Inbox like raccoons outside a Wendy’s. They don’t want to connect. They want to sell me something. They just haven’t said so yet, because a webinar told them to “lead with value.”
It used to be humans doing this. Lazy humans, but humans. Now it’s robots. Somewhere a twenty-four-year-old with a growth-hacking certificate has wired an AI agent to a Sales Navigator account and told it to “personalize at scale,” which is like telling a firehose to whisper.
They treat me like a catawampus. They assume my Google machine is broken—and in 2026 my Google machine has its own AI assistant, which has its own Google machine. They assume I’m so lonely I’ll welcome any smellfungus who wants to fill my inbox with bit vomit, so long as it opens with “Hope this finds you well.”
Exhibit A
Yesterday’s masterpiece, lightly anonymized:
Hi Glen,
Loved your recent post on {{post_topic}}! Your insights on leadership really resonated. As a fellow innovator, I’d love to connect and explore synergies.
Quick question—are you open to a 15-min call this week? Here’s my calendar: [link]
Best, [Name] Helping Coaches 10x Their Pipeline With AI-Powered Outreach | Booked Calendar in 5 Days | No Ad Spend [rocket emoji]
Let’s review the tape.
- {{post_topic}}. The robot forgot to fill in the blank. That’s not a personalization fail. That’s a robot showing me its underwear.
- “Really resonated.” Nothing has ever resonated with anyone on LinkedIn. It’s what you say when you didn’t read it.
- “Fellow innovator.” We’ve never met. For all you know I innovate in cat sweaters.
- “Explore synergies.” Synergy is two people saving time by both wasting it.
- “Quick question.” Followed by no question. Followed by a calendar link. Asking for fifteen minutes in your first message is proposing on the first date. Through Calendly.
- The signature. Read it again. She sells AI-powered outreach. Her outreach is the demo. And the demo just proved her product is a ninnyhammer that can’t run a mail merge.
The first message is the audition. It shows me exactly how you’d treat my clients if I hired you. Come to think of it, maybe I should hire you—to sell for my competitors.
Push Is Dead. AI Killed It Twice.
Push-based demand generation is going the way of the T-Rex—extinct because it couldn’t reach the food on the top shelf with those tiny little arms.
Here’s what changed. A spammer in 2019 could send a hundred messages a day. An AI agent in 2026 can send ten thousand, each one “hand-crafted” from whatever it scraped off your profile. Everybody bought the same tool. So everybody’s inbox is a landfill, and buyers stopped reading the landfill. A cold DM today has the response rate of a Nigerian prince with a 401(k).
That’s the first kill. Here’s the second: buyers changed too. When I need something, I don’t sit by the inbox waiting for a stranger to rescue me. I ask an AI. I search. I ask three people I trust. By the time I talk to a salesperson, I’ve already got a shortlist. If you’re not on it, your “quick question” won’t put you there.
Push says: let me interrupt you. Pull says: be the obvious answer when they come looking. Pull wins. Pull has always won. Push was just cheaper to fake.
How to Get Pulled
Your profile is a landing page, not a résumé. Who do you help? How? What results did they get? Nobody cares about your passion. Your passion is between you and your therapist.
Fix your headshot. Not the wedding photo with your ex’s shoulder cropped out. Not sunglasses on a boat. Not the AI headshot that makes you look like a Pixar dentist. A decent photo moves profile views more than anything else you’ll do this year. Pay a photographer. It’s cheaper than being ignored.
Your headline is the billboard. It’s the most-read line on your profile and decides whether anyone clicks. Put the words your buyers search for first, then add a little personality. Keywords are not personality. Neither is a rocket emoji.
Get found by the robots that matter. Google reads public profiles. So do the AI assistants your buyers now ask for recommendations. Write like an expert, in the words your buyers actually use. If an AI can’t figure out what you do, neither can your buyer.
Put the calendar link on your profile. That’s where people who want to book you will look for it. A calendar link in a stranger’s DM is a restraining order waiting to happen.
Post things worth reading. Real stories. An actual opinion. Not “Agree?” Not “I’m humbled and honored to announce.” Not AI slop about the seven lessons your toddler taught you about B2B SaaS.
To Sum It Up
- Don’t call me, I’ll call you. If I have a headache, I know where the aspirin is. I don’t need your stinkin’ aspirin. And if I did, I’d come find you—provided you followed the rules below.
- Be findable. By people, by Google, and by the AI my buyers now ask before they ask anyone else.
- Look like a professional, not a hostage. See headshot, above.
- Connect like a human. Follow me. Comment on something I actually wrote. Then send a note that proves you know who I am and tells me what’s in it for me. Then—and this is the hard part—don’t pitch me the second I click Accept. Let the relationship get to second base before you ask for fifteen minutes.
- If a robot writes it, a human reads it first. {{first_name}} is not my name.
- Create content worth stealing. If nobody would forward it, nobody will find you through it.
- Don’t be a douchenozzle. This rule covers the other six.
Yes, I promised five and gave you seven. There are three kinds of people in this world: those who can count and those who can’t.
Postscript from the Archives
The first time I ran a version of this post, I named the spammer. She filed a copyright takedown claiming I’d attacked her personally—over a connection request she sent me. She took particular offense at “ninnyhammer.”
For the record, a ninnyhammer is an old word for a fool or simpleton, one that has mostly disappeared except from writing that reaches for antique language on purpose. That was the purpose. I stand by the word.
I’ve dropped the name this time. Not because I was wrong, but because I’ve learned that spammers, like raccoons, hate being photographed.
My favorite part: the takedown notice arrived from somebody else’s email address. Even her complaint was unsolicited outreach from a stranger.
