A LinkedIn profile checklist for outbound

Before you send outreach from a LinkedIn profile, check that a stranger can answer three questions in ten seconds: who is this, what do they do, and why are they writing to me. That means a clear photo, a headline that says who you help, an about section written for the prospect, a featured link that proves it, and recent activity. In our own campaign, each of 27,737 people could open the sender's profile before replying.

Outreach starts a short investigation. The person reads your first line, taps your name, and decides in a few seconds whether you are worth an answer. The profile is your landing page. This checklist is the one we would use before sending a single invitation, and only one: there are many profile guides, and most contradict each other.

Why does the profile matter for outbound?

Because the message and the profile are read together. In our own campaign, 27,737 people were messaged from up to 43 profiles of real team members, ambassadors and students, and the agent wrote in each person's name and voice. Each of those people could open the sender's profile before replying. We have no measure of how many did, but the Lamothermic study shows what a good match looks like: the agent wrote as the foundry's president from his own LinkedIn, asked one short engineering question, and 293 of 879 engineers and buyers replied (33%). The profile said who the writer was, and the message fit it.

A mismatch does the opposite. A message in the voice of a senior founder, from a profile with no photo and no activity, looks like what it is.

What should the checklist cover?

Work top to bottom. The top parts are the ones seen first.

Photo and banner

• [ ] A clear, recent photo of one person, face visible, no logo or group shot.
• [ ] A banner that says what you do or who you help, readable on a phone.

The photo appears next to your invitation and your messages, and it is often the first thing a person judges.

Headline

• [ ] The headline names who you help and how, not only your title.
• [ ] It fits on one line on a phone.
• [ ] No buzzwords with no meaning, such as "passionate" or "guru".

"Head of sales" tells the prospect nothing. "Helping hotels fill group bookings" tells them why a message from you might be relevant.

About

• [ ] The first two lines say who you help and what changes for them. Only those two lines show before "see more".
• [ ] The rest gives proof: a result, a customer type, a number you can defend.
• [ ] It ends with how to reach you or what to ask you.
• [ ] It is written in the first person, in plain words.

Featured

• [ ] One or two items that prove the claim: a case study, a short guide, a post.
• [ ] Links that work and lead to a page that supports the message you sent.

For Sellinger, the featured item that matches a message is a case study. See the Sellinger case study for the standard we hold ourselves to: the number and what it means.

Experience

• [ ] Your current role has a line about what you do now.
• [ ] Past roles are short. Skip years of detail.
• [ ] Company names are linked to real company pages.

Activity

• [ ] A recent post or comment, from the last few weeks.
• [ ] Posts about the problem of your buyers, not only company news.

A profile that has not been used in a year looks abandoned. LinkedIn's own guidance on building your profile covers the fields. For what to post, see LinkedIn content strategy for B2B, and for rules on timing, LinkedIn posting rules that matter.

Connections

• [ ] Past the point where a new profile looks empty. Around 500 is a common benchmark, but not a rule. See how to reach 500+ connections.
• [ ] The list includes people from your niche, so there are shared contacts.

Settings

• [ ] Profile visibility lets prospects see enough. LinkedIn's visibility settings control what a person who views you can see, and what you see of them.
• [ ] Your location and language match the market you write to.
• [ ] A custom URL, if available, that reads cleanly.

What if the sender is an agent writing as a person?

Then the person's profile has to be true. Sellinger's LinkedIn agent writes from a connected account in the person's name. The profile should be the person's real profile, with their real role, so that a prospect who looks you up finds a consistent story. The founder-led case is covered in LinkedIn outreach for founders.

Two rules for the person:

• Know what is sent in your name. Read the first messages in approval mode.
• Be reachable. If a prospect writes back and replies, a person should be able to take over.

How do you test the profile?

Ask three people who do not know you well to look at it for ten seconds and answer: who is this, what do they do, why would they write to me? If two of three cannot answer, the headline and about need work.

Then check the result in numbers. Keep the same message and list, change one profile element such as the headline, and compare acceptance after two weeks. Use the reply and acceptance rate calculator. We have no published test of profile changes, so treat our checklist as a hypothesis and your own data as the answer.

What does a better headline and about look like?

These are made up examples to show the pattern, not real profiles.

• Weak headline: "Head of Sales | Passionate about growth | Helping companies scale".
• Better headline: "Helping independent hotels fill group and event bookings".
• Weak about opening: "I am a results driven professional with ten years of experience in sales."
• Better about opening: "Hotels lose group bookings when an inquiry waits a day. I help small hotels answer in minutes and keep the rate card honest. Here is a case study."

The better versions name the reader, the problem and the change, in the first two lines that show before "see more". A prospect who gets your invitation sees the headline right away, so it carries the first impression. The about section is read by the curious ones, so give them proof.

What is the ten minute fix for a weak profile?

1. Replace the photo if the face is small, dark or shared with others.
2. Rewrite the headline to name who you help.
3. Rewrite the first two lines of the about section.
4. Pin one case study or guide in Featured.
5. Post or comment once so the activity is recent.
6. Ask one colleague to do the ten second test.

What do prospects actually dislike?

From reading the threads in our own campaigns, a few patterns recur, and we state them as observations, not measurements. A profile that is all company logo and no person reads as a sales machine. A headline stuffed with keywords reads as a bot. A message that promises something the about section does not support looks careless. And an empty activity feed makes the person wonder whether the account is real.

None of these is fatal alone. Together they turn a good message into one that is ignored. The fix is cheap: an hour, once, before you start.

A checklist in short

• [ ] Clear photo, banner that says what you do.
• [ ] A headline about who you help.
• [ ] First two lines of the about section written for the prospect.
• [ ] One featured proof item with a working link.
• [ ] Activity in the last few weeks.
• [ ] Three strangers can say who you are in ten seconds.