of person who sends DMs that land. Because they care enough to be in the room. And when you care enough to be in the room, you start noticing things that the people who "watch the recording later" never see. --- ## The Math I want to bring this back to the numbers one more time. Because this is really, really simple. 5 DMs a day. That's it. Five. 1 in 20 books a call. That's a 5% conversion rate, which is conservative if you're doing this properly. 5 meetings a month. 1 to 2 new clients. From your kitchen table. No ads. No content calendar. No posting 5 days a week and hoping the algorithm gods smile upon you. No webinars. No funnels. No "building an audience first." Five messages. Every day. That's the whole system. --- ## The Amazon Thing ### Length Doesn't Kill DMs -- Irrelevance Does When people tell me DMs should be short, I always ask the same question. Have you ever been on Amazon? Have you ever read a product listing? Those things are bloody enormous. Photos, bullet points, reviews, specs, comparison charts, Q&A sections — pages and pages of information. And people read every word. Because they're about to spend money on something and they want to know it's right for them. Have you ever read a restaurant menu? A proper one — not a laminated card from a fish and chip shop. The ones with the descriptions and the origin stories and the "grass-fed, dry-aged for 28 days" language. You read that. You read all of it. Because you're about to choose something and you want to make a good decision. Information density beats design. Every time. A long DM that's hyper-relevant — where every single line is doing a job — will always beat a short DM that's generic. Always. Because length isn't the problem. Irrelevance is the problem. Nobody ever complained about a message being too long when every word was about them. --- ## The Podcast If you want to see me break this down in a different format, here's my appearance on The Agency Podcast with Dane -- the episode is called "How I Made $3.5 Million On LinkedIn Without Going Viral" and it's sitting at 868K views. And here's the thing -- I got on that podcast through a cold DM. Practise what you preach. The same framework you just read in this book is how I landed one of the biggest agency podcast appearances going. No agent. No PR team. Just a DM. --- ## The Challenge ### One DM. Fifteen Minutes. Don't send 15 DMs. Send one. Spend 15 minutes on it. Actually spend 15 minutes. Set a timer if you have to. Research the person. Go through their content. Read their posts. Watch their videos. Find out what they're working on right now — not six months ago, right now. Find their unclogged toilet. The thing they need that they haven't asked for. Then write one message that could not possibly have been written for anyone else on the planet. Not a template with their name swapped in. Not a "Hey [FIRST NAME], I noticed you [GENERIC OBSERVATION]" copypaste job. One message. Built from scratch. Every line doing a job. Every word earning its place. Then send it. Don't overthink the send. Don't sit there re-reading it fourteen times and second-guessing whether the tone is right. Once it's built — just send it. Fuck it. Hit the button. The worst thing that happens is silence, and silence was already happening before you wrote it. One DM. Fifteen minutes. That's the whole assignment. --- Stop reading. Build one.