LinkedIn Funnel (v2 — the Builder funnel)

v1 (May 2026) is dead and was never run. It sold $530 Costa Co websites to local trades, on a channel local trades are barely on, using paid automation tools. What survived: the preview-before-pitch wedge, the manual-first rule, and the profile-cleanup-first rule. Everything else below is new.

⚠️ Read this before setting anything up

LinkedIn is the wrong channel for wrap shops, detailers and HVAC. Those owners live on the phone, on Facebook, and in text. That is already handled by cold-call-framework and audit-first-outreach-method, both of which are working. Do not rebuild those funnels here.

LinkedIn is the right channel for the Builder lane (path chosen 2026-07-25): companies that buy automations, agents, qualification bots and internal tools. Those buyers are B2B, they are on LinkedIn, their role and company size are searchable, and Rio's age matters less there because the artifact does the talking.

So this funnel sells builds, not websites, to B2B, not trades. If it drifts back to "free website preview for a plumber," it has failed.

How it maps to what is already built

Total new spend: $0. No Sales Navigator, no Dripify, no Premium. Those get bought after the channel proves it, not before.

The funnel, 4 layers

Profile (converts) → signal-based connects (10-20/day, manual) → artifact-first DM → the gate → Calendly

Layer 1 — Profile. Do this FIRST, it is the whole conversion asset

Cold DMs from a thin profile get reported. The profile is what makes the DM land.

• Headline: I build AI systems that qualify and follow up on leads so owners stop losing them. Founder @ Uprise.
• About (3 short paragraphs): what you build (qualification bots, follow-up automations, internal tools) · how you work (solo, direct, no account managers) · one real thing you shipped, named honestly.
• Featured (this is the moat): the live diagnosis funnel demo, the SOP site, and one client site. Working links beat any claim, and they are age-blind.
• Banner: Uprise wordmark, dark. Never Costa Co.
• Post 3 times before the first DM. An account with zero posts reads as a bot.

Layer 2 — Targeting by SIGNAL, never by spray

Only connect where the company has already admitted the problem:

1. Hiring a marketing / ops / SDR role — they budgeted $60-120K for a seat. job_leads.py already finds these; search the same companies on LinkedIn. Strongest signal available.
2. Agencies, 5-50 people — they resell builds to their own clients. One agency relationship beats ten one-offs.
3. Professional services with obvious lead-handling gaps — clinics, law, accounting, home services franchisors. Their intake is usually a contact form and a voicemail.

Volume: 10-20 connections/day, manual. Free-tier limit is roughly 100/week. You need one to three clients, not a pipeline of thousands, so automation buys nothing and risks the account.

Layer 3 — The DM: lead with the artifact, not the offer

Connection note (300 char limit), no pitch:

Hey [name], saw you're hiring a [role] at [company]. I build the lead-qualification and follow-up systems that usually sit under that role. Not pitching, happy to connect.

On accept, wait for a beat, then send the artifact:

[name], one thing before I get out of your way. I built this for a shop that was losing leads to a contact form: [live demo link]. Prospect answers 8 questions, gets a partial read on their situation, books, and the full diagnosis lands in the owner's inbox before the call.

If it's useful I'll build you one for [company], free, so I can use it as a case study. Takes me a day. You either use it or you don't.

Why this shape: the free build IS the Builder on-ramp, and it is honest right now because there are no paid Builder case studies yet. It converts the thing you can do into the proof you are missing. Same mechanic as the preview that closed Lee, one tier up.

Follow-ups, then stop:

• Day 4: "no pressure on the build offer, bumping in case it got buried. the demo link is yours either way."
• Day 9: "last one, heading off your radar. if it ever comes up: call.uprisegrowth.io"

Layer 4 — Content is what makes the DMs work

LinkedIn compounds for people who post. Two to three posts a week, repurposed from the existing content pipeline, showing real builds and real numbers. Anything that reads like a build log outperforms anything that reads like an ad.

Every post ends pointing at the gate, never at "DM me for info."

Hard rules

1. No automation tools. Against TOS, and a restricted account kills the channel permanently. Manual only.
2. Never promise a build you will not deliver that week. A free build offered and not shipped is worse than no offer.
3. Cap free builds at 2 open at once. They are real work.
4. Never Costa Co, never costacostudio.com in the profile or any DM.
5. No invented claims. No client counts, no results you cannot show. The demo link is the proof.
6. Route to the gate, not straight to Calendly. The gate does the qualifying so calls stay worth taking.

Honest expectations

This is a slow-burn channel. Profile plus content plus manual connects means the first real conversation is likely week two or three, not tomorrow. It does not compete for attention with the SMS drip or a warm callback, both of which are faster money. Run it in the background, 20 minutes a day, and do not let it pull focus from a closeable deal.

Kill criteria: 30 days, ~400 connects, and if zero prospects accept a free build, the problem is the offer or the targeting, not the volume. Change one variable, do not just send more.

What changed from v1 (2026-05-18)

• Buyer: local trades → B2B / agencies / companies hiring for the role
• Offer: $530 website → free build for a case study, then paid
• Proof: "Lee's site" → the live diagnosis funnel demo
• Stack: $78/mo of tools → $0, manual
• Routing: straight to Calendly → through the qualification gate