The LinkedIn Filter Most Agencies Ignore
I think you’re sitting on a huge untapped lead source. Depending on the size of the businesses you serve, I would guess there are 5-25 good fit prospects per past client of yours. And they're all one LinkedIn search away.
Successful agencies grow because they’re selling into reachable networks. They talk to people who are actually interested in what they have to say. The unsuccessful agencies fill up inboxes with spam trying to sell to complete strangers.
While an important goal is to constantly expand that reachable network through marketing efforts, occasionally it can seem like that group is exhausted. But often, that’s only because we don’t recognize who fits into that green circle to begin with.
One of the most overlooked lead sources are the past employees of your clients. These are the people who used to work there but have moved on to new roles - often in the same industry. Of course, we instinctively do this when someone we worked with leaves the organization, but the untapped potential is in everyone we didn’t get to know.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes it incredibly easy to find these people. There’s a “Past Company” search filter that is one of the most underused tools on the platform.
Everyone who shows up in this filter with one of your clients as a past employer belongs in your green circle. That’s because you have the ability to send them a highly personalized message that stands out in three ways.
You directly reference names of people they may have worked with, heard of, and can reach out to - “We partnered with Bob Jones and his product marketing team on last October’s campaign.”
You use shared language that outgroup vendors wouldn’t be familiar with - “We know teams over there were impacted by the Alpha Eagle initiative.”
It’s impossible for competitors to copy (even with AI). You’re simply reaching out to someone and talking about your firm’s actual experience. That’s stuff that can’t be scraped from the internet.
All of this gives incredible legitimacy. It feels a lot less like a cold email and a lot more like a referral.
By taking this approach with some of your outreach efforts, you’re becoming even more efficient. Every client is now providing you with even more value. Their engagement dollars, yes, but also the ability to turn their extended network into yours.
Your network needs to grow faster than your sales needs, but odds are, there’s far more network already sitting inside your client history than you’ve ever tapped.
