5 Kinds of People Who Misbehaved That I Hate on LinkedIn

To marketing and salespeople, please add this to your rulebook

LinkedIn and I have been going steady for more than 11 years now.

We have been together since July 15, 2009.

It provided me with a lot of benefits — such as

• Opportunities to meet a lot of people.
• Get exposure to recruiters
• Showcase what I am capable of doing
• Perform research about specific companies and industries

Just like any relationship, I do not settle to become a lurker and observer of the platform.

I return the favor by sharing whatever lessons I have learned in my life and work.

Guess what LinkedIn rewarded me even more.

A LinkedIn Marketing Agency and online magazine just awarded me for being part of the Top 10 most inspirational Filipinos on LinkedIn.

I am blessed and thankful for it because it helped me reinforce my brand, gave me media exposure, and especially moneymaking opportunities.

But despite all these ego-boost stuff that appear to the many, there are dark sides of it that would make me irk at times.

The platform is for doing business with other people.

And this means it is — normal to send and receive cold messages on this channel.

I have been sending pitches to people I do not know for potential businesses or partnerships.

And if I get rejected, I convince myself that it is part of the sales cycle at times, when it wears me.

So many people were moving all their activities online when the pandemic started.

Once every week, I would get cold messages from various people selling anything. And there is nothing wrong with it because people need to eat and live.

But what makes me irk is once work etiquette goes out-of-hand, the next thing I want to do is remove them from my online network.

Here are four examples

1. Invitation to not connect

I would recall a young professional who sent me an invite previously.

After accepting the invite, I received a well-written pitch from her about an insurance product — and I eventually said No, thank you because I’ve already got one.

She pulled off another question-based sales strategy to lure me to respond once more to her inquiry. I politely responded and still mentioned that I am not interested then I wished her well on her future projects.

A few days later, I was cleaning my inbox and curiously opened that same message.

I was surprised to learn that,

She disconnected me from her network upon seeing my message.

It is sad to know that some view people as monetary gains and a mere checklist.

I shared this on my wall — and many people in my network can relate.

Even insurance guys were enlightened and would even send direct messages to thank me for it.

Do not get me wrong.

I have many friends who are selling insurance products — even loved ones.

I have nothing against their job — and in fact, I love the product,

As far as I know, this is one isolated case.

Sorry but I hate the act of treating me like a number instead of being part of this human race.

2. Request gone wrong

Hello Dennis, how are you?

Are you looking for a new product or service such as this one?

Then the pitch goes on.

For these kinds of messages, even if I do not find the need, I make an effort to provide value by referring them to someone who might need it.

Which I did

So I gave a referral and included her contact number.

I usually expect a thank you for exerting an additional effort. But I was surprised afterward by receiving another message.

It sounded like this.

Okay, Dennis.

Tell your referral that I will send her an e-mail message.

Upon seeing the message, I was like — wow!

Not sure if it was just my ego or pride, but after being nice to her for extending help. This person just instructed me to do something on top of the favor I have given to her.

Guys do not abuse kindness.

No amount of determination can pay for it.

3. Deceiving pitch

People in my network know me for sharing regular content about work life and career.

This habit gave birth to the idea of providing free sessions to people who yearn for insights about their next move in their respective vocation.

There is this one person who reached out to me. She posed as wanting advice from me given that I branded myself as a counselor in the field of a corporate career.

Her pitch sounded like — I understand you provide career advice if it is not too much. Can you share some tips about online branding?

We can do a Zoom or Skype call — and I am free during these days and times.

Choose one.

This attempt is double wow!

I mean, you are seeking help from me for branding tips without obtaining permission — yet you also have sent me the schedule of your availability. Assuming that it is okay with me

What a controlling message.

It is like another way of saying,

Give me online branding tips — and here is my only schedule. Adjust with it!

I told myself, is this how you ask favor nowadays?

You give people no other choice to say a word and say yes immediately?

Another thing that interests me is if this person was for real.

I still tried to be nice to her.

And to professionally validate her intention, I gave her some questions to answer to confirm her motivation.

And guess what, she did not get back to me after making an effort. I came up with a well-crafted list of questions for her to answer. This person wasted my energy.

I also bothered to check her online channels to check out if she messaged me with authenticity.

I saw that she recently attended a Zoom strategic sales call training.

So I got it — she was applying what she learned to me.

By the way, thanks for making me your guinea pig!

All these assumptions of mine were confirmed when I received a message from her via my Google mail. She sourced it from my profile on LinkedIn.

Whew, she still had the guts to message me.

She eventually uncovered her real intention by offering me a life planning session to pitch the insurance product she was offering.

If this the exact lesson she learned from that zoom workshop, I would like to call the attention of that facilitator who taught her students about closing deals.

You can never be a good salesperson with poor working ethics.

4. Disappearing act

I love to send invites to connect with people, especially to those who looked into my profile and engaged with me through my post.

And I have also learned to get accustomed to rejection.

Some people prefer to maintain privacy and limit their network to selected people. I completely respect that — and whatever their reason is, it is no longer my business.

So it was one of those days where I have sent a financial coach an invitation to connect.

He responded that he was glad to connect with me and congratulated me for being recognized as one of the top 100 Filipinos to follow on LinkedIn.

Of course, I appreciated it and extended him thanks.

A few days later, he later sent me an invite to do a podcast with him. The theme of the discussion would be around marketing with much focus on personal branding.

I accepted the invite and agreed on a schedule to discuss it.

To remind me about this, I blocked my calendar to ensure that there are no meetings to collide with it. I have also set a notification to remind myself of this commitment.

On the actual day of the meeting, he was a no-show; I sent him a message.

After few days of checking and giving him the benefit of the doubt, there was no single message from him. The mere fact of receiving a simple note of apology was just appropriate — but there was nothing.

If he forgot about it or something came up, I do not know about it.

No bitterness on him — but for those who make other people commit, just a reminder — you need to honor your commitments — especially if you are the one initiating it.

Takeaways

It doesn’t matter if you are a big name or a novice in what you are doing.

And if you want to build a good brand, close deals with new clients, or merely get attention. Whatever is the reason, you must display good working etiquette regardless of the channel you use.

Yes, it works to make a good impression — but it also comes with good communication.

It must not trick people and should align with your true intention.